I worked at home today, and after work, I was planning on going to see my cousin. She is not doing well, and we are afraid we will lose her soon with cancer. :'( I was going to go on Tuesday, but her mom said she was too nauseous, and so I called today before going, and her mom said she was going to have everything pumped out of her stomach to maybe help with the nausea? She has a blockage and her stomach/lower abdomen is very uncomfortable for her. My aunt sounded frazzled, but actually apologized to me for not calling to ask me not to come. Wow, Aunt Karen. I think you have plenty on your mind other than remembering to call me.

So, instead, I called DH to see if he could use any help. He said "sure, you can come run the swather." Yippee!!! I LOVE running the swather! So, I went down to DH's Grandma's place, who takes care of DS, nursed him, then headed out to the farm.

The drought is causing many people to think they won't have enough hay for the winter. The USDA opened up some of the CRP for haying, but you have to leave 1/2 of it uncut, 5" of stubble on the rest of it, some of the CRP is still closed to cutting, and it all has to be done by Aug 15. DH has gotten 5 new customers since CRP was opened.

The problem with the 5" cut is that our swather has a floating header on it, if you push the button down all the way. If you bump the button up to bring it up more, it doesn't float anymore. Fine if you are in a field, but in a CRP field, there are most likely bumps, gulleys, other crap you don't want to hit...if you do hit something with the rotating blades, it could cause major damage. The front does tilt up and down, so he is going to try to tilt it up as far as it will go and see how much stubble it leaves. It might be close enough for government work.

This one I was working on today is actually ours, old CRP that we didn't sign up for the program again. The slight rain we had yesterday (< .5") made things tough, so it took way longer than it should have. Didn't get home until 10:00. DS was more than ready for some momma time.

Got home, made some sandwiches, going to bed. No money out the door for me today.

It is payday today, too. Saving up to put a roof on the garage...almost there!