HAY!

HAY, HAY, AND MORE HAY!  We are so excited to finally have hay!  With all of this rain, we have had beautiful, lush, green pastures which the cows love.  You know when you are in the honeymoon stage of marriage or just dating someone new, the lovey-dovey eyes you give to your significant other, that stay with you throughout your life together?  That is the look I have seen in our cows' eyes all spring and summer in the pasture.  Pure heaven for them.  However, it has been stressful for Dave as the absence of sunny weather means no hay is being cut, which could be problematic if we do not get it all into the barn for winter.  Thankfully, we are now in our 3 round of baling...today being time number 3 to get hay in and we are looking at one last pasture left to cut.  After the first cut of hay is off the fields, we let them grow back, and then rotate the cows on them.  If they thought they had it good early in the spring, wait until they get on these fields after it has been cut, pure blissfulness.  One field will be set aside for second cut hay which has always been described to me as "ice cream."  It is ice cream for cows, because nothing makes this gal feel better than a big bowl of ice cream (with mini-chocolate chips on top of course)!

*We wouldn't be this far in the game with hay had we not had lots of help from our dear family members...we thank you tremendously!*

One of Dave's favorite parts of farming...hay! Hay for Dave is fun, hay for me is lifting 40-50 pound weights over and over (about 3000 times) and throwing them over your head occasionally when moving them. I am still working on the throwing...it's more like lift, drag, or drop!

Here are our pigs making their way back to the pasture after being "caught" in our backyard.