It's been a while since I've posted a blog entry, but this morning I am cozied-up to a wood stove while the cold temperatures rule, the freezing wind blows and so I thought I'd write.

We had a great year haying over the summer and made some of the best hay ever to come off the Jamison Family Farm.  The forage test results were excellent, the color, texture and bale shape - all were great.  The rain we had, along with a successful fertilizer program yielded record hay volume.  We are anxious to see what 2021 may bring.

All of our horse quality hay is forage tested by Equi-Analytical.  We take core samples and send them in for testing and each gets it's own test vs. lumping all of the hay into one test.  Hay can vary from field to field and from timing of cut.  The hay in our barn is segregated per these tests for customer choice,

The pic below is a bag of hay clippings ready to be sent out.​

If you have a horse with metabolic issues, our First Quality Hay tests low in sugar (ESC+Starch).  Perhaps our hay is something that would be of interest.  On the other hand, if you just want good clean, well managed hay - we have that too!  Email FirstQualityHay@icloud.com for more info.

​While we have a moved to a bale kicker and wagons to receive the square bales - literally on the fly...

We still handle all of our bales from wagon unloading to stacking.  This affords us an opportunity to inspect every bale for shape and quality.  Bales that don't measure-up are set aside and sold for cow or goat hay.  Bottom bales, unless exceptional in quality, are set aside too.

Some folks will buy this lower quality hay for bedding.

May the Hay Dog does not prefer bedding, but a couch...

May thinks straw and hay bedding are for the "little animals"....

However, she will share the couch with others when necessary... 

​Even a chair...

We were fortunate to have a second cutting of hay this past year.  Typically timothy goes dormant in our July and August temperatures - along with very dry weather.  However, this past summer, we had rain and lower temperatures and it yielded a wonderful second cutting of hay.

We filled the center section of our barn with this second cutting.

Customers often ask, can you hold hay for me?  Unfortunately, the answer is generally no - even if pre-paid.  The reason is - space is limited and were it not for selling out of first cut hay in the center section of the barn, it would have been difficult to stack and store this second cutting of hay.  We also like the extra room to store filled wagons to unload another day.

I have moved my office from the old barn to this new barn.  May the Hay Dog visits whenever she can...

I like to take a break and ponder things in the barn with my feet propped-up...

The boots in the picture above belonged to by Dad.  He passed last February after a long life.  I'm sure he did a lot of pondering on this farm too.  Often he and I would go to Paint Bank and have a breakfast at the Swinging Bridge Restaurant. 

We had an election.  Some are happy - some are mad as a match.  The most troubling part to me is banjo players tuning on one and anther...

Speaking of banjos - 2021 marks 41 years on the 5-string banjo for me.  My banjo of some 38 years is in the shop for a refinish and some other work.  Stay tuned for a blog entry on it later this year.  Here is a tease pic of the refurb/refinish going on...

Enough rambling.  

If you need hay in 2021, we'd appreciate your consideration and business.  We should begin cutting and baling around Memorial Day.  For more info, please email FirstQualityHay@icloud.com.  Follow us at our Facebook page at First Quality Hay for more frequent updates.

Below are a series of farm pictures I took over late Summer, Fall and into Winter 2021.

Here on the Jamison Family Farm, we have escaped the intense July heat and are now enduring August temperatures.  I believe in Roanoke, they set or tied a record for consecutive days with temperatures above 90 degrees that dates back to 1966.  Oddly enough, August started a bit cooler, but temperatures have rebounded back into 90's, even today as I write this blog entry.  Humidity has remained high and uncomfortable throughout.

May was continuous rain with the exception of a brief month end window.  June was equally rainy and Potts Creek went out of it's banks frequently.

Leading into the last week of May, I kept a keen eye on the weather.  Our tractors and equipment were ready, we just needed a favorable window to cut hay.  With hay that is for sale and the end customer being primarily horse owners - you only get a one or two cracks at cutting and baling First Quality Hay.

Fears of the haymaker are multifold.  To much ground moisture from rain can cause problems such that even with clear skies, the moisture in the ground will evaporate into the cut hay and keep it from properly curing.  There is the ever present chance of pop-up thunderstorms (or a botched weather forecast) that drenches hay that would otherwise be ready to bale; rendering it low quality with a nice tan straw looking color - not good.  Knock on wood, equipment failure can scuttle the best intentioned haymaking too.

At the end of May, our timothy (really timothy mixed grass - but overwhelmingly timothy) was close to being mature to the extent that the trademark cat tail seed head was emerging from the stem/boot in our fields with Climax timothy, but in our fields with Clair timothy, the seed head had not emerged at all.  Whatever else was mixed-in, such as native Orchard grass and Fescue, were prime to cut.  Cutting the timothy early in maturity is a plus from a quality standpoint.  All we needed was a window...

A favorable weather window of lower temperatures, steady breezes and low humidity were forecast to begin on May 30th and we pounced on our hay fields in force.  With rain forecast to return in about four days we took a gamble on the both the weather and equipment (read breakdowns) and we cut all of our First Quality Hay.  Within a day and a half, everything we had was on the ground.  To deal with this much hay - I phoned in vacation from my day job...

In addition to lower temperatures, low humidity and a steady breeze, we have two tools that can enable us to go from cut to bale in as little as three days - something we were betting would pay-off big.  The first tool is our Krone mower conditioner.  It cuts hay cleanly and in any condition, heavy/thick, damp or dry.  The second is our Vermeer TR90 tedder (it also doubles as a rake).  The mighty Massey Ferguson 1105 powered the Krone with ease and this year, I put the John Deere 5055d on the rake/tedder.

In the picture of the Krone below, just above the cutter bar, you will see impellers hanging down.  These impellers spin and propel the hay against the hood of the mower, as well as, force the waxy grass stems to rub against each other as the hay moves off the cutter bar and out the back.  This scrubbing action removes the waxy layer of the stem (where the moisture resides) and allows the hay to dry faster.  I liken it to taking a loaf of bread, taking the wrapper off, and setting it in the sun.  The bread dries quickly - same with hay.

The tedder has tines that spin and pick-up the cut hay, spread it out to glean more sunlight, toss it into the air flipping the bottom/damp hay to the top to dry and finally fluffs up the hay off the stubble such that a breeze can flow through to assist in drying.

A mower conditioner and tedder are critical to making First Quality Hay - sooner than later!

Tedded and raked, we began baling.  My John Deere 348 baler makes a beautiful bale of hay and the pan kicker (or as John Deere calls it - #42 Ejector), tosses the hay bales through the air and into our ready wagons with eight foot sides being pulled behind.  With help in place at our barn and Nathaniel shuttling full wagons to the barn and empty wagons back to the baler, we could really bale a lot of hay fast - and did!

Did I mention we baled a LOT of hay...  To give you an idea of the volume, our Lower Field alone yielded just over 150 square bales of hay per acre.  Had the weather forced us to wait a few more weeks, the grass would have kept growing, became over-ripe and our yield would have been even higher.  A lot of hay makers prefer to wait for those extra high yields at the expense of quality.  On the Jamison Family Farm, we prefer quality over quantity.

If you notice in the picture, the last wagon is at the end of the barn, out of the weather, ready to unload and stack along with some other hay.  After that wagon was parked - the rain began again and lasted pretty much through June.  We had succeeded getting our hay cut, baled and into the barn in our short weather window - an answered prayer!

Once things calmed down from our first cut, we took core samples for analysis.  We use Equi-Analytical's Trainer 603 wet chemistry test.  It is interesting to see hay ads across the internet, Craigslist, Facebook, etc., featuring "horse quality hay".  Our "horse quality hay" is truly managed, weed free as possible, cut and baled for quality AND - we have a food label via these tests.  I'm not aware of too many (if any) hay producers within striking distance of our farm that take such measures to make hay.  Years ago, I told my kids, "It takes as much back to lift a bale of trash as it does First Quality Hay - so let's do it right."  I can't imagine any other way to make hay on the Jamison Family Farm.

Cutting a little earlier yielding less mature grass produced some of our best forage test results we've had in years.  Excellent horse quality hay.  The test results are below.

