After posting the video of the amazing automated hay wagon and the 14-foot high wall of hay it stacks, some of our blog readers asked: Well, how do you get bales out of that thing?
The answer: Carefully!
Vanna White was busy this evening, so I asked Alayne to come out and demonstrate how we break into one of these solid walls of hay. Here she is doing her best Vanna impersonation.
We pick up one of the poles we use to help hold the front of the stack in place, then pry off the very top bale in the corner of the stack. We knock that one down to the ground, then the next one over, and so on ... but we do this in a stair-step fashion, so this is the one and only time we ever have a solid vertical wall. In other words, we remove bales from the top down while leaving a few lower tiers of bales in place ... and work our way backwards into the stack. That stair-step configuration helps keep the entire stack more stable. It allows us to then climb up on the hay stack safely and knock down more bales by hand as we need them.
Once we've chewed into the stack several bales deep, we remove some of the rows of bales forming the lower tier in front -- or the bottom step. The best way to describe it is as a moving stair-step, eating into that giant stack of hay.
Yes, you'll notice we couldn't quite fit all of that last load completely inside the hay barn. We still had some hay left over, which is why it didn't make it all inside ... but it will be gone soon enough!
That is very impressive!!!
I'm hoping for a blog about Beaver & Rooster. What beautiful horses!!!
Posted by: Carisa J | July 21, 2008 at 11:16 AM
You are doing a marvelous job with that hay Alayne!!!!!!!!I believe the hay-eaters are ready for winter!!!!!
Posted by: Mary Young | July 21, 2008 at 06:55 AM
Wow, thanks for that explanation. Imagine that, there's a process or method to bale selection! I'm wondering how you arrived at this process? You either had some helpful neighbors or some huge, unplanned for piles of bales as you developed the process!
Posted by: Mircat | July 18, 2008 at 01:05 PM
WOW! That's quite a process. How many gigantic crashes did you have before you figured out how to do that? You and Alayne are indeed multi talented! Thanks for the lesson.
Posted by: Maureen | July 18, 2008 at 08:48 AM
Alayne is much cuter than Vanna!
Posted by: Debbie | July 18, 2008 at 05:28 AM
Vanna never looked so good! You & Alayne are a much better team than Pat & Vanna could ever hope to be.
Big hugs to all,
ginger, Tobias & Tlingit
Posted by: ginger & Tobias (the greythound) | July 18, 2008 at 03:02 AM
Just want to thank you for sharing with us some of the fascinating and challenging logistics of running a place such as Rolling Dog. I think this gives us all a better appreciation of the full spectrum of what you do, and the skills you need to have. I am in awe of your many capabilities -- not to mention your devotion, which we all recognize.
Posted by: Helen Rietz | July 17, 2008 at 08:27 PM