Gravity is our friend

Gravity is a big help when it comes to moving 30 tons of hay into the barn. Chris moved into "favorite child" status as he spent the day moving part of my 6 stacks of hay into the barn. I spent most of the time moving accumulated stuff to make room for the hay, moving pallets, and using gravity at the top of the stack, but I got to take a 2 hour break when I had people here for a weaving class.

This is Chris on top of the fourth stack.Here is what 10 tons looks like in the barn.

Gravity is a big help for my part of moving hay, but Chris gets to do all of the anti-gravity part. He moved about 17 tons of hay today...only 13 to go!

Green Gold

It's time to make a deal on winter-time hay. Here is the hay I'm going to buy.

I'm getting 5 stacks (80 bales each). This is what the rest of it looks like:

When you scape away the outer sun-bleached leaves you see the green beneath. This is very fine-stemmed hay and there will be minimal waste when feeding. Sheep don't like coarse hay and they leave a lot behind. At the price of hay this year, these stacks are like gold. The price of hay is a good reason to sell off excess sheep before the winter when I need to start feeding hay instead of pasture.

This the field where the hay was grown.

And here is a close-up of the plant when flowering.