When you own livestock, from May to October in New England if someone says "hay!" you drop everything and get hay. New England is among the worst places in the country to try to be a hay farmer. In order to make hay, you need to string together at least three sunny days, the hotter the better. That alone is a trick in this climate. Then think about this particular summer, and add to those three hot days at least three or four more just to dry the ground (grass does not dry well laying on wet ground and tractors get stuck) and you are looking at a week of hot dry weather. No go.

And if "first cut" is too late, 2nd cut is compromised since once we hit mid September, the days are not long enough to dry the hay properly. If the hay does not dry enough before it is baled you are talking best case moldy hay that horses cannot eat without jeopardizing their health, and worst case the tightly baled moist hay heats up and spontaneously combusts causing barn fires.

Some fields are on high enough land that those three days of hot weather  without the extra ground-drying time can be good enough even if it's been rainy. And such was the case recently when a friend called and said "We're going to bale late this afternoon, you want some?" Drop everything!

Hay is the bane of my existence. I have tried to think of everything to make it simpler--the only thing I have found that would really work is to have no animals that eat hay. I haven't tried that since 1992, but I am thinking of going that route.

I've had it delivered from hay brokers at high cost; sometimes it is good hay, sometimes it is just horrible. I've tried mostly to buy from local farmers, but haying around here is unreliable and I have been "burned" several times with no hay lined up and having to punt last minute. I've thought to buy a hay field but I would then be the one fertilizing it and paying the property taxes and either owning (and maintaining) the equipment or paying someone else to cut and bale it and worrying about the weather and wondering if all is lost and still having to buy hay elsewhere. I've thought about turning our 8-acre parcel across the street from our house into a hay field, but it is currently all trees. For the money it would take to cut, stump, clear, fertilize, and seed it, I could buy other people's hay for ten years.

So now I just get hay where and when I can, at as decent a price as possible. And while I have not yet gone the no-hay-eaters route (not that I could if I wanted to, try even giving away a horse these days), I am in the process of drastically reducing the hay-eating herd. I'm down to one goat and four horses, one of which I hope to have sold by fall (not the goat). And then my barn will accommodate the amount of hay I need for the rest of the year until next cutting--if I can afford it and if they cut it at all!

All I know is if someone says "hay!" I stop typing and....

Cheryl Kimball is a freelance writer who lives in Middleton.

Photo: Collecting bales in Lebanon, ME. Photo by Cheryl Kimball