[AT] TEST?

[Francis Robinson]

--On Saturday, February 09, 2008 5:33 PM -0500 Greg Hass <gkhass at avci.net> 
wrote:

================================================



	I have been busy selling the last of my hay (except for a batch of about 
50 bales I'm keeping back for a couple of saddle horses I may be given 
soon). I had been storing hay in 3 unused grain bins and two barns. I had 
sold most of it already including some last week to a regular horse hay 
customer but I had small stacks of bales here and there. When I want to 
sell some hay (as in running low on cash)   :-)    but no one has asked 
about buying I take it to a livestock sale barn at Knightstown IN. They 
auction hay out on their lot every Saturday. In nice weather they also sell 
a little general stuff out there as well. There are people there from all 
around the area and some from out of state. There is a Chicago sheep buyer 
there every week and several commercial hay buyers ready to buy anything 
that goes cheap. I only had about 78 bales I wanted to clear out so I 
loaded up the gypsy wagon (some of you saw the gypsy wagon at Portland) 
with 60 bales and put the rest on the 1/2 ton pickup. The 60 bales in the 
gypsy wagon were some 3 year old orchard grass and timothy I still had in a 
bin. Still decent but nothing special. The rest was some orchard grass and 
timothy I baled very late in 2007 after it finally rained (tractor wise it 
was baled with my SMTA)   :-)   There were maybe 30 (wild guess) lots of 
hay there today and it ranged from about $1.75 a bale for some double crop 
soybean hay that seemed to have an awful lot of soil in it up to one batch 
of extremely nice looking alfalfa that sold for $7.25 a bale. My 3 year old 
hay sold for $3.75 a bale and the new stuff sold for $5.75 a bale. I was 
satisfied.

	Like all farmers I am hoping for a decent year this year...  :-)
	2006 it rained almost every 3 days all summer and few of us were able to 
bale much hay. In 2007 our area was some of the worst drought area around 
and everything was "extra crispy". 20 miles north of us it was dry but 
nothing like it was here.
	I have scheduled a much better weather year this year...   ;-)
	I have several customers that want to buy out of the field this summer 
which will help my storage space problem a lot. I am also planning on 
baling a lot more hay in 4'x5' round bales which I can store outside up on 
old used tires to avoid ground contact. I may also stack and tarp some of 
them.


	I am also running around a bit trying to finish up settling my mother's 
estate. I should be done with it yet this month.
	Last night I went to a funeral home to say goodbye to an old friend from 
down the road... He was buried with a beer and a pack of cigarettes. 
Appropriate I guess since I never saw him without both but he had fought 
lung cancer for a year... He was a small time contractor/builder and since 
I was doing some excavating we worked a few jobs together. His twin brother 
and I once took down 3 barns on a property being prepared for houses and I 
hauled many tons of scrap metal from the site. I sure wish it had been 
worth what scrap is worth now.   :-)  They were both really great guys to 
work with. I pass my friends house almost every day. I will miss him... I 
seem to be missing a lot of old friends in recent years.   :-(




--
"farmer"


Francis Robinson
Central Indiana, USA
Robinson at svs.net