I'd reckoned on a good hour and a half to unload the first load of 300 bales. In the event we had them all off and stacked in about 50 minutes, with young Richard clambering to the top of the 8 tiers of bales on the trailer and chucking them down for his dad (Tommy) and me to stack. Bloody hard work - hot, dusty and itchy but very satisfying. They left to load up again, and I spent the next two hours removing all the firewood from the barn, covering the first 300 bales with tarpaulin and doing a bit on the roof - just laying a dozen slates and shifting the platform higher-still. Can almost reach the ridge now, and should be there tomorrow.
The second load of bales arrived just as I was finishing on the roof, and we repeated the unloading process. Anna arrived with the boys half-way through and mucked in while the boys did their best to trip us up. I'd reckoned on getting maybe 400 - 450 bales in our shed, with the overspill in the neighbour's barn, but in the event we squeezed about 580 into our shed. Seemed daft to stack the last 20 elsewhere, so we constructed a little platform immediately in front of the shed with breeze-blocks and sarking and piled them there instead. Paid Tommy £1500, and a crate of beer, which seemed to please him inordinately, then covered everything with a tarpaulin, fixed into the bales with fat 8" screws and weighed down at the bottom with blocks.
Absolutely knackered, but extremely happy to have secured the bales, harvested, cut, baled, transported, unloaded, stacked and covered without seeing a single drop of rain. Couldn't ask for better. All I need now is a few fine days in the next week ot two to get them into the walls.
Almost fell asleep cutting the grass at home, and DID fall asleep reading the boys' story!
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| Straw delivery 310807 |
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