A Haying Dilemma
When you are a grass-based farm in Wisconsin’s Northwoods, hay is essential. It’s more than essential—your animals will have nothing to eat all winter without it. All through the cold, wet, and snowy months of the year, the sheep, donkeys, pigs, and even the poultry thrive on the stored-up sunshine and rain packed away in bales. Well-managed pastures and hayfields sequester carbon faster than trees and are a key piece of how we regeneratively steward the land in our care.
When we began our homestead adventures over 25 years ago, we made our own hay with put-put equipment from the 1950’s and 60’s. It took at least three days to cut the fields and pasture, and baling included stacking onto the wagon by hand. Anyone who grew up helping make hay in years past knows exactly what we were up against!
The equipment was old, and in constant need of repairs and new shear pins, and then we opened Farmstead Creamery. First crop hay and the 4th of July holiday (the busiest time of the summer season) always have a way of colliding, and we were stretched too thin to squeeze haymaking into the mix as well. At the same time, a local farm family we knew was launching a custom haymaking business, and partnering with them sounded like a win-win situation. Our hay would be made (and in record time with their new equipment), and we could have more time to focus on customers and other aspects of keeping the farm going. Eventually, we sold the old equipment, making room in sheds for new projects. We were happy to see it go, grateful for the haymaking service, as we had now graduated from this arduous task.
That partnership with the haymaking family continued for 12 years…until this week, when we learned they will no longer be offering us custom haymaking services. Oh dear!
When folks visit the farm and note how tucked away we are into the woods, this is no joke. There are other custom haymakers in parts of the state with a greater prevalence of agriculture, but we are too far away to utilize their services. In essence, we found ourselves stuck in a haymaking no man’s land.
But the grass must be cut, and the animals fed, and it makes no sense to just buy hay when you are already growing it. So, we immediately started doing what we do when we find ourselves with a problem—we started researching. No one in the family wanted to go back to the put-put ever-breaking old equipment option, nor did we need the massive equipment the custom producers would bring. Instead, we were interested in next generation equipment designed for small-medium farms like ours, working smart to be self-reliant in their forage production.
In the end, it may prove to be for the best. When hay needs to be made, everyone’s fields are in the same predicament. No truer words were said than, “Make hay when the sun shines,” and some years that is not easy to come by! Reclaiming haymaking independence will be a necessary and best step forward approach.
We are now faced with equipping the farm with the appropriate infrastructure to meet the needs of this sudden and unexpected burden. If you have grown fond of our story, purpose, and lived vision, please consider being a part of our resilient comeback to this situation. Your donation will make it possible and together, we can carry the journey of regenerative stewardship forward into its next iteration and keep the animals in our care happy, healthy, and fed for years to come.
Thank you for your support and being a part of that journey! See you down on the farm sometime.
