Hay!

Oh, this is too exciting! My hay just arrived! I can't describe the feeling, seeing it all in my loft, waiting to be munched on by my baby. It's lovely, it looks like timothy? I have to do a little research cuz I'm dying to know what kind of hay it is. I asked the young man who delivered it, and he said "We call it field hay. Normal hay. We don't have a special name for it." He delivered it in one of those gigantic tall trucks that they ship horses in. It barely could back into our driveway, cuz our street is so narrow.

He asked me for a pitchfork so he could toss the bales up in our loft, but uh...my basement search yielded no pitchfork. Ooops. Our farm life is missing something critical! How silly is it to not even know if you own a pitchfork? Well, there could have been one in the mess of tools the S's left here.




I think I'll just take a few moments and talk on the Internet cuz there are bits of hay all over my driveway (see the picture?) and get this - there is no one that is gonna complain about that. In fact, I don't have to *EVER* clean it up, haha! I should clarify. Where Baasha lives now, every day when we bring hay to the horses, we have to sweep every dropped straw up immediately, because it's a shared driveway with about 5 other houses. And the neighbors are not horsey, and they don't want bits of hay lying in the driveway. It's obsessive, the way we have to sweep it up every day. Sometimes twice. But here, my driveway is MINE. The pic shows our final gate, not knowing how important his job will be, starting tomorrow: ) (You might have to click the photo to enlarge, but trust me, there is an unacceptable amount of hay on this driveway!! For SHAME!)

OH, then the hay man wanted to see our field, cuz my man had told him we need someone to harvest hay on it for us. I said "You could keep most of it - we don't have enough room to store what we would grow here, but if we got something out of it too, it would be worth it for us." He said a tractor will have to come and even out some mole hills, otherwise the dirt gets mixed in with the hay. I said, "I'll bring a trap from America this summer." Isn't it amazing, he would make hay for us on our land, and we'd get hay for free and not have to do *anything* for it, except perhaps make sure lots of sheep don't come and eat it all before harvest (June or July, he said). I wish I knew more about hay making. I really am curious about the details! I guess I'll learn!

The fence guys dropped by a few hours ago to put in the remaining wooden posts and big metal gate post that they set in concrete. I watched them, fascinated, as they mixed the concrete in this incredibly deep hole next to my barn. I wrote LYTHA in it later. Since I wasn't expecting them today, I didn't have any "Fire Soup" for them. But tomorrow I will: ) The pic shows the clamp-stabilized gate post, set in concrete but still needing support for 24 hours. So close to being a real gate...

Then I asked if they could please inspect my electric fence charger, cuz I set it up today. I dug the two ground posts deep into the ground, I connected them with insulated wire (coated) and dug a trench for it. I tried my best to get our super fat electric rope on the device contact itself, and couldn't. They said "No, no, no, this won't do." I was embarrassed but totally thankful they were there to fix my mistakes. They went in my barn and started looking through all our newly bought fencing supplies and found what they needed to do it right. Whew, good thing we have this stuff. I just didn't know how to use it. Now there are insulated cables coming out of the device, one hot, and one ground. He connected the hot one to my fencewire with one of my wire connectors (I don't want to be tying knots in my electric rope, so I bought these fancy connectors you screw on - they look like figure 8s). Then he found my new fence charger, told me to plug it in, and tested it. I have it on half power cuz it's only our hang for now. When the rest of the Tposts arrive, and we have 5 acres to secure, we'll be upping the power!

My man is gonna be disappointed he missed the grounding stake thing, he may even dig them up just to see what we did: ) Right now, you can't even tell we have two meter-long stakes out there, buried deep in the ground, 10 feet apart, like all the websites instructed me!

Posts, but no rails in the last 3 meter gap. You can see the fishing rod and net we used today, and the greenhouse doors are open cuz it was 30 degrees in there! Woo, everything is sprouting! I have beets!!!


The men were in a hurry, they said they'd come back tomorrow morning at 9 to finish the gate. Oh, how I want it finished! They know Baasha comes home tomorrow: ) Then they asked if they could see our fish. The younger guy is an avid fisher, and I handed him our net and fishing pole I found in the basement. He asked for a hammer, a piece of bread, and a towel. Then I felt some sort of weird betrayal as he stuck the hook in the water and waited for a fish to bite. It didn't take long, he pulled out a gorgeous rainbow colored trout. He tapped it on the head to stun it, and then showed me what to look for in a healthy fish. He was just glowing, he was so happy to do this! I thought he wanted it, but he insisted I keep it. I said, "Well, take another!" but we'll do that during Easter break when he has more time. Then he showed me how to clean a fish. My goodness, I'm not sure I can do that...even with gloves. I mean, if I were hungry enough, yes, but...did you know, even with their heads removed, fish move? They twitch and squirm as if they still had heads. I jumped and they laughed so hard: ) He rinsed it and handed it to me and told me how to cook it, very specific instructions - no onions! No garlic! Just thyme and potatoes! ALso, they said to wait til tomorrow cuz you don't want to cook a fish with so much remaining energy in its nerves and muscles or it will be hard. It's kind of freaky to me that one of my beautiful fish is in our fridge right now, looking like a storebought fish, sadly devoid of organs (and hopefully, hopefully not wiggling around in there!).

Those guys were just so thrilled to do that, to show me that. I really can't wait for them to come back and repeat the process in front of my man! He'll trip out too I think!

OK I'll go get the hay bits off the driveway now and go sit up in the loft and carress my beautiful bales. Oh, and get this - they only cost 2.50 Euros per bale. Small bales, but 2.50! Sweet! I also got 10 big ones and they cost 3.50. They're almost as big as the big American rectangular ones.

***Update: I just went up in my loft and hung out with the hay, and OMGOSH it smells so good up there. I had no idea my loft could smell like that, I mean, it didn't occur to me. It's delicious smelling! I even tasted some but it was a little dry. I took some pics and did a little Internetting and I think those fluffy heads on the left are Mr. Timothy, and those less fluffy ones on the right are Mr. Orchard Grass. In the middle we have Mr. I-Have-No-Idea. Do any of you have an idea what kind of hay I have? I'm a novice, please inform me! Oh, but it smells sweet up there. I have to send my man up there when he gets home so he can enjoy the smell: )