Last year we had a massive hay result, the best in our time here. I was going to get some help with it, but at the last minute that fell through due to sickness. Most years our hay is cut in between intermittent rain, and its a race to get it in before it gets wet. Last year the weather report gave us almost a clear week. So in the absence of an urgency, I decided I would do it by myself.

Nearly killed me and I learned my lesson.

So, this year I lined up some help.

This year was a bit different. Normally my neighbour Ben and I pool the work and get our places done at the same time. Its hard to get in the queue with a small farm, but easier if you can make it worthwhile. But Ben is carrying too many cows this year and they have needed more feed. He hasn't got any hay to cut. With Ben out I chased the contractors, and got it done a few weeks earlier than the normal mid-late December. I think our grasses peak now and prefer to get it cut in November.

Overall the grass that has grown this year isn't great. Mostly native grasses this year, not much clover or rye showing up. And, as it turns out, not much volume. Almost half the number of bales we got last year.

It is what it is. Still needs to be collected. There's a plant nearby that employs a lot of men. They work hard, big strong blokes, good crew to get in the pick up and stack a couple of hundred bales. We organized for Saturday and I guesstimated it would take four of us three hours.

Only one showed up on Saturday. The others were busy. Right.

So, off we went. I changed cars in the last 12 months and now have a flatbed ute. Perfect for collecting hay bales. With the ute tray and a trailer we can bring in about 30 bales at a time. Its a slog on a hot day, but its pretty basic work. We try and make the job easier by first walking the paddock and collating the bales into stacks of two or three.

The young chap that was working with me is a pleasant bloke, happy to talk. It turns out he is half my age, younger than my own children. As the morning progressed the hard work took its toll on me, and he started to ask me, at intervals, of I was ok. And I wasn't. I'm not fit enough, I'm nursing some old man injuries, my aerobic fitness isn't good enough. As we stacked hay in the shed the pile got higher, and we were starting to lift and throw the bales to the top. ( Big shed, I stack my hay seven-eight bales high. That's a long way to lift a bale!)

I started to get vison blackspots, and got told to take a break. My helper kept going, brought in the last three loads by himself and stacked it by himself.

My days of doing the job by myself are over, it seems. Its not unexpected, and I am ok about it, but its confronting to accept that you don't have the strength to do it all by yourself.

I paid him, extra just because, and came inside. I have been entertained for the rest of the day with shocking leg and arm cramps. Just in case I didn't get the message.

Postscript: The hay result itself was mid to poor. Some of the the bales are quite yellow, and incredibly light. They are mostly native grass. The greener bales are rye, and almost double the weight. We didn't muck around everything was stacked as it was picked up, but I expect some of the lighter bales will not tempt my cattle. They will turn up their noses at it.

We still have hay from last year's bumper crop, so we won't run out, and I can almost use the unwanted bales for fill in our salvage paddock project.

And...this morning it started raining. Its now going to rain for a week. The last time I looked at the weather it was going to be ok. It turns out it getting the hay in was urgent, after all!