From the Field to the Loft

On Friday afternoon, I thought of one of Aesop's fables entitled the Ant and the Grasshopper that I used to read as a boy.  It taught of the virtues of hard work and expending effort now to plan for needs in the future.  I think that story is a good one.  The reason I was thinking of that fable was our task for the afternoon - picking up hay!

Right now, despite the heat and lack of rainfall, the cows and goats still have grass to eat.  That could quickly change if we don't get rain soon.  As insurance, I stopped mowing a portion of the yard so we will have some extra grass if the pasture peters out.  Putting in hard work now and planning now for the winter when there is no grass is always the smart play.

We have purchase hay from the same family down the road for a decade and a half now, and I got a call from out neighbor down the road that they'd be baling hay.  If we show up and pick up bales behind the baler, the price per bale is $8. If we pick it up from their barn after they collected it, the price is $9 per bale.  I told her we'd be picking up behind the baler.  They asked if we could be there shortly after lunch.

I checked the air in the tires of the old trailer.  I was doing the math on it, and I think my grandpa bought that thing in 1976, so it's 50 years old!  I also killed a couple of big wasp nests inside the trailer with some gas.  We hooked up the truck and drove a mile and a half down the road.  We drove down the long driveway and directly into the pasture.  They were busy baling.  The American Flag on the back of the baler was a nice touch.  God Bless America!

The hay had been cut and fluffed the previous day and today the baler was working, leaving square bales lying all over the field.

Tricia is the driver.  Her job description is to drive between the rows of hay and stop when the bales are lined up with the back of the trailer.

The rows are pretty close together so she has to be watchful.

When she stops, my job is to lift the bales into the trailer, stacking them up high and tight.  As I lift each bale I holler the current count of bales and Tricia repeats, so we keep accurate count.

It didn't take long before the trailer was full.  Then we started loading up the truck.  When we had 75 bales in, we called it a day.  The old truck had quite a load and I didn't want to risk breaking the springs.

We paid our neighbors (75 bales @ $8 per bale = $600) and visited with them for a bit.  We started off buying the hay from the Grandpa long ago.  He's passed away and now the daughter and grandson run the operation.  I told Danielle that her Daddy would be proud of them, keeping the family tradition going.  When we pulled out, the center part of the field was wide open.  It once was filled with square bales.  Now they're loaded up and heading a mile and a half east where we'll unload them.

That was hot, hard work, but the fun isn't done yet.  Our young men, Russ and Benjamin, volunteered to help us get the bales stored away in the hayloft in the barn.  This is old-fashioned, manual work!  We have a pulley and a rope on a 4x4.  The rope has a bungee cord on it.  Tricia and Russ unload the hay bales from the truck and trailer and hook them to the bungee cord.

Benjamin and I are up in the loft.  Benjamin pulls the hay up by tugging on the rope.  Each bale weighs around 50 pounds.  I guess I'll stop right here and tell you how good God is.  You are looking at a miracle.  Two years ago Benjamin broke his back and both bones in both legs.  He has titanium rods in both legs and in his back.  Yet here he is, doing work that lots of people can't do.  Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!!

As he pulls each bale up, I unhook it from the bungee cord and slide it down and stack it in the loft.  We both must be very careful to not bang our heads (it always happens!) on the rafters and to not fall through the hole in the floor where the ladder leads up.  That would be tragic.  I need to build a trap door.

We counted the bales, reminding each other when 25% of the bales were in the barn and so on and so forth.  When we finished up, we drank cold water and cooled off.  It always feels good to have this behind us.

The hay is in the barn!  There is something to be said about the satisfaction you get in having family together, working toward a common goal with good teamwork and completing the job.  The hay will sit here until December probably before we start feeding hay to the animals.  The ant works all summer in the fields gathering food for the winter months.  The grasshopper, on the other hand, sings and fiddles and dances all summer and makes fun of the ant for working.  But winter is coming.  We remind ourselves that we want to be like the ant and not the grasshopper.

Once the job is done, the ant also has the satisfaction of seeing a beautiful view looking out the opened doors of the hayloft at the top of the barn.

If the Good Lord is willing, we'll be doing the same thing next year at this same time.