Fast forward from our first cutting - we weighed when to take a second cut as we had growth with the continued rain, however, we've elected to wait and get as much leaf as possible.  Unfortunately with the dry - hot July, hay growth pretty much has stopped and even with early August showers regrowth is still slow.  There is enough hay now for a second cutting, but we need a weather window to present itself for haymaking.  Right now, we are in a pattern of hot, humid weather with afternoon/evening thunderstorms.  I'm thinking we will make our second cut around Labor Day weekend.  We have cut hay as late as Thanksgiving...

Remember Potts Creek out of it's banks this past spring?  Now the water level is very low - low enough that I can (and do) set a chair in the creek, ponder all things and sometimes have a relaxing lunch.

May the Hay Dog has her own way of dealing with rain, heat and drought...

Hope everyone is having a great summer!!!

If you are in need of First Quality Hay - we can be reached at FirstQualityHay@icloud.com.

Take care - The Jamison Family Farm

As I write this blog, we are living in a time dominated by the Corona virus and the fall-out of it.  I am hopeful everyone is healthy and safe.  Social distancing is one of the tools being used to combat the virus and with respect to my day job, I find myself "social distancing" at the Jamison Family Farm at the request of my employer.  I just finished my second week working from the farm and it's amazing how a telephone, laptop computer and internet can enable one to conduct business away from the office.  My great grandfather, James Henry Jamison, could have never imagined such a technological world would ever exist - especially at the farm.  However, even with modern technology, it is the wood stove that keeps me warm while working...

We have been busy preparing for haying.  Much fertilizer has gone down and herbicide efforts to squash broad leaf weeds are finished.  The past few years, rain has made it very difficult to get a quality first cutting.  As things stand right now, we are seeing favorable weather patterns - not too much rain, not too much dry weather and our hay fields are showing signs of some really nice growth.  This year, we would like to begin cutting around mid-May if possible.  We are looking for quality vs quantity.  As in previous years, we will take core samples and have our hay forage tested.  Historically, our hay has been low in sugar (ESC+starch), potassium and iron.  If you have a special needs horse or just want good, clean, well managed hay - we may have something for you.

One of my favorite tractors on the Jamison Family Farm has been my International Harvester Farmall 756.  I used it to cut, ted and rake hay.  I never put a baler on it, but pulled many loaded hay wagons to the barn.  While the tractor had good power, it was in need of much repair and restoration.  This was further complicated as it had a gas engine.  For those that know IH tractors, the engine was a C-291 and the sleeves in the block are an interference fit; the engine is a difficult rebuild and not for the backyard mechanic.  They also have a reputation after a rebuild to gall the pistons to the sleeves with the newer gas of today and high octane is required.  Had the engine been a gravy fix, I would have added a wide front end to it and new tires all the way around.  We talk about trucks and cars that are gas hogs, the 756 at full load will burn around six gallons of gas per hour according to it's University of Nebraska tractor test report!  None of these things caused me concern, except the engine rebuild.  I know other makes of row crop tractors with high horsepower - some had issues with their gas engines to some extent; I was unaware of IH's C-291 gas engine issues and thought I was good to go when I bought the tractor.  My feeling was - an IH gas tractor on the farm would make a nice low temperature starter and no more hours than we would put on it in a year, I could live with the gas mileage, especially when you consider these gas tractors sell at a pretty low price compared to their diesel counterparts.  When you buy old farm equipment sometimes it works out great, other times not so good...

Without a doubt, the Farmall was the most photogenic tractor on the farm.  Kind of like a dog, you can't take a bad picture of one.  Put May the Hay Dog on an International Harvester and you've got a nice photograph.

A few more pics...

In the end, I decided to sell the tractor.  Simply a business decision.  A fellow from Ohio came down and bought it.

On another front, I have sent the mighty Massey Ferguson 1105 for a "tune-up", for lack of a better word.  It is getting the diesel injectors rebuilt, valves adjusted, a new air conditioning system installed and a few other things.  I may receive the tractor back as early as next week.  We bought this rather large tractor last year to run our disc mower conditioner to it's potential (read - higher horsepower) and safely bring our kicker wagons off our hills (read weight).  This past year the MF was a very welcome addition.  The "tune-up" being done to it will make a good tractor even better.  I'm thinking about putting it on the baler this year too.  It would be nice to be out in the hottest of the sun and baling hay in a cool cab.

