Aug 6

Mary, around here, when you have a hay fire like that, you lose the barn, too. Stan has been to several barnfires where the fire department worked on keeping the site of the fire down while the non-firemen like Stan worked at getting as much hay out of the barn as possible. it's pretty sickening. At one fire, there were about half a dozen guys pitching the hay and the county fire coordinator came in and started yelling at the chief for letting untrained people work the fire. Just then, Stan, all 6'4" of him, and another neighbor who's a little taller, came down out of the mow to get a drink and cool off a little with their pitch forks and looking pretty nasty and the cheif looked at Stan and Doug and looked at the coordinator and said, "Do you want to tell them to stop?" the guy just left it alone after that.

Well, yesterday was a day of things we didn't do. We didn't go to Empire Farm Days, a very large field days held near Seneca Falls NY every year. We have gone several times in the past, usually when we were looking for something specific like the curtain walls for the new part of the barn and the cow mattresses. Years ago, we talked to a New Zealand dairy farmer at EFD and went into intensive grazing shortly thereafter. Unlike a fair, it's very specifically aimed at getting the newest info out to farmers.

Last night, we didn't have a nice quiet walk. It started out that way, Stan had his gun and did some woodchuck hunting, and I had my camera and did some wildflower picture taking, but while he was up looking for a chuck he shot at, I stepped in an old chuck hole. Then we found the dry cows and one of them had dropped a dead bull calf, so we had to chase them up to the barn, and there was almost no cooperation on their part. In the end, they only went through one fence, but the dance around the REALLY muddy barnyard was pretty much the definition of total frustration.

I think I'll go see if I can get some housework done - it's still raining, and looks like it plans to keep raining through the weekend. Stan was hoping to get some hay in this week, maybe next week.