One Call, That's All

We are down to the last 20 square bales of hay up in the loft.  That's about a 10 day inventory.  We rolled out the last round bale of hay in early February.  The spring grass that's coming up in the pasture is being gobbled down just as quickly as it comes up.  I planted seven rows of turnips, so we're supplementing the cows and goat's hay and feed with turnips and turnip greens.  Probably this weekend, I'll put up the temporary electric fencing in the yard and let the cows graze down the winter grass and white Dutch clover growing in the yard.  It's a stretch to get us to spring when the grass comes in.

So for 'insurance' I called a friend that we always purchase our round bales from and on Saturday morning, he delivered 10 round bales to us.  We rolled them off of the trailer and lined them up ready to be rolled out to the cows and goats.  We may not even need these bales until late fall this year if the grass comes in, but it's best to have them just in case.

You can't just leave good hay exposed to the rain, sun and weather and expect to have good bales for your animals if you don't protect them.  Our old tarp made from a recycled outdoor billboard lasted 20 years before it deteriorated.  Time for a new one.  I went to the outdoor advertising office to inquire about buying one.  I found our that they don't sell them.  Somehow or another (thank you, Lord!) at the end of the conversation, the gentlemen kindly had me drive around back, and I loaded a HUMONGOUS tarp (recycled vinyl outdoor billboard) into the back of my car to take home.  As it turns out, I used to go to church with a nice lady that worked there at the billboard company.  

I got the sign (tarp) home and Saturday night I unrolled it and covered all ten bales with the new tarp.  The tarp should keep the hay well-protected and dry until we need to uncover and roll them out.  I need to do a better job of weighing down the tarp with something to keep it from blowing off of the hay in high winds. 

There's only one downside about the tarp:  It's the sign advertising the services of a personal injury lawyer.  "Hurt?  Call the hurtline."  "Call So and So and Get it Done"  "One call.  That's all."  Everyone's gotta make a living, I get it, but these guys are a prime reason why no one can afford car insurance.  I wish they'd all go away.  Since I don't want to see the ambulance chaser's face everyday telling me "no fee paid unless settlement is made," I think I'm going to flip the sign upside down tomorrow.

Besides the bright yellow sign is a little too gaudy.  The back side is white, I think, and will blend in a little better instead of standing out.  Have you ever wondered why billboard attorneys use signs with yellow, red, and black on them?  Studies have conclusively proven that billboards with yellow, red, and black backgrounds are the most eye-catching signs.  They grab your attention at high speeds because they contrast with most surroundings.  Red communicates urgency and excitement and passion, studies show.

Yeah, I'm flipping the sign over with the quickness.  We (and the cows) like a more peaceful, pastoral atmosphere.

Rolling Out the First Bale - DEC 2025

On December 7th we rolled out the first round bale for the cows and goats.  They were happy to see the gate open.  Thanks to the lime, our pasture held up really good this year.  We had a fair amount of grass, even when neighboring ranchers' grass was poor.  I give the lime application the credit.  We'll do it again this spring.  By December, however, the animals had eaten the grass down and were anxious for the hay they know we have stockpiled for the winter fight outside the fence.

Each year we purchase 10 round bales from a gentleman who delivers them to our home for $40 per bale.  We roll them out in a double row on the property line between our house and the neighbor to the east of us.  We cover it with a tarp.  We noticed that we need to buy a new tarp as ours are in rough shape and did a mediocre job of protecting the quality of the hay.  We were using a really old repurposed outdoor advertising vinyl billboard sign and also a tarp from Harbor Freight that disintegrated.  I'm making calls to Lamar Outdoor Advertising to see if they have any old vinyl signs for sale that I can use as a tarp.

The hay ring is a must to try to keep the hay protected and attempts to keep waste to a minimum.  However, the cows and goats are especially messy eaters.  They waste about a quarter of each bale, pulling it out, dropping it on the ground, stepping on it and then pooping and peeing on it.  The goats, once about half of the bale is eaten, like to hop on top of the bale and sleep.  Of course, they poop on it and then the cows and goats won't eat it.  I'm thinking about putting up a gate and only allow them access to the hay for short periods during the day, so that they only eat and don't lounge around.

We have about 68 square bales in inventory in the hay loft and (now) nine round bales in inventory for the winter.  I'll be calling the gentleman who sells us the round bales for another order of 10 bales in a month or two.  We've found that a round bale lasts about six days before they animals have finished as much as they are going to eat.  We feed them a little sweet feed over the winter, but if they're not in milk, we generally just make sure they have hay to eat.  I do have plenty of turnips planted in the garden to feed them as well.

