Our friends at Alewive Pond Farm, in Maine invited us over to lend a hand with one of their pre-Fall activities, getting several hundred bales of hay in the barn for the winter. In this drone video, hay bales from a local pasture are unloaded and placed on a conveyer to be restacked in the hayloft.
Alewive Pond Farm has a small herd of seven goats which will require about 300 bales of hay between now and the fist cut of hay next June. Several more wagons of this size will be delivered before Autumn to fill the hayloft.
In addition to the hay bales delivered, Steve cut’s hay using a hand scythe. cutting the hay in the morning, letting it dry in the sun for a day or two, than raking into a tarp and dragging it in from the field. From there it stored in an empty stall or hauled up to the hayloft by rope, where it will finish drying. Steve reports that he is often greeted at the barn by goats eager for a sample of the freshly cut hay.
They appear to approve of the sample!