The hay exchange

Oh, the excitement! I saw our gate was open and all the hay had been sorted into rows this afternoon, so I knew something was up. I ran to get my man and the camera. For over an hour we had a front row seat in hay baling. It was awesome!









A tractor was carefully driving over the rows, and a big baling machine was picking up all the hay. What would come out?










Imagine our surprise when not a square bale, but a ROUND bale emerged! Doh! That means we won't be getting any of this hay. We have nowhere to store round bales. Some lucky horses are gonna get some prime hay, though, because the weather was just perfect these last few days.










In fact, this morning Carsten was here at 9 am turning the hay, and it was already warm out. I was spraying Baasha down with fly spray under the oak trees in the back corner when he arrived. By afternoon it was what most people call pleasant, and I call too warm. A driving wind was whipping through the oak trees, rustling them loudly. It was thrilling. I imagined that the wind was pulling the warm air right through our hay as it finished drying, and really making sure it was properly dried. This picture was taken this morning. A perfect haying day.



As the first round bale emerged, I hoped it would roll down the hill, I thought that would be funny, but no, the tractor driver was too careful where he let the bales out, so they rolled a bit and then stopped, darnit!









My man and I stood there hugging each other, fascinated with the process. I laughed, "No, WRONG SHAPE!" to the baling machine. We couldn't resist approaching a bale and touching it. They smell so good! I want one in my home!










We made a bet, my man and I. How many round bales would our 5 acres produce? I'll let any readers of this blog guess. Some of you may even make educated guesses! The funny thing is, it was a draw. My man said "I think we'll have more than X number of bales." and I said "I think LESS than X" Well, X was it. Too funny! Neither of us won that massage.









Then Carsten's dad arrived with the bale picker-upper tractor.














First he rights each bale, and then he stacks them on top of another, and then carries two at a time up to our gate, where we stood watching. All X of them: ) My man and I thought it would be fun to help him out by righting a few bales ourselves. It was hard! He was amused at our efforts.



Here he's getting two of them. My man does not want me to post this video so I hope he's not looking! (Cuz he was talking, but really, it's impossible to hear what he's saying!)









The neighbors slowed down as they drove by, to see what was happening.











Then Carsten arrived with the trailer. Good thing we got the 5 meter long gate, cuz he drove a tractor pulling not one but TWO flat bed trailers! They barely fit through. I was amazed. We had walked out to the street to talk to some neighbors when he arrived. That's why we're standing out there looking in.








Carsten and his dad deliberated for a while how they'd stack the bales on the trailers. Carsten totally seems like he's a Californian to me. Well, probably cuz no German is that tan, and normally Germans don't wear Hawaiin bead choker necklaces and Quicksilver surf shirts. Yah, Californian. When he speaks, he speaks a mile a minute and I have to ask my man what he said later.






Then Carsten's dad started placing the round bales carefully on the trailer with his tractor, and they started arguing about the correct method for doing this. It was so cute, Carsten would say, "You're doing it wrong father!" and his dad finally just jumped out of the tractor and said "It's all yours son" and he took over.









My, but Carsten can place those things accurately on the trailer! He gave them little nudges with the tractor, little taps that were so funny to watch, to get them to the centimeter in the right position, cuz they had to stack all X of them in one trip.









All the while, Baasha grazed in the lower grazing strip.











I picked three types of grass from the edge of our field and showed it to Carsten's dad, asking him the names for Timothy and Orchard Grass in German. I later snuck up the side of the tractor and stuck the lovely hay samples under the windsheild wiper. My man laughed.









See?











I took my chance to ask my question, "Is alfalfa hay grown in Germany?"

"HAHA! No! It's hard enough to grow HAY here!" (he meant grass hay) He said "That has to come from Holland." Oh well.

We asked if they'd like to do a second cutting (even though I really want my horse out there now!) and he said they'll come back in fall to see if it needs mowing, because it's not good if it gets too long before winter. Nice, I thought we might have to pay someone to come mow our field.

He did say we have a really good quality hay because it is practically weed free, and got good fertilizer early this year. (Sheep, and then a pelleted type.)

My man asked both of them if it is worth it to them to make hay on our field. Would they be able to make a profit? They explained gas prices a bit - how much it costs to run the tractors, and said that if they didn't have other fields nearby to harvest, it wouldn't pay off. But since they do, they can actually make a profit from our land. Good!

He said to give them a call when we're almost out of hay - we get a loft full for free because of this. Cool, huh? Would have been cooler to feed our own, but I like to think about the fancy warmbloods who will be enjoying our premium, weed free hay.

Driving away with lots of hay.












Our field, naked and empty. Ready for me to put up the electric wire and turn my horse loose for the first time! That will probably need to be blogged too, I think: ) Geez, I was gonna go riding tomorrow but now I'll be putting up wire. It's such a great feeling to finally have our field for our horse! But I can see us doing this every year - it's only 3 months that Baasha will have to stay off the field for hay making. Then it's all his. (Yah, even in winter.)




What we didn't notice was what changed in the field across from ours as we were too busy staring at our own. Here is a pic from this morning. I'd noticed they had mown it and got a picture of the grass lying down.








And here it is tonight - they'd "rowed" it into order, and here is Baasha between the two haying ventures.

The best thing about all of this isn't just that we get free hay, but that we've helped the community. We've helped the agricultural community here, and that feels great. Tomorrow it will feel great to Baasha: )