First Frost 2025

Sometimes the weather forecast is right on the money.  And then other times, they totally miss it.  I can understand.  Weather has a lot of variables and conditions that affect it.  In planting crops, I like to have a pretty good idea of when to plant things in advance of a rain, so that the crop will be watered in.  It hasn't rained in several weeks now, so I'm a little concerned about the crimson clover that I planted.  The ground is as hard as a basketball court.  I don't know how the crimson clover will germinate and grown on that!

I also like to know when high winds are coming and, of course, when a freeze or frost is coming.  We have lots of tomatoes on the vine that I'd pull if a freeze was coming.

But frosts...  What about those?  Frost won't damage most of the stuff still growing in the garden from the spring, like tomatoes and peppers.  I looked up the Farmer's Almanac for the first frost date for our location.  I put in our zip code and it said: "The average first frost date is November 9"  November 9th came and went with no frost, but...

We woke up on the morning of November 11th to this:

It was a good first frost.  Not enough to damage anything in the garden, but enough to slow down any new grass growth in the pasture.

The cows, goats, and chickens will continue to clean up the last remaining grass and then it will be time to start supplementing with hay.  Last year we rolled out the first round bale on January 1st.  I'm thinking this year will be sooner to hay the cows.  At the bee club meeting, some of the beekeepers were saying that the bees were completely stopping up all the holes in their bee boxes with propolis, and they are reading that as a prediction that a cold winter is on the way.  Who knows?  Weather forecasters, Farmer's Almanacs, and beekeepers can all be wrong.  We'll have to wait to find out.

Make Hay While the Sun Shines

Timely rains coupled with the positive effects of the first year in 24 that we limed the pasture resulted in plenty of grass in our pasture. We are a small homestead farm, raising animals to primarily feed our family.  Allan Nation, of Stockman Grass Farmer, once said, "Don't measure success by acres owned or animals counted-measure it by the health of your soil, the resilience of your land and the life it sustains."  In short, he's saying, you're not an animal farmer, you're a grass farmer!

When grass stops growing, you've got to still have grass in a stockpile.  We do that by purchasing hay.  Each year we buy hay from two sources - a neighbor down the road grows good Bermuda hay that he primarily grows for horses.  It is usually clean and the cows and goats enjoy eating it in the cold days of winter when there's not a green blade growing.  We also buy round bales from a rancher who grows quality Bermuda hay and follows the principles of Allan Nation, resulting in the production of reliable hay.

We got the call from the neighbor growing round bales that they would be baling the following afternoon.  If we pick it up behind the baler, it's $7 per bale.  If we pick it up from their barn, it's $9 per bale.  You already know which option we chose.  It's funny how things change in a year.  Last year, following my heart surgery, I was out of commission, unable to lift hay.  My Dad, my brother-in-law, my sons, my wife, and my brother-in-laws sons had my back - literally, as they got the hay in the barn.  This year, all healed up, Tricia and I hooked up the cattle trailer and made the mile drive to the neighbor's hay field.  They had started baling at 12:30 pm and had around 100 bales already on the ground.

This year, the neighbor had a new baler.  The bales were smaller, but tightly packed.  I liked the fact that he had affixed Old Glory to the back of his baler and the flag was blowing in the wind.  I'm glad to give my money to Patriotic Americans proud of their country and still working and enjoying an agricultural way of life.  We had originally purchased from the neighbor's grandfather, who has now passed on, but his grandson picked up the hay baling responsibilities and was carrying on the responsibilities.

Tricia drove the truck.  It is a 2000 model Toyota PreRunner with 254,000 miles still going strong.  It still blows cool air, and that's important for the driver, my wife, who wasn't enthused about me trying to get a photo of her.

She was pulling the cattle trailer.  I think it is a 1976 model, originally painted a goldish-yellow color, and was my grandfather's.  It has some rust and is showing its age, but it still gets the job done.  As Tricia drove between the bales, my job was to load the trailer with bales of hay.  The hay had been cut the day before, cured in the sun, fluffed and now, it was baled.

We still have 16 square bales from last year, so according to our calculations, we'd need 60 bales to get our inventory where we want it to be in the hay loft.  We got our 60 bales loaded in just under 30 minutes, paid the neighbor, and drove back to the house.

