Hay, Hay, Hay

It looks like we're in for another long, hot, dry summer.  Temperatures have hovered above 100 degrees for the past two weeks and there hasn't been a drop of rain for longer than that (except for last night--more on that later).  Last summer began like this and my hay seller only got one cutting of alfalfa in.  I was able to buy 20 bales and that didn't last long.  The rest of the summer I bought and fed bagged alfalfa, which, at $15 a piece, where a very expensive and inconvenient replacement.  My horses got fed, which is the most important thing, but they and I both would have preferred the real thing.

So, this year, I got a jump on things quite early.  Usually I'd be buying winter hay in August or September, but this year I got all the alfalfa I need for the next year in June.  As they say, the early bird gets the worm...or the bales.

I got the first 200 bales delivered this weekend, and it is absolutely gorgeous hay.

All three of my equine children "say" it tastes as good as it looks.

Thank goodness for that spring rain!!

Green, leafy, fine-stemmed.  I haven't seen alfalfa this nice for close to two years now.  I'm so glad I was able to get 400 bales of this beautiful hay.

The horses don't know how lucky they are. 

I don't think they realize how much we go through for them, either.  My hay guy got stuck in the sand taking back roads to my house, so after working all night I changed in a hurry, unhooked my truck from the trailer (which is up on a jack because of a tire issue--more on that later as well), went and pulled him out after unloading some hay onto my truck for weight, and then we got to my house and unloaded and stacked bales all morning.

Then I hit the hay.

Maybe I should rephrase that--I took a nice, long nap.  Then that evening I went and picked up more pallets, and the next morning I re-stacked hay.  Then I looked at my arms.

Then I wept like a small child.

Then I took a break.

Finally, yesterday morning, I got it all, or the first 200 bales, anyway, stacked.  The night before we got about an eighth of an inch of rain (although none was forecasted for the next ten days--it rained just enough to ruin good hay), so I had to put a tarp over the part where the roof isn't quite finished.  The roof should be finished in a few weeks, but again, more on that later....

For now I'm going to sit back, admire this small accomplishment, tend to my cross-hatched arms, and await the next load of 200 bales.  After that, I just need to stock up on about 12 or so grass roundbales for when the cold weather sets in (horses warm themselves by fermenting hay in their gut, so they need constant roughage--in addition to the calories that alfalfa provides--during the winter).  

Hay ho, Hay ho, (what did you just call me?!) it's off to work I go,

~J