Summer Hay

The dry weather has set in and the grass is getting dry and brown. The goats have eaten their pasture down pretty badly, so I've been feeding them the leftover round bales from last summer. They love it when I put a new bale in their pasture and immediately one or two of them jump up on top.

Summertime...

Well it looks like the triple digits MAY be gone. For now at least, the forecast shows upcoming highs in the mid-to-upper 90s. And while that is still hot, it makes me very hopeful that more comfortable weather is right around the corner.

This summer has been a tough one, for the animals especially. It's almost a full-time job keeping everyone cool and with plenty of fresh water. Not to mention the hay that is already having to be fed due to the fact that there is very little grass anymore.

We did have another little shower the night before last, which was very welcome, and I must say that between that and the good rain we had a couple weeks ago, we're actually seeing a bit of green in our pastures now. That is such a welcome sight!

The pool continues to give relief to the kids when they get too hot in the house. We only run our air conditioning at night, so we can sleep, and to keep the electric bill down.



Makin' Hay

We met a friendly neighborhood farmer a couple weeks ago and asked him if he knew anyone that could bale our pastures for us. He offered to do it himself and came by last week and got the job done. The pastures look SO much better now. He said it's really good hay.

We got 27 bales total out of the two pastures, and he'll be keeping half as payment for his work. He said he'll move our bales into the haybarn for us, since we have no way of moving such big bales by hand. If the grass continues to grow at the current rate, we'll get a few good cuttings throughout the course of the year, and have more than enough hay for all the animals.

Evening walk...

Handy Husband and I took a walk through some of the pastures tonight, checking on fence-lines, taking inventory of what needs fixing and where. The above photo is taken from the hay pasture in the back of the property, looking up to the farmstead. From left to right, the buildings are: haybarn, milkbarn, chicken/rabbit barn, horse barn.

The sun cast some beautiful rays through the aisle of the horse barn: