Field trip

I arrived home from the horse show in late afternoon yesterday.

Bill put some burgers on the grill. He was cooking away when I came out and told him I was gonna call Barbara and Laurie to see if they knew anything about Harvey's present haying status.

We'd heard that once the thunderstorms passed over this weekend, the equipment would be coming our way to cut the hay.

Before I spit two words out of my mouth, I heard a distinct sound over on Selle Road. Then, I spotted the swather headed west.

"I bet that's Lori," I announced to Bill and took off across the front yard to see for sure.

Sure enough, the swather turned on to South Center Valley Road, and sure enough, it was Lori Jasman.

She said I could wait two days or she could go in and cut our hay right then. The bird-in-the-hand impulse told me to tell her to turn on in.

So, she did. Hay harvest at the Lovestead began in earnest.

An hour later, Lori left on her way to the Colburn Ranch.

Lori says she likes to make hay all the while that the sun shines because they've been stalled a lot this summer with intermittent rain showers.

I can't find words to describe the feeling of watching another year's crop go down. It's a summer happening, and most of the time, it brings great satisfaction to know that your place can raise almost enough food to feed the horses for another winter.

We have no idea how much this year's crop will yield, but I can say that it looks a lot better than it did in May.

In May I walked the hayfield and told Bill it probably wouldn't be worth cutting this year.

A month or so later, the cold weather and the rains slowed down enough to give the hay a boost.

Lori said it looked good to her, and she's probably cut hundreds of acres of hay crops already this summer. She says she's has about 250 more acres to go.

Later this week, if the morning dew isn't too heavy, the hay should be dry enough to bale.

And, then we'll know what to plan for the winter supply. I've already purchased two tons of first cutting alfalfa/grass hay to supplement our own supply.

So, if all goes well, we should have enough, and we can breathe easily one more year.

While watching Lori cut, I snapped a lot of photos and also caught some nice scenes of the horses grazing in their pastures.

By the way, the partially-cooked burgers went into the refrigerator and returned to the grill after we'd watched the field show.

Great day at the Lovestead.