Bailing on the Bale Guy

Yesterday we were supposed to get in 100-150 small square bales of ditch grass. The guy who baled the hay had problems with the baler and the hay could only be moved once because of the strings, hence the cheaper price.

After we’d agreed to buy these bales, I found out that it was ditch grass instead of pasture hay. I was pretty nervous about buying ditch grass, sight unseen. The guy sounded pretty nice but I’m still leery of ditch grass. The guy was scheduled to come out Wednesday night about 6pm to unload but he was going to call beforehand.

About 5pm the hay guy called. He wanted to give us a status on the bales. He went on to tell Mike that he’d had two options when baling the hay. It was either leave it down and let it get rained on for who knows how many days, or bale it up wet. He opted to bale it wet and see if he could sell it fast.

That Tuesday I’d read a blog about someone that had purchased wet hay (without knowing) and started having problems. The hay guy checked the bales at 5pm to see how the bales were doing. He said they were pretty wet and that if we would use them up quickly it wouldn’t be a big deal. Well, I was planning on using the bales all summer so that didn’t really work.

So the bale guy bailed on us. Ok, more like we bailed on him. He wasn’t upset that we weren’t interested since it was a bit far for him to haul the bales anyway. So I guess my premonition that the bales wouldn’t be good were true. So now that I’m down to one sliver of the last large bale I guess Mike and I are going to make a run to Madison and bring home one of the emergency bales. I’m glad that I have them but was hoping I could use them this winter instead of this summer. It just means I’m going to have to fork over more money this fall to buy bales to get us through the winter.

So instead of moving hay bales, we moved straw bales. I’d hoped to get a picture of the 90 straw bales on the trailer but I didn’t think to do it until most of the bales were already in the hay barn. It didn’t take us too long and didn’t take up too much room in the hay barn. We could have hefted them up into the barn loft but without a bale elevator, it was easier to just stack them in the hay barn. I’m sure at some point I’ll have to move them around. The hay barn was empty anyway except for 20 straw bales I picked up from family and the leftover alfalfa bales. I think I have a total of 12 alfalfa bales left. I’m hoping to get more alfalfa this summer to last me through the winter. I’m not looking at buying 100 like I did last time. One hundred alfalfa bales took me through two years.

After we moved all the straw bales, I did my chores like normal. It was starting to get dark but I was bound and determined to ride Maverick last night. I have been waiting for the lice to die off but I couldn’t wait any longer. I tried on the saddle a couple days earlier but I still needed to make some modifications. I never did make them last night but I’m hoping to tonight. I really need and want to start riding Maverick. We still have so much to learn about each other but I’m excited to ride. He looks so much like Ace, color and blaze. If I treat him like I did when I first got Ace, I’m bound to depend on him at some point.

Well, that’s it for activities at Borderlands. I’m going to meet up with a gal next Tuesday to discuss getting a saddle club started in our area. Hopefully it’ll go well and we can get some rides scheduled. I’m hoping tomorrow I can email a few people in the area and invite them to the meeting. And if not the meeting, invite them on the trail rides.