Hay

Last weekend Susie was away for four days running a choreography workshop and it coincided with the only three consecutive days of sunshine so far this summer. So once the rain of the previous few days had dried it was time to launch into hay making. Despite having repaired and prepared the haycutter, after 10 minutes it had broken. I rigged the same temporary repair I had made the previous year and managed to cut about half the hay before it broke again. I couldn't find a suitably sized bolt to make another repair but fortunately Nat our neighbour came to the rescue. He had suitable bolts in his workshop and helped me fashion a repair (having already cut his hay). Another couple of breakages followed but by 6pm all was cut. It may be the last year for this old equipment.

The following day was hot and I turned the hay all day. At 5pm I put it into winrows with the newly acquired andaineur (about 45 years old) then set to bailing with the notoriously tempermental 60 year old bailer. Amazingly after a few duff bails it worked faultlessly and by 8.45pm all was bailed. It had been a long day but before bed I stacked the 125 bails in little stacks of 5 or 6 to keep the worst of the dew off.

Sunday was another hot day. It took until noon for the dew to evaporate from the once again scattered bails, then most the afternoon to transport them 18 at time in a trailer from the field to the barn. Winter feed secure for another year.

Worrying noises from the tractor and it is pretty clear that I have a knackered clutch thrust/release bearing. It's a cheap part to replace but a costly install as the engine has to be separated from the clutch/gearbox. Is it too big a job to do myself? I don't have an engine hoist or a press, so maybe so.

The sheep were let loose in the big hay field for the first time this year which they seem to be enjoying. The grass in the parts which weren't cut is too high for the sheep to see over, so they stick very close together so as not to get lost.

Having managed to move the sauna in through one upstairs window, next was the job of moving the old cast iron bath out of the other upstairs window. I had found the cast iron rolltop bath in the field in front of the house when I arrived in 2005 and refinished the enamel and fashioned a cradle for it, as the old legs had been knocked off. 

It lived under the dining table on wheels for many years, then when I enlarged the house, I hoisted it onto the partially built first floor and into the new bathroom before the house was complete. 

After many years use the enamel is truly knackered and it was time to retire it. The bath weighs about 200kgs and getting down the stairs seemed fraut with difficulties and possible accidents! So the options were to hit it with a sledge hammer and remove it in parts or get it out of the bathroom window intact. The bath is useful for washing fleeces so we opted for the window extraction. 

The only way of attachment was to thread a rope through the central plughole and the overflow hole. Suspended like this the bath would hang at right angles to the rope. Unfortunately to go the window the bath had to be parallel to the rope...and this was the main cause of worry - the point at which the bath would rotate uncontrollable and exert a sudden shock load on the pulley system attached to a heavy oak door post (set into concrete during the house construction). The new bath arrived midway through the defenestration and fortunately the delivery driver was keen to help us. It was reassuring to have another set of muscles on hand, just in case. In the end all went without mishap. The new bath weighing only 45kgs and being somewhat smaller went up the stairs (once the handrails had been removed) with just Susie and I doing the grunt work.