Pretend you hear the opening notes of the “Dragnet” TV show theme song:

Ladies and gentlemen, the story you are about to read is true. No names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Blackie, snake of interest wanted for questioning in the disappearance of one nest of bluebird eggs and one nest of baby bluebirds. 

It was Monday, July 7, 2014. The weekend’s Independence Day fireworks were reduced to charred Made-in-China rubble: burned out fountains, empty Roman candle sticks and confetti-sized pieces of brightly colored paper in yards and on roads. Summer in the country was in full-swing. The cattle were self-sustaining on grass, and hay fields in our area were full of tractors pulling swathers, rakes and balers. Hay season was also in full-swing.

Earlier that spring, I posted blogs showing our existing bluebird houses, 
“Bird-Brain Real Estate Agency – Week 1”; then later, the six new homes Bill built as part of the “Bluebird House Rural Renewal Project” to attract bluebirds looking for affordable new homes to raise their families.

Four pairs of bluebirds set up housekeeping in the new homes, plus one pair of sparrows that were quickly evicted. Nests were built and eggs laid. Bill discreetly monitored the status of the future families. Then, double tragedy struck: the eggs in one nest disappeared and, a few days later, the hatched baby bluebirds in another nest were kidnapped and presumed dead.

Immediate measures were necessary to prevent further fatal nest-nappings. The suspected culprits were either raccoons or black snakes. Bill remembered staking bird netting over the strawberry patch several years ago to keep birds from using it as a dessert bar. Black snakes frequented the same cafeteria, hunting rodents that nested in the straw mulch, and became tangled in the netting. Bill was able to cut out a few snakes and release them into neighboring pastures. Others died as a result of heat exposure.

The same netting that saved our strawberries from the birds could also be used to save the bird nests from predators. Bill wadded up sheets of netting, wrapped them around the bird house poles and secured them in place with baling twine. A predator attempting to climb the pole would become trapped in the netting.

On the morning of July 11th, Bill checked one of the bluebird houses and discovered a captive in the netting. It was Blackie, last seen in the yard in early spring. He had apparently been looking for breakfast and intended to turn that nest of babies into his own personal IHOP Blue(bird) Plate Special! 

Blackie wasn’t moving but that didn’t mean he was dead. Wearing heavy gloves, Bill carefully cut the netting to free the snake. He laid Blackie on the ground where he slowly regained consciousness. Bill commuted the immediate decapitation by hoe death sentence. Instead, he mercifully transported the reptilian felon out of the yard and across the road to a pasture where he was released and sentenced to lifetime community service clearing out the rodents. Hopefully, the pardon and rehabilitation program convinced Blackie to change his eating habits and curb his craving for baby bluebirds.

The netting solved the predator problem and we are anticipating the hatch of more baby blues like these!

Continuous color from spring through fall—that's our yard! After the spectacular iris were finished, the daylilies dazzled us with their bright, bold colors!

This post’s title came from my book chapter of the same title where I described my “Farm Fresh Filosophy” that hay fever is an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) that afflicts farmers during hay season. Our goal is to get hay put up without it getting wet in order to preserve the nutritive value for our cattle.

OCD hay fever has been an epidemic in our area this year. A weather pattern of rain during late spring and early summer delayed hay-baling. Not that we’re complaining about rain, not after the last two summers of drought conditions! Even with the rains we’ve had, we’re still behind the average and most ponds are not yet full. So we’ll take that rain. We just needed a few days of “hay weather,” which we finally received.

In a couple of earlier posts, I described the baling process for the big round bales, or “jellyrolls” as one friend called them: “Catering Jellyrolls” posted 1/22/14, and “June’s Jellyroll Jaunt—Loading and Transporting” posted 3/2/14. The steps involved in baling the little square bales are the same—swath or cut, rake, bale and transport—but some of the equipment used is different.

First, the swather cuts the grass and swaths it into rows. This swather is used for both round and square bales.

Second, raking turns the rows of hay over so the bottom will dry and also fluffs them up so they feed into the baler. This is a different type of rake than the one used for round bales.

