Fourth of July on the Farm

Raspberries come in about the end of June/first week of July, so, according to tradition, I went out this morning and picked for an hour or so. Fortunately it was fairly cool, so my briar-proof pants, denim jacket, and over-the-hat mosquito netting weren't as miserably uncomfortable as they usually are. I was probably a few days late because the birds, deer, coons, bugs and God knows what had consumed the crown berries, but there were plenty left to go round. I picked about a quart. Good for cereal this week. I've never been able to persuade anyone join in this venture, except my kids once or twice when they were small and subject to persuasion.


While I was out picking a UFO landed and laid these giant eggs in our front pasture. Well, not exactly. The weather never dried out enough for us to bale it in square bales, so our neighbor found a cattleman who would round bale it. These monsters emerge from the back of a tall baler like a robot giving birth. Our field rolls, and so did 26 of these 1200-pound jellyrolls, ending up pretty much wherever they wanted. Those rolls are so tight you can't push your finger into the exposed ends of them. They're moved around with a big spike on the front of a big tractor and loaded up on flat beds, having never been touched by human hands. The cattleman is paying us for these; we'll hope to bale two more cuttings of hay to feed the horses and use his money to buy any additional we need. This may be the wave of the future.