@Nebrfarmr wrote:
Our internet server may be around Pierce, but I am on the East border of Custer Co.
Cool! I used to get hay from there, too. 🙂 Great country around there. I was there once when the Sandhill Cranes were covering the Platte as far as the eye can see. Great people everywhere there. I stopped at a McDonald's in Grand Island several years back and the kid at the counter heard me talk and he said , "You must be from Iowa". I didn't know that Iowans had an accent. 😛
Back in the early Nineties, I used to go to the NAMA Hay Show in Hastings (that is where it was then... at the Adams County Fairgrounds) when Craig Buescher was the manager. I would network with all the growers there and see if I could find a market for any hay they had to sell. I sold a LOT of there hay in Iowa down to Texas. I also networked with a lot of the trucking firms around there to haul loads. Pick's Pack Haulers was one that I used a lot. I used to sell about six semi loads a week during the "hay day" of the horse business growth. I have not been back for the NAMA show for over ten years now..... I should go back next February and see if any of the "old timers" are still around.
I know in some of my posts, I may seem to be wishy-washy, but it is more because of views that are not set in concrete, than anything else. I can remember a saying, 'a wise man will change his mind', and my views sometimes tend to change, as I learn more things. The problem is sorting the truth from the propaganda.
When I hear propaganda from opposite sides, saying opposite things, I tend to go with what I can see out my window, or around town. If that doesn't give me an indication, I have to go with my gut. Sometimes I just have to decide if person A seems more credible than person B
I know exactly what you are saying. I grew up in a democrat home. My Dad worked at Maytag Co. in Newton. The democrat party became more and more of something that I could not be a part of any longer. When Clinton was in his first term, I switched parties and have never looked back. My folks eventually switched as well. My Mom was once on the democrat party central committee in Warren County, but got kicked off because she was "too conservative" to suit their changing "progressive" social standards. She is now one of the most staunch Republicans that you will ever find. LOL. Sometimes you just have to live for a while before the "light comes on". It took me a while and I am still working double hard for the GOP to make up for all those wasted years on the wrong side.
We have sold some hay over the years, to local buyers, but the last couple of years has seen high row crop prices, so we shifted more acres into that, and with the last couple years being dry, we only sold a few loads here and there the last couple years. Kind of a double-edged sword, as we were getting our name out there for having decent hay with no noxious weeds in it, we started running out of hay to sell (we had dryland alfalfa this year that only made one cutting).
We have rented out most of the ground that used to be in hay for growing corn and beans as well. Most of the hay ground has been converted to crop ground in our area. So much so, that you can't hardly even find hay for sale at any price. I might plant a few acres back to hay next spring and see where it goes. The horse numbers sure died off when the dems in Congress passed that Horse Slaughter Ban Bill back in 2006. A lot of horses got shot and left for the coyotes or starved to death when that happened. The weather has been insane for hay growing the past few years. Too much rain and the hay drowned out in many fields.