Other pre-season repairs:  I've got to make a PTO shaft repair to my John Deere 350 hay rake, build one more kicker wagon and do a heavy repair to our New Holland 156 tedder.  If I can't get the tedder repaired, we will buy another one.  A tedder is an implement that is used to fluff the hay after cutting and before raking it to bale.  It greatly assists drying the hay and if a shower lands on the hay, one can run the tedder over the the field and often salvage the hay before quality is lost.  A hay tedder is essential to First Quality Hay.

On a family note, my Dad - G.L. Jamison passed away this past February at the age of 87.  He is gone but never forgotten.

My Dad grew up in and around the Jamison Family Farm; to my family he was a fixture on it.  I believe my Dad was saved and here at Easter it is a very comforting thought to know that he is alive and in heaven; we'll meet again.  Through his years, he saw many Easter Sundays, the green-up and flowers on the farm.  More than anyone, my Dad knew the Jamison Family Farm was/is a special place.  I took some pictures at the farm the other day - images my Dad would have seen every Easter as his many years rolled by...

It's February 1st, we are well into 2020 and ready to go!  Even though it's cold out and everything seems dormant, there is much activity on the Jamison Family Farm.  Haying will soon be upon us.  Spring will come fast and we are working hard in advance to make First Quality Hay.

We have fertilizer on order and will take delivery of it late this month.  Today, I picked up some surfactant - which, in simple terms, is mixed with herbicides to help it stick to the weed leafs, penetrate their waxy coating and enable a more effective kill such that we can have weed free hay to the extent possible.  We are going to rebuild or replace our present sprayer - as the tank is small and beginning to crack.  The boom length is perfect for our rolling fields (20 foot spread) and so it is possible we might build our own sprayer frame, acquire a new/larger tank and adapt the booms, pump and controls from our old sprayer to it.  One of the things we are very keen on with respect to spraying is drift. We are mindful of temperature inversions and use air induction type nozzles that are designed to effectively deliver the herbicide from the sprayer to the plant with minimal drift.  We are also judicious with our herbicide selection.  We rotate year to year between herbicide types to help prevent the weeds from becoming resistant to any one herbicide.  None of the herbicides we use have a residual that carries over to our hay, to your animals, into their manure, that if not disposed correctly, could wipe out someone's garden or flowers if recycled as fertilizer.

On the Jamison Family Farm, we have some beautiful hay fields, however, some of the timothy on these fields is getting aged.  When I say aged, I don't mean 15 or 20 years old, but more like three to five years old.  Our farm is situated on the southern edge of where one can grow timothy, so between the heat, occasional drought and competing pressure from a legacy seed bed of grasses, the timothy begins to die off.  Were we not in the Virginia mountains, I'm not sure timothy would work as well for us as it has.

I'm told that a "pure" stand of any grass is considered, worse case, an 80/20 percent ratio; 80 percent timothy and 20 percent other grasses for us.  Once the mix grows beyond that ratio, we call it a timothy mixed grass hay.  If managed correctly, this mixed grass still makes for very good horse quality hay.  Some customers want straight timothy, others don't care; they desire a good quality, weed free hay and a timothy mixed grass hay is perfect.  Timothy or mixed, we forage test all of it.  The down side of a naturally occurring mixed grass hay is not the quality, but quantity.  Just because the timothy is dying doesn't mean another grass will automatically take it's spot and you find the density of the stand lower and lower each year.  We are in the hay business to produce as much hay as possible and in as much as we are moving our equipment across the field anyway, why not maximize yield to the extent reasonably possible.  To slow the deterioration of the timothy, we over-seed in the fall to reinforce our stand, but at some point you have to start over.

Enter Teff...

