Hay Harvest.....!!!!!

  We had a hay harvest, this year!!! Eight fucking bales on the acre outside my gate! Round bales FTW!  I literally stood there, leaning on the gate and watched as, in under ten fucking minutes, a tractor whizzed round, sucking the ground clean and spewing out eight bails!

  Fucking brilliant! Going for square ones would have got 180. That's One Hundred and Eighty Times we'd have to drag the fucking things aside, to allow the baler room.

  As the square baler towing tractor circles the meadow, it basically pops out bales directly onto where it'll need to drive on its next circuit. This  means ye need a team of hearty lads to drag or chuck the fuckers out of his path.

  Hundred and eighty times we'd then need to lug them to spots all over the meadow. Lift and load 180 poxy fucking bales into exact stacks, seven foot high! Then, pull 180 vile, evil, soul destroying fucking stacked bales apart and load them onto a trailer.

  Drive them down to my stable and guess what we'd have to do?! Sychronised mate dodging, as we weave in out of the stable door, 180 fucking times! Hoisting them right above our heads! To jam them in to the roof!

  No. Fuck No! I sucked my gums as the roundies shot out. Tomorrow, two tractors will come and 'fork lift' them. Rush them off to store. Two guys. Four trips. Shit ton of gorgeous, lovely, secured for the horses fucking hay! All dropped off into the back of one of Pat's sheds!

  When the horses come back? Pat will bring one. I'll open the gates to my newly concreted pen. Pat drives his shiney, new, red Massey Fergusson in. Backs the forks into my one round bale hay shed and off he goes!

  Fuck long, sweltering days of extreme labour! Half the young bucks of the surrounding neighbourhood swarming and sweating on the meadow for most of a day, handling those poxy little (Actually, neither so little Or fucking Light!) square fuckers I used to think were so handy!

  Stand and watch that tractor for ten minutes. Come in for a cuppa tea and get on with me life! Fucking Sorted!!!

   I don't know what else happened, differently, this year either? But, Pat used to be dragging me out there, for a couple of Long evenings. To manually fluff up the vile, labour intensive shit with a pitch fork?

  Clags (Horse Flies) feasting on ye! Ye nights and days an Agony of ripping off ye own skin!

  This time? I vaguely recall Pat ringing me, asking me to strip off the tape, from this end of the meadow. Because he had a man coming to cut the HAY! What; Under a week later? I haven't lifted another finger. And there's eight bales out there!

  What? Bit over board? Can't see what the fuss is about? Listen: We haven't Had a fucking Hay Harvest in probably three or five years, now. 

  Hoping and praying ye can grab enough of the limited supply of inflated priced stuff, coming up from the Deep South? Year after year?

  Or actually be faced with the Very real possibility of having to Shoot ye fucking horses, because there's simply no hay available, for love or money? Believe me! That shit focuses the fucking mind!

  This shit Blows the mind!!! 

Irish Manners ~ I'm Learning ....!

Maybe I should have said Co. Leitrim Manners? After all, I've no idea if this model applies in Dublin or Cork. But, I feel I'm finally getting the hang of the 'Irish', " Always time for another drink. " / " No word for 'Hurry' in the Irish language. " sort of mind set.

Here's an example. I'm down to my last bale of hay. Tomorrow, I get up and my horses are calling for feed. Tommy The Hay Man, told me he'd be here with a truck load, this week. Well, this week might actually have been last week. Lesson one; I've counted my bales and kept my head. Today, I calmly fed them the last bale I possess.

Now, Tommy likes a pint. Nothing wrong with that. He starts while most of us are still asleep. He works like a powered machine. He provides for us, where no man other can or will.

Down side is that his accent broadens as his hearing diminishes. He and I are completely unable to communicate, other than face to face and sober. Thus Pat ~ brought up with the guy ~ is our go between. I needed hay. I needed Tommy. I needed to call Pat.

I Didn't need this stress. I flicked the switch. Here's what would, typically, have happened had I gone Portsmouth:

" Pat? That fukka hasn't come up with the hay, man! I'm fucked! Just fed the horses their Last bale. Morning they start starving! Bastard's let me down! Guy's a prick and my fucking horses are dead! Jesus! You got any hay ye can sell me? Like, I need it NOW! " (Hope is that ye'll drop what ever ye doing and tractor me a load down here. Right Now. Before I boil over and stop shouting 'n screaming and start letting loose with the pump action!)

