The Yoder Family: May 2007

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Broilers

Paul watering them

Blake

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Hope for America!

Clark and Miles

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Great going, Guys (and Gals!)

With a great deal of team effort and everyone pitching in, we successfully finished 1st crop hay.

This was the first time we used our school bus-turned-bale hauler. It worked great! Blake cut the back end of the body off and had Andrew, the neighbor, weld steel pipes on the frame. They can haul more bales this way than with any of our previous arrangements.

We have one rented farm down our small country road and another up on the big road a little further away. There were lots of trips back and forth to bring the bales home, thankfully all without incident.

You'll notice the picture of the wrapping is darker than the rest. That's because they did ALL the wrapping through the night last night. The girls--Maria, Audrey, and Shannah--- were out helping until about midnight then they came in to go to bed. The guys---Paul, Daniel, Blake, Logan, and our friend Nate----came in at 3:30AM this morning after a loooooooong night! Great going, guys!

This Claas baler we bought last year for $25,000. The first $8500 payment is due June 6th. Oh boy.

Raking hay. Logan and Daniel raked hay pretty well all day yesterday.

With a great deal of team effort and everyone pitching in, we successfully finished 1st crop hay.

This was the first time we used our school bus-turned-bale hauler. It worked great! Blake cut the back end of the body off and had Andrew, the neighbor, weld steel pipes on the frame. They can haul more bales this way than with any of our previous arrangements.

We have one rented farm down our small country road and another up on the big road a little further away. There were lots of trips back and forth to bring the bales home, thankfully all without incident.

You'll notice the picture of the wrapping is darker than the rest. That's because they did ALL the wrapping through the night last night. The girls were out helping until about midnight then they came in to go to bed. The guys---Paul, Daniel, Blake, Logan, and our friend Nate----came in at 3:30AM this morning after a loooooooong night! Great going, guys!

Loading.. Paul did almost all the loading and driving the bale hauler back and forth on the road.

hauling. The bale hauler works great! Maria and Shannah drove the bus around the field helping Paul get the bales loaded.

Shannah driving the bale hauler

wrapping. Nate ran the wrapper. Poor guy worked all night, left here at 4AM for an hour long trip home.

The bale wrapper

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Dump Truck

You might've wondered why the Yoders have a dump truck in their front yard. Well.....these things start out innocently enough.

I know, as a wife, that my husband has always entertained the idea of buying a dump truck. He has always had a ready list of excuses of why one might come in handy. I never said no, but he always thought better of it, I guess. Well, Paul happened to drive past one beside the road one day with a big old FOR SALE sign and the perfect excuse was ready....and not at all what you'd expect. He decided he could buy it and make money taking it to the junk yard for scrap metal. Yeah right. Blake and I winked at each other and we now have the dump truck.

But wait....it runs better than expected and we do have a bunch of dirt to haul from the pond. And the driveway does need gravel. So, I guess we'll be USING the dump truck---at least for a while----and *then* we'll junk it. (Like I am surprised....)