Hay dilemna (tl;fa*)

(*too long, fell asleep) It was so perfect when we moved here in 2008, Carsten ("California guy") made hay on our field, and instead of paying us, gave us hay.
But over the last few years things got complicated. He stopped making small bales, which we require, having no tractor, and so he'd have to always go get it from another hay farmer whenever we called for hay. And we called, and called, and called, with no return call until weeks had passed. We learned how to deal with him, calling several weeks in advance, but it just got worse and worse. I blogged a month ago that we walked by his house, saw him, and asked for hay. Since then my man has been calling every few days. I have a backup though! Our fish guy/general contractor has some really nice hay. Since I knew I could not trust Carsten to bring hay before we were completely out, I asked him last Sunday to please bring us by a few bales, and tack it on our next bill for whatever. He's semi-reliable, but not great. The irony is, his website says, "Reliability brings trust." which now, of course, I have to quote everytime he lets us down. I'd say he's "semi-reliable", but he has a contract with us and his very expensive investment of trout in our ponds, so we must remain on good terms, as he's here for the next 5 years, taking care of our ponds. Anyway, the thing is, our fish guy was a crappy backup. Sunday he said he'll bring a couple of bales over the next day. Thursday we were completely out of hay and when I got home from work, and saw no hay... My man called him up at 8 pm and said, "You promised to bring some over and now we have none." He was pissed that we called him after a hard day of work, and though he'd forgotten to bring it by, he just said that I should drive over to his colleague's house and ask for 2 bales. I put the hay bag in the Prius and drove over to find a dark house. The hard part was the overwhelming smell of fresh hay wafting from the enormous hay barn next to the house, hay that my horse/donkey would have liked to have that night. I knocked, no answer. I drove home, and told my man, "No one was there..." and then broke into tears. I guess I had my hopes so high that on this day, we'd have hay from one of these people, and now ..no hay. So fish guy promised my man to bring a couple bales by in the morning. My man said I'd be here til 9 am so I can feed it. If he's later than that, would he please put some hay out for the animals? Of course no one was here at 9:15 this morning as I drove to work. But at some point fish guys brought over two bales and threw them into our work shed. He did not give any to Baasha and Bellis. That evening, California boy shows up with 45 bales of hay, 4 weeks late. The good news is it's edible hay. Our last delivery in July, of 20 bales, was so crappy, so musty, that the vet actually wrote it on the bill for Baasha's exam last week, saying, "Hay leaves something to be desired." (Not outright rotten, but on its way.) I still have this feeling that the less-than-fresh hay is responsible for Baasha's digestive upset lately. We'll see! ** My man and Carsten had a long talk. I guess Baasha nibbled on his coat during the talk, and Carsten actually touched my horse for the first time. I always suspected him as someone who doesn't really *like* horses, due to the fact that in all Baasha's attempts, he never acknowledged him. (He's a successful show jumper, but I see that horses are his family business so there doesn't seem to be any feeling there.) Like I act around a dog that runs up and jumps on me, he ignores my horse. However, when the donkey walked up, he made mention. My man, noticing the difference, said, "Oh, you like donkeys better than horses?" (hehehehe, I'm so glad he said that, I would have said the same thing, had I been here.) I guess Carsten finds us an unlucrative solution, and I get that. He only made 22 round bales off our field last year, and had to go hunting down small bales for us, and actually pay for them, cuz his small baler machine is broken. So my idea is, screw Carsten, I'll buy hay elsewhere from someone reliable. He can pay us 100E a year to make hay here. (Actually, it helps us a lot that he makes hay here, simply cuz he fertilizes, drags, reseeds, and grooms our field so it's beautiful year round. If he did not make hay here, we'd have to pay some farmer to come drag the field, and mow the roughs. It wouldn't be as pretty.) But my man says that Carsten wants to deal. He wants to figure out how much he has to pay to bring us small bales, and deduct what he earns from our field, and charge us the difference. ** There simply must be money paid for hay, because getting it for free put us in a position where we were trapped into being the last priority in his life. I'd rather pay the money and some say in the matter. I don't know what's gonna happen. I have to rely on my man to communicate with both Carsten and our fish guy, cuz they don't communicate with me in a way I can fully understand. But right now we have some lovely first and second cutting that my equines are thrilled to have. It's a joy to feed again.
(PS The photo is gimped for sharpness, I wanted to see the sky/grass in Baasha's eye more clearly.)