We've had a busy week here with multiple visits from farriers and vets, thankfully all for routine appointments and nothing out of the ordinary. Much on our minds as we have gone about our tasks this week has been the weather. It has been very dry here for the past month, with the only measurable rainfall happening earlier this week. Summers in the mid south tend to be hit or miss as far as precipitation. Last summer was almost perfect as far as rain was concerned, just about every week we had a good, soaking rain that led to gorgeous pastures and good hay cuttings. The summer of 2007 is one that no one will forget anytime soon. The worst drought in recorded history for this area (so glad I got to experience that - not!!) which led to a massive hay shortage. It goes without saying that a big hay shortage leads to REALLY high hay prices. If we never live through a year like that again I would be fine with that! Most summers fall somewhere in between last year's perfection and the 2007 nightmare.
If the last few weeks are a good predictor of the future this is going to be a very dry summer. We've been putting some hay out in the pastures to see what the horses do with it and so far it is being ignored. That will definitely change if the status quo continues. We grow some of our own hay and purchase the rest. In preparation for potentially poor hay cuttings for the rest of the season we've gone ahead and purchased an additional 350 large (1000+ pounds) bales of hay. It hurts (a lot) writing those checks all at once but Jason and I are definitely charter members of hay hoarders anonymous, so as far as we're concerned you can never have too much hay.
In fact our hay hoarding is so embedded in our natures we are talking about building a third hay barn at some point in the future. Although two hay barns are good we've decided three would be even better. Of course this being a farm we pretty much have an endless list of projects, buildings and equipment that we need and/or want. Maybe one day we'll actually get to them all, but in the meantime I guess we will both be dreaming of a third hay barn as we drift off to sleep at night. Instead of counting sheep we'll count hay barns!
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Fabrizzio, Thor and Walden
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2 comments:
I was a hay hoarder when I boarded partial care, but it is certainly less expensive to hoard for only one mouth.
Confirmed hay hoarder here. Even though there are only two horses on my farm - it's a seven hour round trip to pick hay up, and then periodically our only road off island goes out...
Very jealous of your hoarding capabilities. ;)
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