The job was far from over though.  Now, we had to get it up in the loft.  We backed the trailer up to the barn, affixed the pulley and rope to the 4x4 that is positioned over the door.  The rope has a bungee cord with hooks on one end.  I lower the rope, Tricia hooks a hay bale on and I pull it up to the loft.  The other end of the rope has a circle on it.  When I pull it up, I put the circle over a nail I have driven in a rafter.

The sun was going down and we had to work fast.

With the circle over a nail, the bale is held in place, allowing me to run to the edge and unhook the hay bale.

I slide each bale down to the end of the loft and begin stacking it.  The 2x12 lumber that makes up the floor of the loft has been rubbed smooth over the years by hay sliding across it.  If my math is right (that's a big if), this will have been our 18th year of putting up hay in the loft.

We count as we go and before the sun went down, the 60th bale came up the pulley!

We had previously dropped down the 16 bales still remaining from last year's crop into a stall in the barn.  Using LIFO (last in first out) accounting method, we'll use the old hay first in feeding this winter.

All the hay is packed nicely up in the loft.  We can get 3 bales stacked across and four high or 12 bales per stack.  It fits snugly, but nicely up there.

It was good to get the job done.  Tricia and I slept good that night.  After a hard day's work, a sound sleep in a comfortable bed is a relaxing and rewarding experience.  You put up stores while the weather is nice in preparation for upcoming days when the weather won't be nice.  Joseph did this same thing in Genesis when he put up grain in the 7 years of plenty in preparation for 7 years of famine that would affect Egypt and surrounding countries.  God gave him wisdom and in so doing, many lives were saved.  You gotta make hay while the sun shines.

A Mountain of Love

In 1979 country music singer, Ronnie Milsap, recorded "Mountain of Love" which reached #2 on the Country charts.  As I was building my "mountain" shown in the photo below, this song was on my mind.  The mountain I constructed consisted of live oak leaves and grass that I had mowed in the yard and then raked up, put in a wagon and dumped right behind the wood chip mulch pile.  I'll let all this compost for a year or two since it has grass seed in it and I don't want to incorporate it into my garden.

The pile (or mountain) is six feet tall!  You can see the wagon that I use to gather the raked up leaves and grass and then dump on the pile.  I use a pitch fork to continue piling it higher and higher.  It took me several days to do, but I got it done.  Yes, there are easier and more efficient ways of doing this, but I only do this for the first mowing of the season, so it doesn't make sense to spend money for an attachment to the mower to bag all the clippings.  Every successive mow, I simply mulch the leaves and grass back into the lawn.

If I didn't rake up the leaves and grass cuttings after this first mow, it would leave a thick bed of leaves and hay that would crowd out and possibly kill the good St. Augustine grass below it.  Here is a photo of part of the yard after raking.  You can see the grass is unencumbered by any leaves or hay on top.

The reason the "Mountain of Love" song was in my head was a reminiscence of long ago when the kids were younger and still living at home.  I had an old John Deere lawn mower that I would use to cut the grass in the pasture.  I would rake the hay into piles and the boys would help me put it into the wagon that I had attached to the back of the mower.  In fact, the old wagon is still out by the barn.  We use it to put hay into to feed the cows.  Cows tend to waste a lot of hay if you just feed them on the ground.

The wagon has seen its better days.  The floor of the wagon has rusted out.  Tricia and I have talked about making a run to the dump to throw away.

Back to the story.  The boys would bring the wagon-loads of way and would dump it in our barn.  You see, when we built our barn, there was a gap beneath the tin on the bottom and ground level.  The photo below shows a 2x4 that is ground level.  Actually, there's about 5 inches of tin below that.  Between the tin and the ground was a gap that allowed cold winds in the winter to blow through as we milked.  When it rained hard, rainwater would flow into the barn.  Over time all that hay composted down and it became the floor to the barn, effectively raising ground level.   The animals only stay in the barn if the weather is bad, so we don't have to muck out the stalls and through the poop outside. 

Here's a cute photo of Agnes and her Baby girl, Penny.  Like in the previous photo, you can see another photo showing how ground level is about 5 inches higher than it originally was.

It took a lot of work and a lot of hay to be moved into the barn to accomplish this task.  Mountains of hay was brought in and spread out.  My boys did a lot of work!  They moved mountains of hay in our labor of love.

Round Bale Delivery

How are you at rationing things?  You know, like that half gallon of ice cream in the freezer or that homemade cheesecake in the refrigerator that you want to make last for a while.  Well, we do the same thing with hay.  We have a finite amount of hay and when the grass in the pasture is gone in the winter, we have to manage our resources of hay.  We have 75 square bales of Bermuda up in the hay loft and 10 round bales lined up right outside the pasture gate.

