Sending Sunshine Your Way!

Originally Posted by NHscrapman

Nice and Sunny here too
4 F and 35 mph gusts, lots of light fluffy snow drifting around.
6 hours outside was enough for the face and beard to have icicles and snow covered.
Nice and crisp my kinda day

Pretty much the same here. Hey .... at least the sun was out !

It's all Bert's fault.

Holy crap .... the blizzard watch is up for this weekend. Depends on who you listen to but they're talking anywhere between 8 - 30" of snow ?

Massachusetts declared a state of emergency and called out the National Guard yesterday ?

Water, water everywhere ! We're running out of places to pile it.

Been holding around 65-75 f and really nice for working in the garge down here in central ok

Brass the girls name was "Sunny", she did wear the bikini for awhile, but that's another long story!

The weather everyone's talking about makes me want to get out of my shorts and tee shirt. I don't think I even own a pair of long john's anymore, don't know if I could work with all those clothes on.

Watching the news tonight and wishing I really could send those of you in the North East and West Virginia some of our sunshine. The North East because four feet is enough snow for anyone. West Virginia because the train wreck is going to be a huge environmental problem and it happen in a heavy snow storm too!

Wish I was back in Santa Cruz!

An the winner gets a "Eskimo Pie" ice cream sandwich!

Finally "We got Rain", been raining off and on since noon. Right now it is pouring down hard, that is good, as I'm inside nice and dry! Supposed to rain all day tomorrow, this will effect us at work, but right now we need the rain more than the work. In Southern Cal. this type of rain storm is called a "Inside Slider", unpredictable in the amount of rain we will get, just as a pitcher in baseball and the weather people anyway! Happy about the rain!

Burt,

Darn! I was hoping to send some of my excess hay this summer down to you at exhorbitant prices!! Now that you're getting rain, you'll probably be sending some hay my way!!

Last fall there wasn't much excess hay to be had around here because anyone who could scrape together a truckload shipped it south!! Small bales of hay were going for 6-7$/bale, if you could find any, when prior you could get them for $4.

Good luck on the rain. You guys need a lot, to get some snowpack accumulated up in your mountains.

Jon

Jon - My first business was a part time one started in high school. A friend of mine were both working at the local "Piggly Wiggly", on break we were talking about how to make more money. This conversation led to us starting a costume "Hay Cutting & Transportation" company. A partnership between us and our dads. My dad was already growing hay and had the equipment. My friends dad had a logging operation, with idle trucks. Arkansas was getting plenty of rain and Texas was not. We sold our hay to the misfortune ranchers there for a premium price, so yes there's opportunities with a neighbors "Drought".

They do small bales up by you??

I thought that we were the last people who still did them. At least I don't feel so lonely now!

I agree on the philosophy, though. When something goes down, something else will usually rise.



matador: "Sunshine. Lollipops, and Kittens. Or, something sappy like that!"

I do small bales because we produce most of it for ourselves...the wife raises registered Morgan horses. She does the "old line" stuff....the same animals that the US Military used back in the Cavalry days. Not quite as big as what is popular now but D*MN are they tough! No wonder the military used them!

Any excess hay gets sold to small users in the area.

I've only got about 25 acres in hay right now...every year the D6 and bush rake gets a workout to get another 5 or so acres prepared.

The big farms around here are like you say....mostly the big round bales. There's also a guy who brings premium hay in from all over Western Canada. He compresses it, and cuts it into bales about the size of a small square bale, then puts plastic banding on it. He stuffs shipping containers and it goes to Japan. For like $400+/ton! His setup can only use the big square bales. It gets squeezed so hard that water will come out of the supposedly "dry" hay. Apparently, in Japan, you are not allowed to grow crops for animals...it must be used to grow human food.

Amazing what money can be made from.

Jon.

We do commercial straw, but we put it up in small squares. We do 125 acres per year, but we're going to be growing and doing more in the next few years.

Nobody wants to do the work for the small squares. But, you try throwing a large square!