I have begun to feed hay out to the animals now. There is a little feed left in the fields but they are grazing very low to the ground now. And my fields are very young. There are lots of dried off tops which I have left to shade whatever legume may struggle through from below. This is no time to be topping. Too hot and dry. My plan had been to feed the animals in the fields until November. Hmm. 
Without rain that is not going to happen. Feeding hay in the summer is like sitting on a thorn. 
We were very naughty yesterday and put the sprinkler on the roof to make some cool pretend rain. And to test my theory that it would cool the house. 
It watered all the front gardens beautifully and inside the verandah the hot breeze was morphed into a cool breeze as it wafted through the pretend raindrops. 
I turned it off once the waterbarrels were filled from the gutters. Fun as it was we cannot waste water now. The well is not bottomless and I have heard of a few people running out of water already. Still it was fun for a few minutes. 
After work Our John went out and cut the alfalfa field. Much to Big Dogs dismay, it is his favourite field to lie in. 
Now the green hay needs to lay on the stubble and dry for about four days. No rain now please. We are going to be feeding the animals hay for longer than usual this year, due to the lack of growth in the fields, so we need to get this hay into the barn at its highest nutrition level. It is too short, so there will not be a lot, but see how it is already flowering. Once it starts to flower the protein levels are dropping. It is only two acres of hay, but we do not feed our animals corn so I do not settle until I have two hundred bales of some kind of hay in the barn. We have about 130 bales of hay so far plus I am feeding out already. So fingers crossed.
Good morning. As I write this morning it is raining to the North but our crickets are still loud and dry and the morning doves are calling out in the dawn dark, so we are safe for the moment.
Have a lovely day.
celi
On this day last year .. I had just returned from an overnight stay in Chicago. Utilitarian to Utopia. I love the grandness of some of the old buildings up in the big city.
The Kitchen's Garden 
66 responses to “Country Air Conditioning”
Love the idea of this! For some reason I am really struggling to connect to your blog in particular so apologies for not commenting much (and then the other comment I left seems to have been on a post for last year – strange things are a happening!)l Anyway, good to be reconnected, if only tenuously 🙂
There are some blog pages that my system will not let me comment on at all.. so frustrating.. hope you are not working too hard!! c
What a terrific idea!
This summer whenever we get a thunderstorm it splits in two before it gets here, delivering scant to no rain, so we’ve been irrigating. One of our three wells has started to suck air. It is the most shallow one and does this every year, but this on top of reading about your water shortage (worse than our region’s) reminds me how dependant we are on water, and how easily we take it for granted. I am sending good thoughts your way for no rain until the hay is in, and then a nice, gentle all-day soaker.
I know what you mean, we watch clouds come all the way to the boundary, do a three point turn and zoom off in the other direction.. unless of course you have cut hay!! c
Weather, it’s always topica,l and here in the city we use it to make conversations in lifts, complain if it’s too hot or too wet outside our airconditioned bubbles, but in your world, it’s critical & immediate. I hope you get a break – you have a lot of mouths to feed. Oh, BTW I read last year’s post… I now have a loop of “Carwash” & “Brick in the Wall” running in a loop through my head – thanks 😉
You are welcome!! he he he .. you will be humming car wash in the lift! that will make them stare!! c
OMG, reading this somewhat late as ‘local lfe’ has to be lived, can’t believe I’ll be planting spring seeds and annuals after another 4-5 windy weeks here!!! Inexperienced as to country living au naturel that I am, your natural ground feed looks nowhere a bad as what we get in dry seasons here in Oz!
No.. we really do not have anything to moan about, except that we are not set up for long periods with no water, also my fields have just been sown so i cannot let the animals crop them too hard, I do not want to be resowing again next year.. one paddock is definitely a goner tho..I just don’t look at it anymore! c
What a pleasant reading! I am crossing my fingers too Cecilia for hay to be stacked evenly!
Zia’s area of Michigan got some much-needed rain and the fields I saw didn’t look as bad as I’d feared they would. Then again, zipping past at 70 mph doesn’t give one a precise look, either. Well, I hope the rain will hold off for a few more days for you, Celi. After you get your hay bailed and stored, let the rains come if, for no other reason, than to fill your rain barrels and well.
The year after Mom passed, that area got running water. Prior to that, everyone had a well and the water usage was closely watched. August & September are relatively dry months in that area and many years their wells ran dry by the end of August. The “water man” was called and he’d fill the wells. Mom’s well was the worst, so, the man would fill hers and the remainder would be used to top off Zia’s well. Mind you, the well water wasn’t fit for drinking. They had to fill gallon jugs with water at a nearby city’s water works for drinking water. That was a fun car ride!
It’s interesting to read your memories John.
In our area there is no running water, we have enough storage for four months without rain…after a decade of drought we have had to become much more frugal with our water usage………..e
We are so much better off than we could be. John has been saying that the droughts of the 80’s were so much worse than this around here.. we are actually doing better than most! c
I can imagine, there are places around here who routinely buy their water.. we are pretty lucky really.. luckier than most,, it is seldom perfect is it!! c
It must break your heart to have to feed hay already. Fingers crossed that you get a second flush of growth. Our week-long summer has gone walkabout again, and the laundry is hanging in the garage!
Hmm, until i started blogging i never had weather envy, but I certainly envy you that rain! c
Oh no!! I’m reading your posts in reverse to catch up.. I see now that the rain was unwanted.. oh dear. Now I will pray for drier days ahead. Did the sprinkler on the roof help cool the house?? I remember being in a restaurant with a mister all around that would have had the same breezy effect.. but without the added benefit of catching the water in barrels. Great invention c!! xx Smidge
“…our crickets are still loud and dry and the morning doves are calling out in the dawn dark…” Thanks for these harbingers of weather – LOVE this kind of info -I shall add them to my collection.
BTW, your Alfalfa is beautiful! (Our second cut here is only a pitiful few inches tall and very thin):
Love the sprinkler on the roof experiment. Seems like something I would definitely try.