Sunday Stills

Sunday Stills is a place to hone your photography skills. Each week Ed issues a new “Challenge” that gives us the opportunity to pick up what ever kind of camera we own and try to meet the challenge. I just got a new camera and hadn't an opportunity to master this past week's challenge - Silhouettes - so pulled one of my favorites that I took a few years ago.

This picture is of John riding Blue at Branched Oak Lake near Raymond, Nebraska. Blue has always been our water horse - he will go out deep and swim if you ask! Look carefully, is Blue's nose pointed toward the camera or away from it?

.

Putting Up Hay

John wants to be a farmer when he grows up. There is nothing he likes more than puttering around on his tractor and working the land. All 24.75 acres of it. Not enough to make it a full time job. But a couple times a year, he gets to do the real thing. It’s haying season!

We have some of our pasture and some of his mom’s that we mow for hay every year. It’s actually one of the most stressful times on the farm for me because if we don’t catch it at just the right time with the weather in perfect condition, I’ll be buying hay for the winter. That happened last year. So we have to watch the weather and hope for a few days of perfect, sunny conditions to get it down, dried and baled. John does all the cutting and windrowing. He bales what we put in small bales and our neighbor rolls up the big bales for us. We usually don’t do it all at one time as we don’t want to risk it all should the weather turn on us in the middle of hay harvest. This year we also planted alfalfa. It’s not ready yet, but it should help our winter inventory.

Once the hay is cut, it is a family affair to get it out of the field. I always warn John that I can't help if he makes the bales heavier than 50 pounds. He forgot and these babies were probably close to 65 to 70 pounds. So guess what? I couldn't help. So I took pictures.

Case has a few years before he can handle the 65 pound bales, too, so he gets the easy job. He thought it was pretty funny if we were all standing on the rack and he hit the brakes. We threatened him with 65 pound bales and he straightened right up!

John has no problem with the big bales but I did see sweat on his brow.

McCain conditions at the high school three times a week. He can no longer protest the weight of the bales. But he is sure not to overdo it either. Do you think he knows I'm taking his picture?

Check out the clouds in the background. The evening sky was awesome! There was some lightning and thunder in the distance.

That one doesn't look too big. I think he thought I should have been able to load that one!

Job well done! Ritz thinks he contributed -- he didn't.

We dodged the weather bullet this time but still have the big field to go in the next few weeks.

.