2008 Fall Hay Crop: Done

Our hay is all done. John spent seven hours on the tractor yesterday at Brown Farm and Smith Farm. He raked and our hay-partner followed him and baled. Haying is labor intensive. Fortunately the day was sunny and hot and dry, perfect hay-making weather.

Last week, Polecat Creek Farm was done. Last fall, because of the drought, the whole farm produced only eight bales. This year was much better, but still not as good as some past years. Here are the bales at the end of the top field on October 3. The speck of blue above the tree-line is Smith Mountain.


Close up, the bales look like this:


On Sunday morning, Maggie and Hubert inspect the newly baled rolls on Brown Farm:


Another view of the Brown Farm bales:


Hay in the side field at Smith Farm waits to be raked and then baled:


Maggie and Hubert raced across the back field at Smith Farm field before John raked the hay:


It's nice to have a fall cutting. What we sell will help off-set the expense of liming and fertilizing the fields. Thanks to the sky-rocketing cost of fertilizer this year (twice as much as the year before), I doubt we'll break even, but at least we won't be as much in the hole as last year.

This is the first year I can remember that people made hay in October. Usually hay-making is done in September. If we hadn't gotten the recent rain, we wouldn't have had much hay to cut.

September's hurricanes hurt people to the south. The rain we received from those hurricanes helped the hay here.

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