Teff is an Ethiopian grain that has made it's way into the United States as a forage crop.  It is a fine stemmed grass that is an annual - you have to plant it every year.  As we rotate out a failing timothy field or bring on a new hay field that we've taken back from old pasture, we plant teff to realize revenue off that field until we can replant it in timothy.  Some of you may know the qualities of teff, others may not.  Teff is an excellent horse hay; it is on par with timothy and is a low carbohydrate hay.  It is fast growing, requires lower inputs, but yields very well.  For the hay producer, it is a love/hate relationship.  Teff will not tolerate any frost and lodges easily.  As previously mentioned, teff has to be replanted every year.  When cut, one has to be careful as when you think it's dry and ready to bale - it is a good idea to wait another day as teff seems to rehydrate to some extent.  When Teff clicks, it is the haymaker's dream.  When it doesn't, it is the haymaker's nightmare.  In 2020, we will be planting teff on at least one of our main fields and on the "10" in advance of starting over with straight timothy.

In addition to some tractor and equipment maintenance, we are going to add at least two more kicker hay wagons.  With our new barn, we have the space to park loaded kicker wagons of hay, up to 10 wagons, before the barn fills.  This storage capacity and additional wagon count plays into First Quality Hay.  We can now put more hay on the ground at a time, when the hay is at it's highest quality, get it into square bales, quickly off the field and into the barn - safely out of the weather.   We have several running gears with rotted decks that are available for these new kicker wagons.

As many of you know, there is a hay shortage.  We sold out on January 1st.  Prices are high, if you can find hay at all.  We get emails and phone calls looking for hay every few days.  I think if we had another 1,000 bales, they would sell easily between now and Spring.  We appreciate all who have bought hay from us, look forward to your repeat business and hope other potential customers would consider our hay for 2020.

Finally - in anticipation of haying come this Spring, May the Hay Dog is working hard to undo her winter fat.  She is undergoing rigorous exercise so she can chase out any intruders (real or imaginary) that might otherwise compromise First Quality Hay.

Hay season on the Jamison Family Farm has ended for now and we are enjoying the fall colors and some much needed rain after a late summer drought.  We had a record hay yield in 2019, but short of our potential.  Second cutting hay was sparse as compared to first cuttings.  To give a few examples, the Lower Field yielded around 1,200 square bales of hay on first cutting and second cutting yielded 99 bales.  The Bull Pasture yielded around 300 bales of hay on first cutting and 15 on second cutting.  We cut Crown Hill and didn't bother to rake it up to bale as the hay clippings were so thin.  In spite of a lack luster second cutting, we had a very successful year.

We are watching the weather between now and Thanksgiving.  If moderate temperatures prevail, we see some growth and haying weather, we'll try to make a third cutting of hay.

In the mean time, we are shifting gears to finish cutting firewood for the winter.  We need about seven cords of wood to make it through spring.  It seems that everyone says this winter will be especially cold, snowy and brutal, so we might add a another cord or two to the stock pile.  All of our wood comes from dead and mostly downed trees.  We never have a need to cut a green tree because every year, the wind, ice, etc., bring down enough trees to supply our wood.  My boys are adults now and last time out, I gave each one of them a tree and chainsaw.  Along with myself, we spent that weekend afternoon cutting firewood for several hours - enough time to run three to four tanks of gas through each saw; it made for a good showing of cut firewood.  We cut as much as we can on an outing, leave it and haul it out another day to be split and stacked.  We can cut now, but then have to wait during the freeze thaw period of the ground where everything is muddy, and can again resume cutting firewood after the ground is frozen solid.  Our wood comes from "over the hill" and in/around the Bull Pasture.  We are seeing some dead oak trees that have some kind of insect or fungus getting under the bark and killing the tree.  The ash bore's are taking their toll too.

Our preference is oak.  Locus makes for a great firewood, but the downside of it, in my opinion, is when the wood burns down, it leaves behind large chunks of burnt charcoal (for lack of a better word) - impeding one's ability to re-fill the wood stove's firebox on the coldest of nights.  Oak, on the other hand, burns down to a powder leaving plenty of room in the firebox for more heat producing wood.  On the farm, as we browse around the woods, especially above the Saltpeter Field, we are quick to pick-up any "pine knots" laying on the ground for fire starting.

