Last year the children and I read all the way through the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. After moving to a farm the stories had a special meaning to us as we compared our life with hers. One section that really struck me was the depiction of haymaking with her father. Charles Ingalls had no sons that lived so his work was especially hard but Laura was more then willing to step in and help.
When we purchased our farm I was desperate to get on something, anything, but Proeun wanted at least 20 tillable acres. We held out and got luckily. But last year getting cover crop on all that bare land was pretty expensive. And that was a necessary expense we had not counted on. But this year it paid off. Originally we planned on purchasing our own equipment and making our own hay. It couldn’t be as bad as what Laura experienced right? Well luckily reason won out and we decided to list our hay field on Craigslist with payment in hay. It wasn’t long before we started getting calls. So we made arrangements for a local farmer to manage our fields and pay us in hay.
It was baled just in time. It was a little drizzly the next morning when we went out to count the bales and figure our cut. Looks like we will have enough hay to feed the goats all the way through the winter and maybe a horse, not this year but we are hoping next. So yeah the cost last year really paid off. And I love the look of all those bales in our field.