Flowers of the field

[neverspent]

I've been at the Farm this week, and the pasture is just about ready for making hay. The grasses are up to my waist and their gray-green seed tops ripple in the wind like ocean waves. The clovers, three kinds (purple, white, black medic with little yellow flower bunches) are thick and nutritious. And there are lots of other tender, persistent plants among the grass.




Pasture with flowers


Buttercups and sandwort



Sandwort



English plantain

Comments

[donutsweeper]

Pretty! Probably a stupid question, but how do you 'make hay'?

Make hay while the sun shines

[neverspent]

Not a stupid question! "Make" is such a nonspecific word for the process. To make hay, you let the grass/clover/alfalfa grow nice and tall and green, ideally to the peak of its nutrition level, and then you come through with a huge mowing machine pulled by a tractor. The grass is cut down just like mowing your yard, only BIGGER. You leave the grass lying out in the field for a couple of days so it can dry, and you come through once with another machine that turns it over, to aid in even drying. (It's really important during this part of the process that the sun is shining and there's no rain, so farmers have to watch the weather carefully.) Once the grass is dry, it's hay! You come through one more time with another machine that picks up the grass and compresses it into bales for storage. (The big round ones, usually, or sometimes the small rectangular ones.) Voilà, your livestock have food for the winter. :)

Re: Make hay while the sun shines

[donutsweeper]

So even though it dries out, it keeps the nutritional value of how nice and green it was before it was cut?

Re: Make hay while the sun shines

[neverspent]

It doesn't retain 100% of the nutrition, but especially if it dries fast, it keeps quite a bit. Definitely enough to provide the bulk of a healthy horse diet in the winter!