Tuesday, January 24, 2012

victory in the great hay hunt

One of my biggest concerns since my boarding situation changed has been hay. This is the worst time of year to try and find hay, especially GOOD hay. If my horse weren't one with refined taste in hay, I would be just fine. However, Lucy likes green second cut grassy hay, preferably with small leaves, dancing kitties frolicking around the bales, and sparkly bailing twine.

While I was not able to find creme de la creme second cut, I found a pretty bangin' first cut today, and wouldn't you know, it was right down the street from my house. I bought it from a cow farmer and when we first spoke about hay, I asked him for some details on the hay he was selling. He is apparently a man of few words so it took a bit of prodding to get all the information I needed from him, but I had to laugh when he asked what kind of horse I had.

"She's a Thoroughbred, and she's fairly picky."

"Well that's your fault if your horse is picky!"

Alright, fair enough...

Anyway, he turned out to be a pretty cool guy and I bought two test bales from him late last week, and then another 20 bales today, which was as much as I felt comfortable stacking in the truck when I had no rope to tie everything down with. The drive to the barn was very short and I drove like a human sloth (sooooo slow and soooooo careful), but the good news is that no bales were lost in transit!

Kenny's truck doing truck-like things. One of the guys who work in the same
building as I do said "Nice truck" to me today. Did I say, "Thanks, it's my
husband's"? HELL NO!

 It is so nice and soft that it could totally pass for second cut. I hope the horse is fooled and that she eats every last morsel. There is not much I hate more than throwing hay away because Miss Princess doesn't find it good enough for her!

ahh, the joys of rough boarding. take stacking a bunch of hay for instance! and
then you get home, take off your boots, and a bunch of hay is stuck to your socks.
then you look in the mirror and realize you have hay in your hair. then you
get dressed for bed and realize you have hay down your shirt. SO much joy!

A broken bale: the ultimate hay party foul.

I was so proud of myself for hoisting that last
level of hay up onto the stack. It was about 2' taller
than me! Yay muscles.

7 comments:

  1. Arg, the joys of winter hay! Leo also has a very refined hay palate too, and our hay stock-up is rapidly approaching ... sigh.

    I'm seriously impressed with the stacking of the last bale, good job!

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  2. Ahhh, the joys of finding hay. I feel your pain. Lucky for Lucy, she has an awesome mom. The hay guy sounds like a trip. Mine doesn't say much either - must be a prerequisite!

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  3. Glad you found some good hay. I would be paranoid about wastidge too...maybe a haynet is in order lol

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  4. Haha! I always make fun of my friend for making her horses picky! They only eat alfalfa with timothy, with leaves that are the size of quarters and those shining strings you talked about! ;)

    My horses will eat anything. Except, I do make sure it isn't the same ol 'cow hay' the cows get. If you look at it like that then my horses are spoiled with pretty coastal :)

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  5. The only thing worse than stacking hay in the winter when you can't feel your fingers anymore is stacking hay in the summer when every little hay particle and dust sticks to your sweat (and goes down your tank top of course).

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  6. Lol, our hay guy talked our ear off and wouldn’t let us leave when we picked up our hay the last time. When we left my hubby and I were like “what did we even talk about for the last hour?” We are pretty lucky that we have plenty of great hay in the area so getting our little hands on it is simple, plus my bosses let us borrow a great big flatbed trailer so we can really stock up!

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  7. Gah. I HATE when my horses turn their nose up at hay that I spend big $$ on. The frustrating thing with my mares is they are happy to munch on a new hay for a few weeks, then they get bored of it and either ignore it, or worse, they leave lovely piles of manure and urine in it!!

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