When I was a boy, the deer hunting activities on the farm were impressive.  We would pile up in the farm house with as many as three stoves going.  A kitchen wood cook stove, a Warm Morning coal stove in the living room and a wood/coal stove in the "parlor" where there were two single beds and a foot pedal organ.  Everyone kept a vigil eye out of the windows for a deer that never came, though someone would get lucky and kill a deer sometime during the two week rifle season "over the hill".  We also listened at night to the radio, a Zenith Transoceanic.

Those wood and coal stoves would burn hot, but not for long.  It seemed we would "bank" the stove with the inside temperature at 80ish degrees, hit the sack in our briefs and no covers, wake up the next morning in all our clothes, coats and heavy blankets on top - watching our breath freeze as we exhaled.  Cold feet were the norm.

Speaking of hunting...

I use to work at a local store in their sporting goods department.  In it they sold all kinds of guns, fishing tackle, etc.  I would write out hunting licenses for hours.  I was NEVER a very good hunter or fisherman in terms of the "catch".  I never killed a big buck or caught my limit of trout, however, behind that sporting goods counter, I might as well have been Curt Gowdy on the American Sportsman.  Everyone thought that IF you worked at a sporting goods store (and in my case - I drove a 1970 4x4 International Scout 800A which added to the legend), you had to know the business.  Customers would ask me - "what are the fish hitting on today?"  I didn't have a clue - even on a good day, but I'd blurt out something like "those pink salmon eggs are the cat's meow".  The customer would load up on four or five bottles and return later and tell me they caught their limit.  Everyone killed an eight point deer and caught their limit and thought I did too, but I didn't.  I never caught my limit or killed anything more than a doe - on doe day.  Zebco made a set of fish scales called "The De-Liar" - I thought it an appropriate name for fish scales for the guys using pink salmon eggs and killing those 250 lb eight point deer.

One time, I was behind the counter waxing about my hunting experience earlier that afternoon on Linton's Ridge at the farm.  I was squirrel hunting at the top of it with my double barrel Fox 20 ga shotgun.  There were four or five guys on the other side of the counter listening.  I told about how I heard a rustling in the leaves behind me, looked around and it was a couple of turkeys - out of season, of course.  I opined, that upon seeing those turkeys, I quietly broke down my shotgun, reached in my hunting vest (all Curt Gowdy watanabes wear hunting vests), plucked out a couple of buckshot shells, eased them into my side by side shotgun barrels and when I closed the gun, the barrels snapped shut with a loud click - the turkeys alerted to my presence took flight never to be seen again.

When I finished this yarn, one of the gentlemen in the gang of four or five listening to my story kindly informed me that turkey season was not here yet and had I shot one of those turkeys, it would have been illegal.  I said, "who are you?"  He said, "I'm Judge so and so - who are you?"  I said, "I'm the biggest liar in Alleghany County"... 

Back to the wood...

Unlike the wood stoves we used on the farm, the wood stoves we use in our house are very high efficient, clean burning stoves.  We have two wood stoves, one in our living room and one in our basement.  The basement stove is an Englander NC30; I call it the heat bomb.  It can bring the basement up to 85 degrees in a jiffy.  It is an all steel stove and uses secondary air injection to burn the gasses in the smoke.

The wood stove in our living room is more elegant and softer with the heat.  It is a Woodstock Keystone wood stove.  It is made of a cast iron frame with soapstone sides and top.  The soapstone absorbs the heat to dampen the heat spikes on the hot side and then as the fire dies down, the stored heat in the soap stone continues to radiate for hours - making for soft even heat throughout the burn cycle.  The Keystone uses a catalytic converter element to burn the gasses in the smoke.  The chemical reaction of the elements on the catalytic honeycomb substrate lowers the temperature at which these exhaust gases will ignite.  This allows for long burns at lower stove temperatures - especially nice on warmer days or when the stove is "banked" for the night.  In the coldest of winter, it is not uncommon the Keystone to burn continuously for weeks - only emptying the ash pan and re-filling the stove with wood.

When the above wood stoves are burning to a given stove top temperature (read sweet spot), there is no visible smoke out of our chimneys.  It is as though there is not a fire in the house.  In addition, the amount of creosote in our chimneys is minimal.

