First Cutting

The only good part of about our extremely dry spring thus far is we've already managed to put some first cutting hay in on of our hay barns. April was very dry, and May has been extremely dry so far. We were pleasantly surprised that the yield off this first field was pretty in line with other years, I would have thought the yield would be lower but it remained steady. That's excellent since yields for second cutting will be much lower than usual unless we move past this dry spell, and 3rd and 4th cuttings are had to imagine right now. 

I spent Mother's Day hauling hay in from the hay field. Jason, Carter and I were all working on hay until 9pm on Sunday. The quality of the hay appears to be excellent, however Jason is fond of reminding me that pretty is as pretty does and the analysis is what counts. We'll be sending a sample from this batch of hay off for testing as is our custom. 

We are nowhere close to being done with hay for the year. We need several hundred more large bales to fill our barns and be well stocked. However, it still feels nice to have some pretty new hay in the barn. I have the urge to pat and coo every time I walk past the newly stacked hay in the rear hay barn. 

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Ewen checking out one of the new hay bales

raking

freshly baled hay

of course the flatbed trailer had a low tire that had to be addressed before we could start hauling hay; the joys of equipment

ready to be loaded and hauled to the barn

Jason moving hay bales

hay stacked in the barn

Cino took advantage of our all too brief rain shower this morning to get some mud on him. He said it had been too long since he'd had the chance to get muddy.

Asterik and George

Lofty

Apollo and Levendi

Levendi

Ripley

Homer and Moe hanging out

Rip, Elfin and Grand having a lazy day . . . 

. . . Rip yawned . . . 

. . .  and then Elfin yawned

Tony

Baby and Elfin

Remmy and Baner

Johnny, River and Donovan

Traveller and Renatta

Merlin and Duesy

Bruno and Havana