Third, the square baler picks up the cut and raked hay, forms the bale, ties it with wire and pushes it out the back. (I had to take several shots to get the one I wanted with the bale being ejected but not yet on the ground, which involved trotting all over the hay field!)

This is a view of our hay field after baling. No, I wasn't holding the camera at an angle. The field actually slopes downhill from a terrace I was standing on above the bales. More about terraces and how not to drive over them below!

Fourth, loading and stacking by hard-working young guys like these enable us to continue putting up square bales.

Finally, the bales are off-loaded into the barn. A neighbor bought 100 bales from us and this was the scene at his barn.

Occasionally, I’ve been drafted into service to drive the one-ton flatbed truck that pulls the 24-foot trailer. My instructions are to drive very slowly in the lowest gear. Doesn’t sound too difficult until you consider:

1.      I have to sit on the edge of the seat because the seat adjustment mechanism is broken and the seat position is set for someone about six feet tall—I’m five feet, six inches; and,
2.      The hay fields are terraced to prevent erosion.

The trick is to drive over the terraces at an angle, not straight up one side and down the other. The latter method guarantees becoming high-centered, leaving the truck straddled across the top of the terrace, wheels off the ground, teeter-tottering back and forth. Meanwhile, my stomach plummets to the floorboard, due to motion sickness compounded by terror. The potential rescue operation entails being towed off the terrace by a much larger vehicle, risking damage to both truck and trailer. On the other hand, if I drive over terraces at too sharp an angle I risk spilling the trailer contents: hay and crew.

I’m proud to say I only high-centered once, and it was the trailer not the truck. Bill was still baling in another area of the field, so the neighbor helping us coached me on how to get off the terrace by alternately rolling forward and backward, thereby rocking myself off the terrace. No teeter-tottering and no towing!

In these pictures, Bill demonstrates how to navigate terraces without high-centering.

Final count on little square bales was 506. We’ll finish out hay season doing the large round bales.

This statement is from my essay, “I Am a Farm Wife” and was inspired by a chapter in my book, “Reuse, Recycle, Repurpose—The Farmer’s Trilogy.” June’s Junque is an excellent example of two-thirds of this trilogy: reuse and repurpose. Recently, Bill put the recycle part into action.

On our farm, anything made of metal that can’t be reused or repurposed is piled on a scrap heap to await a trip to a recycling center near Topeka. Last week, Bill decided it was time so he loaded the junk metal on a small trailer.

No, the trailer wasn't part of the junk being left at the recycling center. Even though it may look a little rough as a result of a tree falling on it several years ago during a windstorm, it’s still a reliable and important piece of equipment on our farm. It can haul 60 square bales of hay, the Ford 8N tractor or the mini-truck—but not all at the same time.

The items destined for the huge recycling magnet were:
1.   a broken mineral feeder for cattle;
2.   frame and springs from an old hide-a-bed couch (The springs couldn't be repurposed as a yard art trellis or, believe me, they wouldn't be on this pile!);
3.   old pieces of roof guttering;
4.   lots of old rusty baling wire (The pile was over seven feet tall before Bill mashed it down!);
5.   a bundle of even rustier woven wire; and
6.   stuff I couldn't identify.

But wait…what was this on the bottom underneath all this junk? They looked like steel cylinders and were painted “John Deere Green.”

Those cylinders apparently came off a piece of farm equipment. Anything “John Deere Green” has huge yard art potential. Why didn't I know about these? No way were they going to the recycling center!

I grabbed one of the cylinders and tried to pull it from under the scrap pile. It was heavy and only came partway out. I dug through the pile and found a bolt sticking out near one end that had caught on another piece of junk. I finally liberated my potential yard art treasure and laid it on the ground. There was a second cylinder, as well as longer pieces connected together. I trotted to the house and told Bill I had scavenged items from his load. He fished out the other cylinder before he left. The longer pieces were too tangled up in baling wire to take off the trailer.

Here are my “John Deere Green” pieces of future June’s Junque. I don’t know yet how they will be repurposed. I’ll just wait for a burst of junque inspiration. That’s the fun part!

When Bill returned from his trip to the recycling center, he told me the cash he received for the load was just short of $100 due to me scavenging his load!