It's Haying Time!

One of the appealing aromas around the farm (and there are plenty of unappealing!) is the smell of fresh-cut alfalfa.  Watching the hay fold under the discbine, coming out the back in a nice neat windrow is a blessing to behold as you begin to calculate just how far up the silo will be filled after completing this field.  After our cool wet spring, we knew that atleast we'd have a plentiful first crop to begin our haying season with.  Believe it or not, we are now coming up short on rainfall and could use a healthy dose of it.  We have one-half of a twelve acre hay field mowed down now, half for baling and half for chopping.  The silo is nearing the top, so we top it off with one or two loads a day until completely full, because each day it settles a door or two. 

The cows sure lick up this new cutting of hay!  After eating the hay from the haymow all winter and spring, having a new taste of fresh hay in their mouths is something that brings them in from pasture in a hurry.  They quickly step into their stalls and bury their noses in the sweet smelling alfalfa and forget all their worries of the day.  By having dry hay on their bellies before we give them haylage and grain, we create a cushion that rests on the bottom of their stomach that lets the "wet" feed filter through it as it slowly digests.  This system of having a filter allows the heavier and more dense feed to digest more slowly, releasing the nutrients into their system rather than "slugging" through heavy forage and grain right away.  This also allows the cow to chew her cud much longer, giving her system a more continuous flow of digestive compounds, thereby raising our butterfat and protein.

Happy, healthy cows is what we strive for.  We are constantly reading and watching for best practices that allow our girls to live long productive lives.  Just watching the last cow fade out of sight as she follows the herd over the hill to pasture each day is satisfying enough.  We know that they'll begin to meander back up to the barn when the afternoon sun begins to fade, waiting at the cowyard gate for us to open it up and let them come into the barn for evening milking, beginning the cycle once again.

A Weekend Drive

Nothing beats a weekend spent camping with the daughter and a good horse.  OK, maybe you have something that you really enjoy doing, but for this farmer, getting away for just a couple of days, no clock to live by, outdoor cooking and some good trails to follow are what fills my tank back up, giving me the outlook I need to go back to the farm and take up my place again.

Farmerette and I packed up our gear, horse and road cart and headed north.  Each Memorial Day weekend, we travel north to meet up with our harness club for a fun weekend of driving, campfires and good food.  We have friends that we look forward to seeing each year up there.  The group of people that bring their horses and carts are very knowledgeable horse people who take very good care of their horses.  They care deeply for their horses and all are well fed, well trained, and enjoy the atmosphere of being out for a new adventure.  No drunken poker run trail riders here.  Which is nice.  We don't do those rides.

After arriving, we made sure our mare was settled in her outdoor corral, then unpacked the harness and cart.  We set up our table with our camping gear and made the gooseneck of the trailer into our home away from home.  A cooler well-stocked with food and a coleman stove are enough to get us through the weekend.  After getting camp set up, we had time to get in a couple of games of badminton.  We had wanted to harness up for a quick drive before dark, but it had started to rain lightly, so we decided to see what the weather held for the next day.

And what a beautiful day for driving it was!  I saddled up and took an early ride just to settle my mare down while Farmerette made a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon.  Once we had finished up breakfast and tidied up the camp, we hitched up and headed out on the northbound trail with some friends and their horses.  What a blast!  Beautiful!

The trails are nice and wide, accomodating the width of the wheels of our carts.  Whenever we would slow down and give the horses a break at the walk, we'd get the camera out and snap some pictures of the scenery around us.  The county maintains this area of 4,000 acres.  Some of the old timers refer to it as the pine barrens or bird sanctuary.  Back in the 40's to mid 70's, this used to be a bird dog trial and training area.  The geography is different here than our usual pine and oak forest around home.  This area is quite open with scrubby oak and an occaisional small pine.  The habitat is a bit different from home here also, but the bear, coyote, deer and wolf are frequent visitors also - just like home.

The black horse above is ours, while our friends ahead of us are driving an arab mare with their spotted pony following behind.  We call it "ponying".  This is a good way to exercise more than one horse and for getting a young horse used to heading out away from camp, accomodating them to the rigors of what they will encounter on the trail.  We had left our pony home, but would like to bring him along on a future trip.

After an enjoyable weekend of driving and just plain fun, we packed up and headed back down the road in the direction of home.  It's so hard to leave such a beautiful place, but we are so thankful that the state and county maintain such a nice, clean place to camp and enjoy our horses.  We hope that it will remain accessible for many years to come!