Today dawned sunny and windy with low humidity. A perfect day for drying hay after one and three quarters inches of rain over the weekend. Lots of people have hay down. But not us! Today, all we have drying are the blue and the green clothes on the line.
This afternoon, when the rain inevitably began, all I had to do was bring in the clothes. No wagons full of hay bales to cover with tarps. No equipment to cover. No worries. Today we can accept the rain in all its beneficial glory as wonderful for our hay fields and pastures.
Last week when it rained, we tried to think of the pastures, the gardens, and the hay fields receiving beneficial moisture; but all we really saw was rotting hay, hay losing nutritional value. So last Monday, when we put the last bale into the barn, Dave ran a hay drill into half a dozen bales and collected samples of hay to have analyzed at the Farmer’s Elevator. The hay had an rfv (relative feed value) of 130- okay, not great, but much better than he expected. So in spite of the rain, the thistles, and the thin windrows because our alfalfa is aging and not producing as much hay per acre, we have almost enough, okay hay to feed the sheep next winter. Dave is looking for an additional 250 small square bales. Hopefully, some farmer will have bales to sell and we won’t have to sell any of the springs lambs that we had set aside to add to our flock. Right now, we will have to sell eight lambs unless we find hay to buy. With luck, other farmers baled on this perfect morning for drying hay.
Hi Joanie, I notice you don't get many comments but I just want to say how much I enjoy this blog. I am no farmer, never have been, but its a pleasure to see how devotedly you go about caring for your animals, your land and each other. Good wishes to you!
ReplyDeleteJo in DL