The hay season has begun

Since Tuesday, I have been turning hay for about 7 hours every day.....sometimes more. And I think it's fun. So if I were to do it all year round, I would probably get tired of it eventually. But when you have a very relaxed job for the first time this year, it's nice for a change. We have a very good division of tasks: Henry repairs the tractors and equipment from morning to evening, because they are all pretty old (some are already 60 years old). Aileen and Host (the neighbor) mow all the time. Ida and I then turn all the hay and Henry operates the baling press (sometimes even overnight because he is in the workshop during the day.) And that's how we get a lot done, because 5 tractors run for 8 hours a day at the same time. But we also have to make a lot of hay.....winter is long.

But I also did other things. For example, on Wednesday morning, I drove to the Presspists with Aileen's parents (where Fred and Monika live and there is a big forest fire). And Aileen's father had many big vehicles there that he had to drive home. So I had to drive the car we came in back home. - and it was a huge brand-new pickup truck. That was super cool. About an hour of the way, the road was so bad that you could only move forward with all-wheel drive. You couldn't drive faster than 15 - 20 km/h because there were so many tight curves. And the other three-quarters of an hour was normal gravel road where you could drive fast. I had never driven such a cool car before. Now I want one too ;) I also wonder why they let me drive it, because the road was pretty shitty and the car was brand new. 2 people also saw me on the way and asked me about the 'fancy car' I was driving. Somehow everyone here knows me (because everyone knows Henry). At all the other farms I've been to, I never knew anyone else from the village or they knew me.

And one day we wanted to move the electric fence for the cows. When we were in the pasture, Henry loaded his gun and asked: Do you feel like a quiet walk? I don't know where he knows such things from, but he knew there was a bear in the area. And it wasn't far away at all, because I wasn't allowed to talk the whole way and had to walk very quietly. We found fresh bear droppings, a dead horse, and an anthill from which he ate. And another path that the bear seems to use often, which we sneaked up on very quietly - super exciting. But we didn't see the bear :( too bad, because from the tracks, it was a grizzly bear. One thing that I find quite strange is that Henry takes a gun with him everywhere (he has one in the car, one in the tractor, and sometimes even when riding), and when Aileen, Ida, and I are somewhere, we never have a gun. For example, 10 minutes after our bear search, Henry just walked away to get something and I was already supposed to start building the fence and I just thought: great....I want a gun too.

Actually, I wanted to go riding in the Rainbow Mountains with Leslie and a few other people from August 1st to 4th. But that was canceled because there is a fire there too. Somehow it's burning everywhere except with us :) On Saturday, you could see a huge mushroom cloud on the horizon, and the next day, the smoke reached us and everything just turned gray. You couldn't see the mountains and the sky anymore. I think when it's really bad, you can only see 500m ahead. It's Wednesday now and it's still smoky. Well, what I actually wanted to say is that I'm now in a hay camp instead of a riding camp. It's not quite as cool, but still very nice. On Monday, we first turned hay on a meadow about 6 km from here and from there we went straight to the ranch where Host and Joyce live. We brought cows there once in May and I also slept there. The ranch is not accessible by car (the last bit only by quad or tractor) and there is no electricity or water. Instead of on a horse, I tied my sleeping bag and backpack to the tractor and off we went. Turning hay, eating, sleeping, driving on, starting over. I think it's super beautiful there, but I admire Host and Joyce for always living there. There is no shower, no refrigerator, not even drinking water....they have to bring all the water there with the quad.

A shower, in particular, is something you learn to appreciate very much when you drive tractors in the dust for 3 days at 30°C, get stung by 1000 insects, and have your arms covered in tractor grease up to your elbows. And for 24 hours, you have a small pot of water to wash with and a towel that 5 people use. Aileen also told me that we would only stay there for one night, so I didn't bring many things (none at all)....we stayed there for 3 days and now we only went home to shower once and tomorrow morning we're going back right away. But I think it's so cool how beautiful such a simple life can be and how few things you actually need....a sleeping bag, water, food, and tractor grease ; ). The last 2 days, Ida and I were completely alone and we also had to refuel and grease tractors (which are about 50 years old) and hay turners all by ourselves. And we both don't know if we're doing it right, but so far the tractors are still running, so it can't have been completely wrong.