Haying Time

M is busying with haying season, not one of my favorite times.  His hours are crazy (I guess that's not too out of the ordinary) and I don't have much to do with it.  We have had hot, mostly dry weather so he bounces from swathing to raking to baling depending on the conditions.  He is pretty particular about his bales so conditions have to be just right for him.  J hates swathing and that is usually R's job, but he doesn't mind baling.  With R gone at the moment, M is having to do it all.  M's cousin's son, Jared, who is 15, is with us again so he may get trained to do some of those things.  Jared just finished driver's ed so he's a little more legal than he was last year!

We had quite a storm roll through last week.  Thank goodness it didn't last long.  I always say it's never a good sign when the weather service calls our house wondering what is happening, and they called that day.  We had high winds, heavy rain and some hail.  I didn't find out how bad the wind was until the next day when I saw this in our back yard.

 I've been wanting that shed moved, but not like this.  I don't think we'll be using it again.  

We also had a cattle trailer tipped over.  Luckily, it was the older, smaller one and it was laid over onto the hay trailer so it was at about a 45-degree angle.  The guys were able to chain onto it and pull it back up, and it doesn't have a mark on it.  We also discovered that M's parents lost some trees.

Broken tree

Just missed the corner of the garage when it fell

I have been trying to work on the clean up.  The front yard was full of little twigs and branches and some really big branches, too.  I ended up raking the whole front yard.  I need to do the side yards and back yard as well.  I've discovered that there is more damage than we initially thought.  We're going to need to get a tractor in there to remove some of the big stuff.  Trees are a rare commodity in this area so it is so sad to lose one!

I have finally been able to ride my bike some. It's hard to find the perfect day, dry and without too much wind. I mapped out a route along prairie trails and rode it on Friday.  I decided that wasn't far enough so added to that the next day.  I didn't wreck and didn't croak and thoroughly enjoyed being in the great outdoors.  We've had a couple of rain showers in the past couple of days so I have to wait for things to dry up before I go out again.

I an thankful every day that I don't wake up to concrete and asphalt and can look out on all the shades of green with the crops and grassland.  I guess I'm a country girl through and through.