Hay shortage

Our fish guy leaned on our gate and said, "Don't ya know about the 7 year slumber? This is it. There's no hay this year."

We'd wondered why our hay guy doesn't answer his phone the last 2 weeks, and then the phone gets picked up, and then disconnected repeatedly when we try again.

I've always called him "our slacker hay guy" but that he won't even talk to us about the shortage is pretty bad.

True, it has rained almost every day this Summer, and most of Spring. We had a dry spell in May just like last year, but now it's all mud and slop.

For the first time the slacker didn't even show up to drag our field, or fertilize. Has he given up on us?

I took our animals off the field months ago, and we have a crop ready to bale. If only he'd do it.

The field across the street was baled in early May (wow). And as I type this, they are doing a second cutting (smart farmers).

I asked J what we should do, and he's loathe to just show up again at the slacker's fancy barn and "steal" hay in 2 day increments (we have a Prius). It's uncomfortable when the people there say, "Who are you and why are you taking our hay?"

So I understood. Instead J called a colleague who has a riding school near Wuppertal and she agreed to give us some hay. Hay? Not quite. I think you know where this is going.

And yesterday J helped me build a third grazing strip, to continue to preserve our pasture for hay making if that is indeed going to happen this year.

I'd never made a grazing strip in the fullness of growth. It was up to our waists, but we did it. Then J had the joyful experience of opening the gate and letting Mag and Bellis on this belly-high grass.

Bellis chose to eat only the seed tips off the grasses, of which I counted 4 varieties. Mag was stuffing it all in his mouth as fast as possible.




We normally mow along our fence lines but this year it's been raining/storming almost every day, and the grass has gotten out of control. I cannot mow grass that is hip high with a lawn mower.




Mag rolled, twice, leaping up twirling around happily, that must feel good, a deep bed of grass.









As we went to the field to build the strip, J called to our cat to follow us, and she did! She trotted along the street side beside us, and then entered our field. I cracked up, and J was grinning. She loves it when I go to the pasture, she follows. But for J to go, that's something special, so she wanted to be there.

Eventually we lost her in the hay.



Bellis spent the entire first hour eating only the grains off the tips of the hay.





That night J had another Kabarett performance (social satire theater at his high school). When he finally returned, he said he had hay for us, in my bale bag. That was when I found out it's not hay.

It's haylage.

Foreboding music.

I don't feed haylage. It kills, if you don't take precise care of it, and you have no idea it's poisonous until it's too late.

Oh, the stank of it. Pickled hay. Disgusting.

But my animals eagerly scarfed up a handful.

I researched online and I think we have 2 days to feed it before it is deadly. In Summer you only have up to 7 days to feed an opened shrink-wrapped bale, and we can only guess when it was opened. And it's hot and humid out.

As J and I stood leaning on our gate on the street, watching Mag and Bellis enjoy this new strip, the husband of the lady with the pristine arena stopped his Ford Ranger to chat. I don't understand a word that ex-jockey guy says, but J had a nice talk with him.

It turns out there's no hay. His wife had to drive 100 km to find hay. I wondered, cuz they have their own hay pasture, but they cannot bale it yet because of this incessant rain. (However right now I'm listening to a tractor cutting hay next to our house. To shrink-wrap to silage, probably.)

I decided to feed the haylage as fast as possible, but let my animals choose haylage or new grass. I'm praying fervently that they do not become ill from this change.

Mag stood there tonight half asleep letting me clean his hooves, he seems fine. The donkey cannot stop eating the haylage, it's so much sweeter and more tender than hay. (Indeed, when you stuff it into a hay sack, it is incredibly soft and the first thing you notice is "wow, no dust" because even the best hay has dust. This is the benefit of haylage - there is no dust for horses who are sensitive.) But wow it stinks. My paddock smells like every other barn in Germany at the moment. You do get used to it, over time, but I haven't yet.

I have been working with Mag every day in different ways, clicker training, sacking out, hoof handling, massage, girthing up. No problem.

I'm still waiting on Katharina's reply to my request for regular lessons in her arena.

Meanwhile, I got an SMS from the lady up the hill with the fancy arena (whose husband stopped by), "Did I see you go to that riding stable!??"

Yes she did. She's on vacation so she can see everything from her vantage point on the top of the hill. I told her I'd already emailed her about it, but I'm starting to learn that people don't prefer email these days to communicate.

We'll see what happens.

Our fish guy said he intercepted an official complaint against us in the city government, that our ponds are not meeting standards. That he assured was put in the shredder. What huh? The accuser is someone who showed up at our doorstep a few weeks ago asking if he could adopt the care of our fish ponds, seeing how neglected they are. True, they are not in good shape, but our fish guy has promised to show up more regularly.

We had no idea. The right thing to do would be to talk to the land owner, before filing a complaint, correct? Hm.

Instead our fish guy has been showing up more often, and J requested that he do what he contracted to do - care for the ponds and the area around them (mowing). I haven't seen much improvement, but I'm glad he is taking an interest again, after he claims he lost 400 trout (to what?).

He told me yesterday that these other fish guys have been trespassing on our land, around our ponds, moving pipes around. If that's so, I'm upset. I have fences and gates, don't people understand what they represent? I asked what I can do. He said nothing now, let's just catch him in the act.

I told him I'm glad he's on our side. If ...if he is. How can I know?


So much grass.



And so much poop to try to scrape free of it.

I wonder if there really is NO hay.

Our animals won't starve, if that's true, but we usually make hay and earn free hay in return....it would be bad if this deal ended for us. And how long will our pasture feed them? Hm...

Oh, Germany won last night against Italy so I was anxious to get out of bed this morning to go check, since they spent the night next to our street and at midnight I heard the revellers partying and blowing horns. I finally said, "I must go check on them. I must see if my animals are painted red yellow and black!"

J laughed and said, "Gold! Red, gold and black!"

OK then.