Very Portsmouth. Very Un Leitrim! So, today, I went Native on Pat .....

" Hullo, Pat :-) How am I? Fine, mate! The Horse Fair? Sure, I was there. Just did my usual though. Taxi in. One circuit. Pint in Jim's. Taxi home. I never saw ye, mate! Ye saw me? Waiting for the taxi? "

" Rosie? LOL! Naah! I didn't want to put anyone else to shame, bringing My mare down there! And, I mean; Did ye see Anything there that could Touch my Rosie? No? There we are then. No. I saw a horse with good feather, but no colour. One mare, she seemed to have half her back missing! ..... " (And so on, and so forth).

Finally; " Tommy? Oh, he said this week, mate. Bugger hasn't shown yet and things are getting a little bit ..... ye know ..... Ye'll ring him now? Oh. Ok. Cool. Thanks. Let me know how it goes :-) I'm just in ye yard now. Amazing how it looks now they took those old trees out! Oh? Ye have Frank there? Top Man, Frank! Best Spark we have! Give him my best. Later, mate. "

In the time it took me to stroll out of Pat's (Farm) yard and wander along the road, past his house next door, I saw him in his garage. On his mobile and beckoning me.

" Ditch; Tommy's in the pub. He has the hay in his shed and is just lining up to fetch it. He'll be with ye Saturday. I'll come down and we can get it loaded in.

Meanwhile; Ye have no hay? Right. I'll bring down three ~ no, four bales. That'll do ye till Tommy gets to ye. "

And thus I glided home. Making stupid, schoolboy like postures with my light rain coat. Grinning and bidding the cattle good day. Swept into my cow shed and started clearing the usual area out, ready for the next stock of hay.

I'd barely got a sweat up when I heard the throbbing of a tractor. The horses are fed. My new, back door has been examined and deeply enthused over. My new kitchen sink unit praised. My brewing beer eyed with lip licking interest.

Pat's gone home with a brand new, virtually unused Calf Drinker. A Calf Feeding Trough which has been bugging me, by its presence, for years now. And a reminder that that old bath he fancies, as a cattle trough, is there when ever he wants it.

Now I'm sat here, feeling all warm and cosy. Job done and not a care in the world. no ranting and raving. No stressing out. No need.

As I've formally said on some other forum; Out here? We're just nice to each other. Rushing just causes stress. And stress is contagious. Chill out! :D

One Skip Later ..... And Other Thoughts:

Well, be fucked ....! Here's what I started with. (Spot the Nigger!)






And here's what I bought.







Six foot high, that bastard is. Meant I had to man handle, heave, at least chuck just about everything I had into it. Bastard.

Best bit is; I still have plenty left out there. And that fukka's levelled over. Couldn't fit another gallon oil can in it. And don't talk to me about 'Boarding up the sides' either. That fucking thing crept into the place I needed it, Only with me lifting an overhead wire the extra couple of inches with a damn hay rake!

Their contract states, 'Don't Overload'. My eye says, 'I don't need the drama, or the Electrician!' FFS.

Just thought I'd show ye this, as I realise I've been a bit quiet of late. This is much to do with it. Working like a slave while it's, at least, not chucking it down here.

But, the Ash and Sycamore leaves are dropping now. As are the temperatures and day hours. I've had the stove lit for two or three nights now. Tonight it hasn't crossed my mind.

But, Rosie and Donks are out there, right now, with their heads amongst a bale of hay. I pulled that out of their 'Back Up' store, today. I'll pull another bale tomorrow. Jesus; Where is this going? Where will I find, let alone afford more hay?

Pat's cut his fields. It kills me to see the edges left. All that stuff my horses would die to get at. His cattle would taste, trample and shit on. " The other mans grass ".

Different creatures eat different ways, see? Sheep eat so low down they'll starve a horse. Horse will starve a cow. Cows just wander about, munching about 1/10th of what they tread and shit on into shit. Then, ye can chuck their own shit onto the same ground, and they'll repeat the whole shit on that field.

Horses don't like to eat grass that's grown through their own shit. Much more of this and I'll be going right back to my roots; Travelling, just to find verges to feed the damn horses from!

Oh well. This sort of shit certainly puts all the old, citified bullshit into perspective. Be that Country Life, Moaning Farmers or Witchcraft. It all ends up tied into the seasons, when ye life's dependent on the land and thus seasonal moods.

And we've just had one of the worst ones.

An 'Interesting' time lays ahead.