We picked up our first load of 2010 second cut hay yesterday! We usually get our first load of hay in late August, so this is early and very welcome!
It always feels so good to start putting up hay for the season. You have to keep in mind that we don’t have pastures available year ’round in Vermont; they’re usually covered with snow for months. So we depend on hay to feed our alpacas during the winter. The weather can wreak havoc with haying – too much rain and it won’t dry, fields are too wet for tractors, etc. The weather’s been cooperating so far this year and allowed farmers to get in first cut early and gave us some good drying weather this week to start on second cut.
Putting up hay is not a fun job. Hay doesn’t dry well on cold, rainy days, so it’s HOT on haying days. Ron picks up the hay in the field or from the wagon and the two of us stack it in our hay mow. So he gets to handle it twice – throwing it in the trailer and throwing it to me in the hay mow. My job is to stack it in the mow. That’s not too bad when we start, but as the layers pile up and I’m working higher and higher up in the mow, it gets really hot! And hay bales are really scratchy, so you want to have pants and long sleeves, but can’t stand it because of the heat. Which means you end up with “hay rash”. And the bales are heavy. But the smell of fresh hay is heavenly and the satisfaction of having a full mow, ready for winter can’t be beat.