Down on the farm: Hay from the rain

While you must always make hay when the sun shines, the hay is not there to be made unless it rains.

When we first moved up to take on working the farm in 1999, we had summers more like this one, with frequent rain and temperatures even cooler than we experience now. We hardly ever had to water the gardens, just as it was earlier this year.

But then we hit drought. Years and years and years of drought. Each year, it would start a month earlier, eventually beginning in March. We would water and water and water, but still the plants suffered. The pasture suffered even worse, turning brown and refusing to grow.

Grass is the largest crop we farm, which is all food for the animals — sheep, horse, guard donkeys, pigs. The bales are like the root cellar to them, stored up energy from summer sunshine for them to munch all through the long winter. It is more than essential — we cannot have our livestock without hay. Even though everyone is out on pasture all summer, eventually summer comes to an end.

In drought years, hay is scarce, not only for us but for everyone around us as well. Many years have left us scrambling to find hay to purchase, barely squeaking by, trekking distances with truck and trailer to load up and bring the feed home.

This year, at least, we are flush. Certainly, the rotational grazing and spreading of composted manure has made a huge difference, but the real tipping point has been the rain. Lots and lots and lots of rain. Yes, I’ve heard many folks complaining about the rain, but we are glorying in it! Our sandy soils on the farm means it drains well, so we have been spared the flooding, but the rain has brought the garden to exceptional glory and the hayfield to outrageous height in growth.

Haying season in July arrived, and still there was rain, which meant that making hay became a precarious endeavor. As soon as a few days of sunshine arrived, everyone was busy making their own hay, and we were on the waiting list. The fields waited so long, a second regrowth from below pushed up through the original stalks.

Kara lamented the over-maturity of the first growth. Not that stalkiness would go to waste. While the sheep won’t eat it, it is wonderful for the horses, so she scoops out the “rejects” and feeds the equine with this, and any excess makes good winter bedding for the pigs. Nothing will not be used. Still, it is hard to watch that first growth lapse beyond its prime.

At this point, we were so desperate for hay for the ewes still inside with their little lambs and other groups that needed it, Steve was going around the yard and pieces of the field, mowing down the grass with a trimmer and raking it up by hand into a trailer to haul back to the barnyard to limp us along. For hours I could hear the whirr of the motor as he swung it side-to-side like a powered scythe. We needed that grass, and hunger is a serious motivator.

At last, the crew came to cut, the large machines flying through the field. The grass was so tall it brushed the underside of the tractors. But the day that the rake made the windrows was when we could see just how much volume was there. The piles were huge! If we still were using our put-put equipment we once had from the mid 1900s, we would have been shearing pins left and right with the old baler! We were getting hay.

As Kara cracked into the first bales, she was surprised to notice that there were no seed heads present. These are a familiar part of the first crop, and these usually fall out and get stuck in the wool of the sheep. Picking these out of the fleeces at shearing time is an annual frustration, but now the bales were completely clean of these seeds. Kara shared this with the haying crew, and the consensus was that the seeds had fallen back onto the fields in the cutting process. Ironically, instead of taking this all away, those seeds may actually be able to help the fields grow back even thicker next year. It will be interesting to watch and see if that proves true!

Some years when the drought is intense, our fields produced 100 round bales. This year, it was about 330. It is a full-time job lately hauling them off the land (and a full-time job for Steve keeping the Bobcat running). Just like it’s a great feeling to have a well-stocked larder and root cellar going into winter, so too are these bales assurance for happy, well-fed livestock all year. Here’s to the rain we’ve had. What a blessing! See you down on the farm sometime.

Laura Berlage is a co-owner of North Star Homestead Farms, LLC and Farmstead Creamery. 715-462-3453; northstarhomestead.com.