The Grass/Land - Putting Up Hay

Putting Up Hay in a BIG Way

The drought was such that there was no hay to cut in our hayfield last year.   We turned the horses out on to  it after the first frost so that they could eat what there was and we could stave off feeding the hay that we had bought.  But feed it we did.  We ran out sometime in April and had to start buying hay by the pick-up load every weekend at retail prices which climbed as high as $18.00 a bale for small bales.  Finally this year's grass came up and we got some relief. 

But it soon became clear, as the grass once again began to head up when it was barely six or seven inches high, that there would be no hay for us to cut again this year. 

The local folks, who liked selling us hay by the pick-up load, assured us that there was no way we could get a semi truck in and out of our tight driveway.  But with a little perseverance and a lot of luck I found a local rancher, with irrigated  hay fields in Colorado and Nebraska, who barn-stored his hay and would bring it in by the semi-load, and stack it in our barn for us. 

His driver was a wizard!  He came in fully loaded through our front pasture, sideways on  the hill and through a narrow gate, and backed up to the barn door.

The whole family was there to help, along with the members of the local high school church youth group.  They arrived at six in the morning.  Some of them were still in their pajamas!  It took them about an hour and a half to unload the semi and then they went off to their day jobs.

This is the biggest single expense to raising horses, even when we cut our own hay, but especially when we have to buy it from someone else. 

We have enough hay to last over a year now, and that is a very nice feeling.  We did eventually get rain.  Not soon enough for this years grass, buy hopefully next year we can cut our own hay again.