Building hay racks yesterday evening
The weather is definitely on the turn now and we are drawing towards the end of this session of hay making. But there is still plenty of work to do to save as much as the crop as possible.
We have dried and carted all the hay that was cut prior to the Social Mow on Sunday, except for the hay that was used to build a couple of racks on the day. We are now concentrating on getting the grass cut on Sunday as dry as possible and up onto racks before the rain comes.
As such, we have been working the hay a bit more intensively then normal. One patch was turned in the middle of the day to get it dry enough to rack yesterday evening (having been cut for about 38 hours). The rest was rowed up, with the intention of racking some more of it this morning.
Anything that is not dry enough to rack, eg heavier grass from under the hedge, will be used as mulch in our vegetable garden and to establish new areas for permaculture inspired edible plantings around the Trust land. After more then two weeks of settled weather we have more then enough hay in the barn to meet the needs of our animals and garden over the winter / spring, so anything we save now is a bonus.
I took a series of pictures on the Social Mow, illustrating the rack building process, which I will publish in a separate post.