Got some trouble with the hay baroness, who used to mow our meadow for the price of taking the hay. Now she reneged on the deal and wants money as well as the hay. Not sure how much yet, she's "calculating".

Meanwhile I'm calculating our alternatives:

1. Buy a flail mulcher for the tractor and do it ourselves. Hay is wasted but we're not dependent on someone else. Initial cost, but gain a mulcher.

2. Pay someone to cut, turn and bale the hay, then sell the bales ourselves. Depending on prices, we may make money or lose it and end up with a bunch of tractor eggs sitting around. Risky.

3. Find someone else who will accept the original deal and mow for the hay, preferably someone nice and local. We'll ask around a bit.

Prefer 3 because no work for me.

#Hay #Farm #Farming #Homestead

@yngmar

She’s probably reacting to the oil/gas prices hikes.

Maybe another alternative to float her is a return to the original deal when the war is over.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Or… a tree farm.

@wedge @yngmar

4th option. Silviculture with grazing for animals. Plant cover fruit and nut trees, rent the ground for spring grazing. Bad year, you get fruit to sell. Good year you might even get a cut of hay as well if anyone is interested.

@tempusfelix @wedge We would like to reforest it, but this is not a hobby garden, its an agricultural plot which is subject to a myriad of regulations. One being you can't just plant trees on it.

Want to plant a forest? Make a project, gain a minimum of points from some point system that requires you to plant certain species of tree only and not more than a few of other species (e.g. oaks are very restricted for some reason) and then plant those specific tree species that you must buy in specific quantities from a certified seedling seller for mucho money, then do other stuff in the following 30 years (that part is actually okay, the first is insane).

Fruit trees make an orchard, not a forest. Thats a different project! Welcome to farming!

Animals? Huh, where did they come from? 😆

@yngmar @tempusfelix @wedge Fun fact - IIRC wallnuts do qualify for orchard, while in practice you can run it as a forest