Got hay - got salt?

Another weekend mostly spent "in service to the horses". However, it was a successful one.

With the drought in our area, good hay is hard to come by (if it's available at all). Our faithful hay farmer told us not to count on any second cutting this year, and the first cutting we bought from him was expensive and not the quality I had in mind.

I emailed and called my horse friends in the area, alas, nobody had any good leads. The majority was looking for hay themselves. So, I spread the word in our plant in Northern Michigan that I was looking for hay. Sure enough, our CFO called right back with the news "I got hay for you". Yay! He told me that the the husband of the payroll manager has hay fields with supposedly 'good horse hay'. (That coming from a person that has no idea what horses eat..). I was a bit sceptical but after some more digging I was assured that yes, "horse people buy his hay". OK, then.

JP and I hitched the trailer and made our way Up North, making the mistake to believe the friendly lady in our Nav system. She sent us completely off course, and while the country side is certainly pretty, it's worrisome when you are in the middle of nowhere, with no people around to ask directions. After over three hours driving we finally made it. And big relief: Beautiful grass hay was waiting for us! After loading the hay I had to say 'hi' to the turkeys, goats, donkey, horses... good thing the trailer was full with hay, as it so happened there was a cute goat for sale also. So - when all was said and done we pulled into our driveway over seven hours before the 'road trip to get hay' started.

I am really worried about barn fires, given the devastating fires that happened just in the last months, taking the lives of numerous horses. Second cutting hay is more prone to ignite due to the moisture content, and as this hay came fresh from the field I asked the farmer if he thought it was safe to store at the barn. Unfortunately, we don't have a separate building to store hay. The farmer gave me unexpected advise, he said we should sprinkle salt on the hay bales when stacking, as salt draws moisture. Hmm, probably couldn't hurt, and as he said "it's good for the horses anyway".

So today when we unloaded the trailer and stacked the hay each bale got a generous sprinkling of Celtic Sea Salt. The horses might wonder if we are serving sushi, as the Celtic Sea Salt has definitely a smell of ocean (it's unrefined and comes from the shores of Bretagne).

And, boys: I don't want to hear "pass the salt" at dinner!