Make hay while the sun shines

We have a field that we call 'the hay field' so we thought we had better get on and make a bit of hay from it. The forcast says sunny for a few days so we decided it was time. It seems pretty early for hay, but the grass is seeding already.

We cut with scythes, and 'tedded' (ie spread out to dry) with a lawn rake. I am not sure which is harder work. It took us about two hours to scythe - which leaves it in neat rows and then an hour to spread it all out. Then we floofed it around one more during the day and then spent an hour this evening putting it back in to rows so it gets less damp with dew overnight. We did an area about 20m x 30m, which we worked out is about half of what we will need to keep the rabbits over the winter. 

Oh! I forgot to mention, we got up at 6.30 am to do this!

We will spread it out again tomorrow and floof it, and probably gather it all in on Friday. We will store it loose, not bailed. A lot of work doing it by hand. We asked one of the neighbours if they would be able to make hay for us, but they said the land was too steep. 

I would guess that the amount of hay we will have made is less than one of the big bales - which cost about 25 EUR. so we are not doing it for the money, but because we find it interesting... and kind of fun... ish.

We have thought about, and are still thinking about, how we could automate a bit, but it gets very expensive. A scythe (also called sickle) mower would make the cutting a lot quicker - they have a wide bar with two sets of teeth, one of which move relative to one another, cutting the grass. You are looking at something near a grand for one. You can get things called two wheel tractors, which are like the drive unit of the sickle mower to which you can add various attachments. This would be more expensive, but you can get tedding and various other attachments such as trailers for it too. Mini bailers for two wheel tractors do exist, but are just crazy expensive. I imagine they are expensive to maintain and run too. When you add it all up, it is not worth it for the hay, but there would be other   advantages to having a sickle mower. It would be good for the fields and keep weeds down if we cut them once in a while (there are some weeds the animals don't eat, generally cutting them once a year massivly reduces them. We should do it with the scythes, but haven't yet (apart from some very small areas).