This Week

I just love the author Garrison Keillor.  Each week, on his radio show, Prairie Home Companion, he begins his monologue, "It's been a quiet week in my home town......"  I suppose the same could be said here.  It has been a quiet week.  The rain stopped finally. The sun has shown.  The clouds have been huge and fluffy.  The goldfinches have been at the feeder along with the purple finch and my tiny wrens.  The green pf the summer has been spectacular

But that has just been on the surface.

This week we finally had the hay put up.  We have it baled in large bales which isn't ideal for me, but we make it work.  We bale on shares so that, so far, the hay guy takes fifty percent and I take fifty percent.  But this last year has been different.  The hay guy was positive that I should lay down composted manure.  He ran some numbers for me and he said we would split the cost.  He pushed it so aggressively  and was so sure that this would be the ticket to increasing my yield that he would float the part that I owed until we brought in hay.  So, now we have baled.  Last years yield was forty bales of hay.  This year after spending money that I did not have, I have the grand total of forty two bales.  Which gives us each twenty one bales.  But Arlyn the hay guy wants an extra bale as he feels there should have been more yield around the edges.  Plus, he threw on an extra hundred dollars charge as after spreading the manure, he had to come over and harrow it.  He had to harrow as he waited to spread the manure after it had partially frozen.... his mismanagement, not mine.    Then to add insult to injury, he wants me to sell any excess bales to him so he can funnel them to a friend of his at forty dollars per bale, so I make a  profit of  almost nothing.  Actually, I don't make a profit.

To recap.....

I owe Arlyn $930 for exceptionally poor quality manure which he got from a buddy.  My land is not improved.  And I am being set up to sell hay for  a price that will only make me $400 and I still cannot come up with cash to pay my taxes.  Selling ten bales and keeping ten cuts me close on my own needs for my horses for the year.  I still need posts.... I still need wire... I still need more hay.

Floating  over all of my farm drama has been the legal issues with the credit cards that defaulted when Mac's leukemia returned.  I am always glad that we were not as reliant on them as other people but still it looks like a ten thousand dollar lien is going to be unavoidable..... I do not have ten thousand dollars.  Apparently we have a court date for August the eighth to address this problem.

But to the casual observer, it has been a quiet week here on my little farm.

Louie