God must laugh at us sometimes.

Late in writing this but need to share a small but none-the-less important thing that happened to us. As my profile states, my wife and I raise sheep on our 40 acre farm. As such, feed for animals is important. Last year as anyone who grows anything will attest, was a dry hot year. we got one cutting of hay off our land and the result was 29 small round bales of reasonable hay. Not great but enough to get us through the year and we were even able to give some away.

So this year we bit the bullet and paid to have some fertilizer put down. Along with more rain than last year, this resulted in a pretty decent growth of hay. OK actually grass that then becomes hay when you cut and bale it.

I walk our fields as often as I can and usually take our two border collies with me. I use this time to pray. Of course as I walk on the grass that will eventually become hay for our sheep, I prayed we'd get a good yield. Since last year we got 29 bales total, I prayed this year we'd get 60. The reason for 60 is that instead of buying our hay, I wanted to do it on shares - the people who bale, take hay as payment instead of money. They turn around and sell their share - usually 50%. So 60 bales would be 30 for each of us. In this way we get a little more than last year and we don't have to lay out any more money except what we already spent on fertilizer.

I mentioned we've had more rain this year. The rain has made it hard for the cutters and balers to keep up. Grass is growing fast but it needs to be dry to cut and then bale. We had arranged for a local Mennonite farmer to handle ours.

I've been watching our grass grow all spring. Far from being a grass/hay expert I was worried that it was growing too tall before they could cut it. Then I heard about Army Worms. Seems these little crawly critters can move into a hay field and destroy it in hours. So I called our farmer who was going to cut our hay and told him that I was worried about Army worms. He agreed to stop by one night and look at our grass to assess any damage.

Whew! He looked it over and saw no sign of worms. In our discussion I asked about when he'd be around to cut and bale. Fast forward only a couple of days and farmer K. and his brother show up, cut it and bale it - all before the next rain.

My wife went out to count some of the bales and I went to a different pasture to count. Between the two of us we came up with 57 or 58 bales. Now this year farmer K. decided (since he was going to take half of it) to bale big round bales - 6 ft or so in diameter. We took small bales last year since we bought all of it and we needed something small to move without equipment.

I was disappointed in the 57 or 58 number. I knew in terms of volume that this was way more hay than we got last year but was surprised at the number. Seems we just barely missed my goal.

A week or so later the farmers K. came back to pick up their share. We talked and for a very small charge, they agreed to move our bales out of the field and line them up near our barn. Of course in moving, they needed to count. Guess what? We had 61 bales after all! I had already thanked God for the 57 or 58 but really got a chuckle out of the final count. In a very generous mood, we gave the odd bale to the Mennonite brothers.

So we got more hay than last year, got it moved cheaply and hopefully are ready for what the winter may bring. And I'm already praying for whatever we get on a second cutting.