The grass was cut, rolled up and baled. It was an astonishing yield. Truly. These are giant, heavy, tightly rolled bales of prairie hay weighing at least 1000 lbs each.
No way.
No way could we have gotten that many bales out of this farm. But we did. I drove around, and walked around the bales over and over again blinking. It was stunning how much grass this ground produced.
We got 19 bales alone out of the over grazed horse pasture.
So that abused pasture, the one that has gotten pitiful moisture over the last full year, gave us 19 bales of hay. If each bale is about 1000 lbs, that makes about ten tons.
The established hayfield gave us more than three times more bales in addition.
“I don’t know how this is possible.” John said. “We have harvested twice as much hay here as that farm just 8 miles east, and your place is only a third of the size. I just don’t get it.”
And the rainfall total map shows 8 miles east having had more rain than we did!
“I think I do.” I said. “I have been going out to the portal nearly every morning to watch the sun rise and thank this beautiful blue planet for its life force. I think that God and the earth spirits, and Mother Earth herself, (maybe with extra dew in the morning?) somehow are helping keep this grass alive. I think they are all happy we are taking care of the land”
John said, “I think you must be right. There really is no other explanation.”
As I finish this post and this Days of DRY series, there are rain clouds to our north and to our east. I’m holding my breath, we still could use a bit more than prayers and dew around here.
You didnt say the actual number Mom. You got 34 smaller bales and 62 large ones in total. Which was, if you recall, 51 more bales than John originally guessed the fields would yield.
Thanks for clarifying the math my dear daughter.
Our hay man John, takes the lion’s share for payment for the cutting and baling, etc. So in total we put the lovely 19 big bales from the east pasture and the 34 smaller sized ones from the hay field in the barn. This should get us to next summer in fine shape. Especially since we use the hay nibbler nets and do not produce as much waste as “regular” feeding of big round bales.
The sun just went behind some clouds. Do you think we might have just a bit of rain?
I love this! thanks so much for sharing Candace.