In normal years, we can't count on the grass in the pasture to come in strong so that we don't supplement with hay until right around May.  At about the second week of March, we had run out of round bales.  I think we have around 36 square bales up in the loft.  I made a call to a friend that sells me round bales for a delivery.  He told me it was a good thing that I called as he was just taking inventory of his hay stocks in his barn and had exactly 10 bales left.

Mr. Broussard loaded up 10 bales on his truck and delivered them to me.  We rolled them off of his truck and I lined them up between the wood chip mulch piles and the cattle trailer.  While inflation might be raging elsewhere, his price ($40 per bale) was the same as it was last year.  After unloading, I paid him and had him walk to the garden as I gave him a big bag of mustard greens.

Mr. Broussard manages his hay field expertly, taking soil samples and amending the soil with whatever it needs.  The hay is clean and weed-free.  Once he bales it, he stores it indoors in a barn where it is dark so the sun can't damage it.  It is dry in his barn.  The hay arrives in pristine condition.

As it turns out, the lime applied to our pasture appears to be helping out the pasture.  As a result, the grass is coming in earlier than normal.  All the cows, goats and chickens spend all day in the pasture with heads down, eating.  As it stands now, I won't be needing any of these 10 bales until much later this fall.

That leads to a challenge for us.  We don't have a barn to store the bales inside and in the dark and away from moisture.  The best that we can do is cover it up tightly with tarps.  That's what we began to do, covering it and staking the tarps down with tent pegs so the tarps stay secured on top of the hay, sealing it off from rain, sun, and wind.

It normally takes the cows and goats around a week to finish off a round bale.  So we have at least 10 weeks of inventory of round bales, meaning we shouldn't need any additional round bales until perhaps February of 2026.  In the meantime, we'll continue working our way through the 36 square bales as we'll be taking delivery of more square bales in a couple months.  

First Round Bale of the Year

Normally, we start feeding hay around Thanksgiving, but not this year.  Somehow, the pasture has held up and allowed the cows and goats to continue feeding on the grass.  I think the rains coupled with moderate temperatures (no freezes as of yet) helped the pasture grass provide some forage for the livestock.  Perhaps the hay lasting longer was The Good Lord allowing things to last longer than it ordinarily does.  It wouldn't be the first time:

Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. So you are to know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son. Therefore, you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of streams of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines, fig trees, and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; a land where you will eat food without shortage, in which you will not lack anything; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God by failing to keep His commandments, His ordinances, and His statutes which I am commanding you today; Deuteronomy 8:4-11

The Providential grass ended toward the latter part of last week.  All the animals' heads were down, and they were finding things to eat, but they were looking for more.  Sort of like I do when I eat a meal, but am looking around for a little something sweet like pie or ice cream once the main course is gone.

January 1st seemed as good a day as any to roll out the first round bale for them to eat.  These are bales that I purchased back on March 29, 2024.  It is good quality hay, but cost me $40 per bale delivered.  I think that is a very fair price.  We kept it covered by tarpaulins, so it is still in very good shape.

A couple of things to notice in the photo above.  LuLu is in the barn being milked so she hasn't seen the bale yet.  Rosie and Elsie are eating a little sweet feed.  You can see their rear ends at the barn.  They didn't hear me as I stealthily pushed the bale out.  The goats are in the corral and the bull is in a separate pasture.  It would be only a few short minutes after this photo was taken that all the livestock discovered their New Year's bounty.  

Cows and especially goats waste a lot of hay.  I'm going to experiment with something this year to mitigate that.  If you look to the right of the barn in the background, you'll see a cattle panel.  I'm going to allow the animals to eat the hay in the morning, but in the evenings, I'll run the animals out of the hay area and close the cattle panel behind them.  If you leave them all day, they begin "playing with their food," stepping on, and pooping on the good hay.  We'll see if that works.

Last year it took the animals 6 days to eat one round bale.  I have 9 round bales in inventory.  Those 9 should get me through the coldest of the weather.  I still have about 70 square bales of hay up in the hay loft to feed them and I have lots of turnips planted.  I feed them the roots as I'm not a big fan of turnip roots.  I do like turnip greens, however.  The cows will have to fight me for those!

