Here in South Dakota we try not to let anything go to waste.
The art of baling road ditches is one thing I had never quite seen until I moved here. I am not saying that farmers in Indiana don’t do it, but I had never seen it myself. I think it is a great idea and such a good resource to use to feed our cows in the winter time.
I always say the only reason the ditches are so huge in South Dakota is to simply fill them up with snow come winter time and then come summer time we allow them to grow beautifully until the grasses have reached maturity and then cut the grass, rake the grass, bale the grass, and finally move the newly formed bales.
These pictures below are how Jason and I spent our afternoon of Sunday chores this week. It was some fun bonding time and proved to take some maneuvering because of wet ditches and Sunday traffic.
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| He picks up one bale. |
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| Sits it next to the second bale. |
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| Picks up both the bales. |
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| Loads them on to the flat bed trailer I am pulling. |
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| All while working around this. |
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| All in all, a productive day. |
We mow and bale our waterways, and sometimes we also bale along some of our roads. The motto around here is, “Waste not want not!” Great Pics!
to bad that really kills a lot of your state bird! this should be frowned on. A large part of the economy in SD depends on the millions of dollars that out of state hunters spend in your small communities. the best thing you can do to get more of that money into your local town is to leave that ditch wild!
Thanks for commenting. A large part of the economy is hunters and the tourism that brings that in, however, our state’s agricultural systems are a vital component of the state. Not just for the income of the industry, but also because we offer many jobs to our state’s population. I think both are vital parts of South Dakota. I will do some further research, but I am guessing that the impact of mowing road ditches v. the loss of the state bird’s population might be hard data to find. Again, thank you for commenting.