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3/12/2009 3:33 AM

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Each winter, we play a little game. The object of the game is to get to spring with more hay than horses.

This year, we won.

We seemed to have turned the corner. With the exception of the always-expected, no-surprise Easter snowstorm, the bad weather of the past four months has passed with few casualties.

What's one barn roof among friends?

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The good news of the coming spring is that it might finally be time to stop counting hay bales.

An easy way to tell if someone is a livestock owner is to casually ask how much hay they have in their barn. If they answer quickly by giving you an exact number, they own animals.

I can't tell you my cell phone number without turning the damned thing on. I'm not sure of my Social Security number or bank account information. I keep birthdays and anniversaries written on an index card.

Here's the one number I can give you at any time, 24 hours a day: As of this moment, there are 6121/2 bales of hay in my barn.

We keep a constant inventory, watching throughout the winter to determine how much of our hay will be eaten and how much we'll be able to sell.

If we weren't so new to this, we'd be able to figure it out months ahead of time (or so I think). We'd be able to predict the weather, the market and the pocketbooks of the customers (or so I think). In short, we'd be farmers (or so I think).

We're not quite there yet.

This year, we came out ahead, which means some of the first and second cut will be leaving our barn soon, off to neighbors or strangers who heard from a friend that hay was available.

We'll never get rich selling hay. We simply don't have enough acreage or storage space. By the time you factor in the cost of harvesting, baling and delivering (not to mention the number of man hours required) there's not much possibility of making a profit on field grass that sells for, on average, two or three dollars a bale.

Unless, of course, you factor in yuppies.

There are ads in horse magazines that advertise "designer" hay. Delivered straight to the barn door near you, the specially mixed, wonderfully prepared "designer" hay is advertised for six to eight dollars a bale.

So what's the difference between the "designer" hay and the hay we have piled into our barn?

If I had to guess, I'd say it's the word "designer."

Apparently, if you add that word, you can also add three dollars per bale. This week, the Paulsens are offering the remainder of this year's first and second cut "designer" hay at a mere, uh, five dollars a bale.

It's up there in the "designer" barn (with optional "designer" hole in the roof), down the road from the "designer" chicken coop.

Come on, you yuppies.

You know you want it.

It's "designer."

To hear Scott Paulsen's column, visit www.observer-reporter.com. He can be heard each weekday afternoon from 3 to 7 p.m. on 1250 ESPN Radio.

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1 comments

Scott Paulsen's Green Acres : 4/1/2009
I was glad to see a new Scott Paulsen audio commentary - I was hoping the "Designer Hay" column would have been posted in audio format. These make my day ... Thanks, Deb

Deb Cheplic

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