We had problems this year.
Last year we made enough hay, so much so, that we sold a third of it and still are running on it today, 13 months later. I was joyous, I'd neve experienced such a perfect crop: we paid our farmer 600 Euros, helping ourselves, of course, with the harvest and stacking, and were able to sell about 300 Euros worth so we fed our animals for 300 for a full year.
This year it all changaed. Our farmer had health issues and couldn't mow our field. We had only one alternative and he flaked out on us.
So, it's been painful every day to go out there and see a hay field that could have fed so many animals, as hay, haylage, or silage for local cows. But no.
The fall-back farmer (who is the political/media presence for farmers in our city) finally came out and said we'd wasted everything, our hay is too old to harvest in any way - he said, taking a head of grass in his hands, "It's got mold already building inside - it's not a product I'd sell with a good conscience."
I thought, nonsense, last year we harvested 4 weeks earlier and all was fine. But I guess his reputation is on the line. He is, afterall, the leader of the Tractor Lights event every year, where farmers dress up their tractors in Christmas lights and go around our town passing every nursing home with a glorious display. He also is in the news regularly representing farmers' rights. I knew him from this Tractor Lights Christmas event cuz I work with the Red Cross. I work in the parade cuz they need us to mitigate problems that might occur with ppl riding on tractors without seatbelts, I guess. Anyway, this dude is an important figure in our city.
And he was condescending, telling us we need to get our act together and harvest our hay properly in June/July. Right, but this year we couldn't make it happen, so we paid way too much money to him for the mulching of our field, which was a terrible price to pay for such pure waste.
I walked across my field today and it smelled so sweet and perfect, I simply don't believe that it couldn't have been used in some way. Oh well, I'm just "city folk" as they call us here.
Before picture, last week:
The green grass is my animals' track system, which runs around our hay field.
It's hard to see the difference, I know, but the pasture has been mulched down to the ground and hopefully will recover and produce good hay next year.
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2 comments:
At least mulching will build nutrients into the soil. Seems good help is hard to find in your part of the world.
Thank you for giving us advice. We're not sure who to trust. The farmer said 2 weeks recovery time before letting the horses out on mulch, but my husband said he wants our field to recover....or, look green again before Winter. All the other fields around us have recovered, and just today a massive field was harvested for a 3rd time, wow, impressive! It's so interesting, how hay harvesting works, or, literally, just grass cuz this is not Eastern Washington where I relied upon when I had a horse living in Seattle. All those years I had no idea about what it took to grow hay to feed my horse. Now I'm the land owner, looking for reliable help to get hay out of it. We just spent a ton of money last week cuz we had no hay crop, and we need small bales to fit into our little lofts. But the important thing is the relationship with a good farmer, not the price. I thank God regularly for the abundance we live within. And so many around the world don't have safe drinking water, sigh.
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