YIKES !!

There was a fire on the farm today.

One of the hay barns caught fire - apparently the cause was either hay being put up too green, or perhaps the bales were packed too tightly (according to the farm manager). Anyway, we had all sorts of fire trucks, farm vehicles, and lots of other cars ... and who knows how many people helping and just watching. There were two tractors with bale spears working furiously to pull out hay bales from the barn to get to the "heart" of the fire, while firefighters sprayed water from the tanker trucks to keep the flames down. The tractors were pulling out the burning hay bales and spreading them through the field (thankfully freshly bush-hogged) to burn themselves out. One tractor apparently came down from a neighboring dairy to help - his tractor skills were quite amazing, as he whipped the machine here and there with flaming haybales up on the bale spear. Isn't it nice how farmers all pull together in a crisis ??

With things being so dry (we are minus almost 9" of rain for the year so far, with none forcasted any time soon), the big risk was the fire spreading.

In the end, it looks as if atleast some of the bales were saved and are still useable. And the barn does not have an noticible damage. But the field is covered with who-knows-how-many smoldering hay bales. Thankfully the breeze is blowing the smoke away from our house - the smell of burning hay is even worse than the smell of rotten hay. And thank goodness that NONE of the cows were ever in danger, and that no one was hurt. Praise God !!

It was an exciting day here on the farm ... and for our family, we have seen enough fire to last a lifetime.

Photo 1: Site of the fire - a hay barn.

Photo 2: Smoldering bales in the field after the fire.

Photo 3: More smoldering bales.