With this lovely period of settled weather, we cut the first hay of the season on Tuesday 17th June. Phil and I rowing up the hay together in the late evening Our usual pattern is to cut relatively small areas of grass each morning as long as the weather window
A list of things we do with a scythe wouldn’t be complete without hay making. Here is Phil mowing in the Top Field with an 85cm Profisense. Mowing in a hay meadow is a great opportunity to stretch out and mow wide swaths. It also gets the job done quicker.
Spring is well underway, the grass is growing and the Yellow Rattle Rhinanthus minor is germinating in the hay meadows. It is also germinating in profusion in many of the areas that we mulched with grass and hay from Cae Mari Jones last summer and autumn. Yellow Rattle (Rhinanthus minor)
Bramble the Hebridean ram enjoying some hand made hay Above is a picture of our Hebridean ram tucking into a rack full of hay that we made in the summer. It is very satisfying to see the sheep enjoy the fruits of our labours. We will be getting our taste
Right- windrows mown in the morning, Centre- Phil spreading hay mown the day before, Left-Hay racks Since our last Introductory Scythe Course on 18th August we have been hay making again, although in a different fashion to earlier in the season. The weather has not been classic settled hay making
Last Monday, after two days of dry weather I took down some of the hay racks that we built at the end of July. It was the first chance to compare how the racks with and without canvas “hats” have fared. The racks have had 133.5mm of rain on them
Racks in Cae Mari Jones, some with canvas “hats” tied on Yesterday we finished putting the drier grass cut on the mowing day up onto racks, making 12 in the field in all. Today, I added some canvas “hats” to 5 of the racks, made from some bits of old