Hay Day Part I

The day that I came home from the hospital, we got a call from our neighbor down the road that they were baling hay and asked if we could go pick up our order.  It's Bermuda hay and this year's price is $7 picked up in the field and $9 picked up in the barn.  Obviously, picking up 75 bales of hay was out of the question.  We normally pick it up in the field, but asked if they could stack it in the barn and we would pick it up once I was recuperated.

I got a call yesterday that they were cutting again and needed the space.  Our hay was in the way.  I'm not fully recuperated, but the hay had to be moved.  So, I called Russ and Benjamin to come by after work and we could tackle it together.  Russ said with me not being 100% and Benjamin not being fully healed from his accident, that we were like the "Island of misfit toys."  He called my Dad for assistance and Dad drove over from Kinder to pitch in.  What a sight we were!

We backed up the truck in their barn and began loading up the truck.  We had 75 bales to pick up and bring back to the house.  We're about a mile from their barn to our house and would have to make 6 to 7 trips.

In the first load, we stacked up 12 bales.  We quickly learned that by stacking the bales and interlocking them, we could fit 16 or 17 bales.  We had a little assembly line going and got better with each load.

It was hot and we worked hard.  So did the truck.  You can see it is squatted down pretty good.  I was hoping we wouldn't break the springs.  Russ and Benjamin rode up on top of the hay on the ride home where we backed up to the garage.

Normally, at this point, we back up to the barn and use a pulley to hoist the bales up into the loft.  We'll have to wait on that for another day when we have more help.  For now, so the hay doesn't get rained on, we stacked up the 75 bales in the garage.  

The car, for now, will sit outside.  It can get wet.  The hay cannot.  This is what will get the cows and goats through the winter.  I'm not convinced they realize the work and sacrifice that goes into feeding them!  Unloading the hay has Belle exhausted just watching the work!!  Can you see her in the bottom right corner?

Here is a side view of 75 square bales of bermuda hay.  Inflation has hit the hay field, too!

Ginger, our cat, doesn't seem to mind the hay in the garage.  It's given her a new place to nap.  Lazy cat!

Speaking of naps, I think I'll go take one myself.  Well show you Part II when we move all this up into the hayloft at the barn.

Round Bales Delivered

On Saturday we were finishing up with the fire pit patio when I received a call from a friend who sells us round bales of hay for the cows.  He is quite a guy.  The price of the hay is the same price per bale as last year.  Considering the inflationary times we live in and the fact that we've been in a drought and hay is really hard to come by, I really appreciate that.  He delivers it to our house and we roll it off his trailer.  He brings us 10 bales at a time and it is good hay.  When he drove up, the cows saw the hay on the back of the trailer and started mooing... loudly.  

Once we rolled them off the truck.  I rolled one bale to LuLu and her bull calf, Nicky, in the separate pasture.  The other bale was rolled out for Rosie, Elsie and the goats.  Needless to say they were exuberant.  For the remaining 8 bales, I store those outside the pasture and prior to the next rain (if it ever rains again), I'll cover them up with a big tarp.

In the foreground, you can see one of the bales and if you look in the background in the distance above the sugar cane and against the woods, you can see the bale for LuLu and Nicky.  All the animals began eating their fill.  Later that afternoon, they sat in the shade and chewed their cud, happy and full.

We got to talking to Benton about the drought and lack of forage for the cows.  He brought out something that I hadn't thought of.  He said, "In a year like this with minimal forage, it prematurely ages the cows."  I thought about that for a minute and then he explained.  When the cows don't have much grass to eat, they eat right near the ground.  This is hard on them and hard on their teeth, causing considerable wear and even loss of teeth.  That ages them and hurts their ability to get nutrition and their condition isn't quite what it should be.  As I thought about it, there's another issue as well.  When cows eat close to the ground, they pick up more parasites.  Not good for their health.

Now that we've got round bales out for the animals to eat on at will, we can slow down (or stop) feeding them the square bales that we have stored up in the loft.  We've been feeding them that hay since August.  We've never done that before.  In fact, normally, we don't feed them square bales until late November.  We've gone through a lot of that inventory already and have winter ahead of us.  We'll have to try to ration.  Cows and goats are notorious about wasting hay.  It aggravates me to no end! 

With that in mind, I think I'll plant some more turnips for the girls.  They'll need some fresh greens and turnip roots to supplement the hay and little bit of sweet feed we give them once the cold winds start to blow.