Thursday, Sept. 12, 2013 - Hay Day

Made arrangements yesterday to pick up some hay nearby today, and arrived there at 10:00. Was somewhat disappointed to see that the hay was sitting outside, so naturally the whole top layer was gray and useless. A gentleman named Russ, and local farmer, met me there, apparently he's trying to help the owner of this farm (who was not a farmer, which was evident), and we had a long talk about all kinds of things, an interesting guy. Anyway, there were a few good bales underneath that had a little alfalfa in it, and though I usually don't go for alfalfa, the rest of the grass was pretty poor, so I figured we needed it for the nutritional value. I only took 8 bales, though, because I thought it might be a bit stalky for Clio, she's been pretty fussy lately. I gave Russ a check of $4.50/bale, though he said if it was his hay, he wouldn't charge more than $4, but the owner had said $4.50 to 6.00, so I figured that was fair. Anyway, I soon headed back to town, dropped some mail off at the Post Office, answered some email and stopped at the local grocery story before heading over to Fort Robinson, where I filled up a rain barrel with water. After arriving on Monday, we quickly were down to 2/3 of a tank because we didn't fully fill it, so I had drained the first barrel into the RV to top it off, leaving us low on horse water, but it didn't take long at all to fill it up at the campground in Fort Robinson. Then back to camp, though by now it was too late to take a ride (which had been our plan), and we read and did more work during the afternoon, till it was once again time to settle in. At dusk, yet another couple of livestock trailers and a group of younger riders arrived, starting to look like Grand Central out here!