Life on a Farm

Today, I am running the two hour extended beginner rider session (the non-riding portions, of course). A few weeks ago I put in hay which gave me terrible blisters on my hands. All my colleagues that I work with in a non-farm capacity couldn't understand why I didn't simply wear gloves and were very amused that I got the blisters even wearing gloves! As you can see from this picture, I did load 5 wagons onto the conveyor.

Obviously my kids and niece were enjoying the hay process and having a lot more fun than me.

We have about 1,000 bales in and need over 4,000 for the winter!

Today, though, I am thinking we will give Patty a bath.

Labels: farmers wife, Hay

Big farm day for me today. I actually rode a horse! Jacki and I had a lesson from Linda and it was great. My first time on Buck and I loved him. I could 'keep my seat' in the sitting trot and once I got the rhythm it was really enjoyable. We must have done well because Linda let us walk them out down around the track. It was one of those truly glorious afternoons and the horses were great and the company was fun ... couldn't have been a better summer afternoon.

No sooner were the horses put away then the hay wagons were filling up from the hay Kim cut in our field this week. It has been a harrowing hay season so far. So much rain that the fields are high and ready to be cut, but you can't get two or three days in a row to cut, dry, bale and put it in the barn. If hay gets wet it is ruined. The economics of hay and their intersection with weather are really interesting. Because the weather pattern is basically the same over an entire region, everyone has the same hay challenge which restricts supply and starts to drive up the price. Also, if you don't cut your field the first time (it is actually called 'first cutting hay' and you don't mix first and second cuts when you are feeding horses because they are different) early enough, you won't get a very significant second cut. That is what folks were starting to worry about. Optimally, you'd get your first cutting in the barn before the 4th of July.

Kim decided to cut Wednesday night -- taking the chance that the scattered showers would miss us. I sweated it out (especially yesterday with all the black clouds and light rain in Pittsfield) ... but it never did get wet and we now have about 750 bales of really nice hay. My hands are blistered from putting it in (even though I wore gloves!) and I am EXHAUSTED. And the daunting reality is we probably need a total of 4 or 5 THOUSAND bales of hay this year.

But right now I am a good tired ....

Labels: Buck, Hay

Last night Chuck and I were at a party with lots of local Williamstown residents. Many of them knew of our new farm business. And lots of people asked me, "Do you ride?" My answer is: I want to! But, lately, all my farm time is spent on business development (writing the blog, ramping up the website, getting us listed with the Williamstown Chamber of Commerce, getting the paperwork and programs ready for all our youth riders) or helping Chuck with things he has to do. Yesterday, I helped get more hay from Clarksburg. Chasing hay is an on-going thing around here. I will write more later about hay ... but it turns out to be why farmers are so obsessed with the weather. Not sure what farmers did before weatherbug and weather.com!

Trying to put pictures up with these posts as one way to show you more about our operation.

Labels: Hay, Riding