When you’re a farmer, you look for weather windows – periods of time when the weather stays nice for long enough to get a harvest in, get seed planted or finish a project. We just came off four days of clear skies, and we finished our first of four cuttings of hay. It was an excellent first harvest. Excellent quality and a good yield.
Checking the alfalfa after about a week’s growth
Like everything on the farm, cutting hay is a cycle. We do it every 28 days or so, from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Our first cutting this year was pretty much on target, and way better than last year when we had such a late, cold spring.
We put the hay up to age now, and it will sit for about a month before it reaches the proper fermentation levels. Then we mix it in with other nutritious ingredients in our special recipe of feed for our cows.
Sometimes I’m a little envious of farmers in other places who turn their irrigation on and off. Here in Wisconsin it’s Mother Nature who does that, and it’s unpredictable. But you can’t beat four days of sunshine, and getting the hay in just right. Thanks, Mother Nature.
