"The most wonderful time...of the year"

Other people may love Christmas but for me this is the BEST time of the year. That wonderful day when the grass is baled, wrapped and safely stacked and all is right with the world :-) 

We have had an incredible year of pretty much perfect weather for grass - mild winter, early spring and lots and lots of sun (the rain is a given here but even that has been perfectly timed, not to excess and often overnight).

The reward - the best harvest we have ever had in some of the best weather - cloudless blue skies, hot sunshine, dry ground - absolutely perfect...

...of course that makes it a bit sticky in our tractors, which are both elderly and without mod-cons - still they (just about) managed to do their share: turning the grass and getting the bales in for wrapping, while delegating to bigger, smarter vehicles for the key jobs... 

I took this as Saturday's storm rolled out and just before the mower came through - a Vizsla's eye view!

And of course no haylage or harvest post would be complete without the end-of-the-day photo which I always take as a self-indulgent reward - the gorgeous sight of more than enough forage to keep our horses and cattle going through the next year.  In fact this year we even have an overflow stack because there are too many bales to fit on the hard-standing - a nice problem to have.

Glorious! (Humour me - this makes me very happy...)

The raw material - lots of different species, no pesticides, no artificial fertiliser - poor stuff by modern standards but the horses love it, it has great biodiversity, low sugar levels, high mineral levels and as a bonus it smells incredible.

 If winter IS coming, well, thats fine by us.