Hay there!
Oct. 5th, 2005 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivo160 bales of it in fact. Unloaded and stacked before lunch and before going to work for eight hours. I'm sore.
They were predicting rain, and though the wagonload of hay was under a roof, we wanted to be able to push the empty wagon back out into the lane where our supplier can easily pick it up. This, we have learned, is very hard or impossible for two people to do if the ground is muddy or snow covered. Moving a hay rack is impossible when it's loaded unless you have a tractor or heavy truck. A load of 150 bales weighs as much as 6000 lbs. plus the weight of the rack itself. Empty, two people can barely get it moving and can have trouble stopping it if, say, it is rolling down even a slight incline. We know the path out the back of our riding arena, turning to avoid the creek, backing into the lane and then pushing forward about 150 feet to the boys' barn so well now, we haven't messed it up in several years. Last year, though, we took a delivery and then got six inches of snow before it was unloaded. End of the season, the hay rack stayed in the arena taking up space until April. We didn't want a repeat of that situation.
This hay is nice, green, and sweet smelling. It has more alfalfa (lucerne to you Brits, I think) than we usually like, but since it's third cutting we figure it will be all right. The horses like it a lot, and we'll be mixing it with the grass hay we got earlier in the summer to keep them from getting too fat over the winter. And, amusingly, it came from right across the road. A couple of years ago the widow who owns 60 or so acres across from us asked if we could suggest someone to manage her hay fields for her. We thought Jeff, our regular hay supplier, would be interested and suggested him. Well, it worked and he has been cutting and baling her hay ever since. He was doing that yesterday, and knowing that we wanted another load, came over to ask if we'd take one. Yes. He only had to pull the rack across the road and into our arena. We got a good price (hay is very dear here this year after 12 weeks of drought--no rain at all) but I like the idea of feeding our horses on our good neighbor's hay. She is a very interesting and kind elderly woman who brings her grandchildren by once in a while just to look at the horses and sheep.
They were predicting rain, and though the wagonload of hay was under a roof, we wanted to be able to push the empty wagon back out into the lane where our supplier can easily pick it up. This, we have learned, is very hard or impossible for two people to do if the ground is muddy or snow covered. Moving a hay rack is impossible when it's loaded unless you have a tractor or heavy truck. A load of 150 bales weighs as much as 6000 lbs. plus the weight of the rack itself. Empty, two people can barely get it moving and can have trouble stopping it if, say, it is rolling down even a slight incline. We know the path out the back of our riding arena, turning to avoid the creek, backing into the lane and then pushing forward about 150 feet to the boys' barn so well now, we haven't messed it up in several years. Last year, though, we took a delivery and then got six inches of snow before it was unloaded. End of the season, the hay rack stayed in the arena taking up space until April. We didn't want a repeat of that situation.
This hay is nice, green, and sweet smelling. It has more alfalfa (lucerne to you Brits, I think) than we usually like, but since it's third cutting we figure it will be all right. The horses like it a lot, and we'll be mixing it with the grass hay we got earlier in the summer to keep them from getting too fat over the winter. And, amusingly, it came from right across the road. A couple of years ago the widow who owns 60 or so acres across from us asked if we could suggest someone to manage her hay fields for her. We thought Jeff, our regular hay supplier, would be interested and suggested him. Well, it worked and he has been cutting and baling her hay ever since. He was doing that yesterday, and knowing that we wanted another load, came over to ask if we'd take one. Yes. He only had to pull the rack across the road and into our arena. We got a good price (hay is very dear here this year after 12 weeks of drought--no rain at all) but I like the idea of feeding our horses on our good neighbor's hay. She is a very interesting and kind elderly woman who brings her grandchildren by once in a while just to look at the horses and sheep.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-10-06 06:20 am (UTC)I love the smell of the stuff. Going on there and having that sweet grassy smell all around.