Farm Report

Leaves are falling and although it's warmish outside we in the Great North Land know it's time to get ready for the inevitable icy cold blast.  I find myself grabbing my Carhartt jacket on the way out to chores at night.  I talked to a dairy man in Waterville who has alfafa square bales for $200 a ton and will deliver.  He says he's had a great year for hay, unlike what I hear locally in Brookfield.  I would like to have a few alfafa bales for new mothers (not planning on any but one happens now and then) or sick sheep.  Alfafa is very rich - it's like feeding them chocolate candy bars.  I have a couple of numbers to call for square bales.  Still have to figure out how to feed the 50 first cut round bales stored in the upper mow.  So far I considering pushing them out a hole cut in the wall to a feeder waiting below.  Might be tricky if the cascading bale decides to bounce out of the feeder (which I have not built yet) and careens through the flock.  I think they are too heavy to bounce but I've learned to hope for the best, expect the worst.  Still looking for somebody to scrape out the bottom of the barn and spread it on the fields.  I have to get a shearing going, but haven't heard back from Jim Baldwin.  All this to do while making lots of lovely things to sell at Rhinebeck and keep on top of this very challenging teaching job.  If I think of everything at once the enormity of the whole is daunting, so I don't.  I will sit down and spin some tonight and make a plan.  Yes, it's good to have a plan.