​However...

In keeping with the title of this blog, here are a few fall pics around the Jamison Family Farm...

In the picture above, those black and green balls on the ground are walnuts.  The Jamison Family Farm has many walnut trees around.  When I was a boy, we use to collect a lot of those walnuts.  Getting the husks off of them left one with black stained hands, so my Dad devised a way to rid the husks without the mess.  He would dump the walnuts in our gravel driveway in the car tracks and after a week or so of running over those walnuts, the husks were gone and we could pick out the walnuts - hands stain free.

In my Dad's basement workshop, there was a vice.  Nearby was a ball peen hammer and we would set the walnuts on the anvil part of the vice and crack them open with the hammer.  After smashing our formally blackened fingers with the hammer, we realized the power of vice jaws and set the walnuts in them, cranked down and enjoyed fresh walnuts for a snack...

​More fall pics...

May the Hay Dog is enjoying the Fall down time from haying...

If you are in need of First Quality Hay, we still have some timothy mixed grass hay from our first cuttings for sale.  For more info, pricing or questions, drop us a note at FirstQualityHay@icloud.com.

It's been a while since I made a blog entry - we've been pretty busy on the Jamison Family Farm over the past several months...

The Hay...  Last year we were plagued by rain and in many respects this year we experienced the same - but different.  Last year, we got very good cuttings of what we could cut, but rain caused delays in other fields over a period of weeks causing us to bush hog some of those fields rather than harvest.    In 2018 we also wrestled with equipment breakdowns which hampered our haying efforts.  We struggled mightily with our dome shelters and their vinyl covered roofs.

In contrast, this year, we were able to cut all of our fields, but rain and the threat of rain presented some challenges and delays; we had excellent service out of our equipment.  Our fertilizer timing in conjunction with grass maturity and potential rain all clicked.  We applied less fertilizer, yet harvested more hay per acre than in any previous year.  As a result, our first cut yield is up 25% over all of our haying last year.  Our herbicide application and timing were very good too.  While we are seeing more and more orchard grass and fescue come into our timothy fields, I feel we have the weed situation under good control and are trying a new to us herbicide to control foxtail.

For 2019, we are mashing our fields for a second and maybe a third cutting - something we really haven't done in the past.  We have sprayed for broadleaf weeds, foxtail and have fertilized for these upcoming cuttings.  I am hopeful we can begin a second cutting around the 15th of August and perhaps a third around September 15th - we'll see...

Below are a few pics of our haying efforts.

Not all of our hay is nice and green...  We kind of think it's nice hay - but some of it is a bit tan.  On our lower field cutting, we had rain the day after we cut.  We quickly tedded out the hay several times to get it dry.  We were further delayed in baling by the threat of rain for several more days than we would have preferred.  We would be positioned to bale, only see dark clouds to appear, to hear thunderstorms nearby and literally smell water in the air.  It's better to have the hay see rain in the windrow than to get bales soaked, so we would pass on baling and did so for several days.  Ironically - each evening we attempted to bale and called it off due the threat of rain - yet it never rained on the farm.  Driving up and down the road to the farm, we would see where it had rained, sometimes very hard and only a few miles away.  The net effect of our delayed baling on the lower field was hay that was exposed to the sun for several days and with it some fading.

However...  We don't rely on just color, touch and feel (though important).  We sample all of our hay cuttings and sampled the lower field in two halves.  We have four fields and submitted five samples of hay to Equi-Analytical for analysis.  We use their wet chemistry Trainer 603 test, all of which are back and again our hay is low in sugar (ESC+starch), potassium and iron.  Testing in not inexpensive; the Trainer 603 test cost's $67.00 each (including the $2.00 postage fee).  For our first cuttings, we spent $335.00 so we can show our buyer exactly what they are getting.  I don't personally know of any other hay producer near us doing the same.  Yes - color, touch and feel, absence of weeds, tight bales are very important considerations for one's hay, but we think First Quality Hay demands a food label and we provide it.  If you'd like a copy of our hay test results, send us an email at FirstQualityHay@icloud.com

Above are core samples being taken and May the Hay Dog keeps things honest by taste testing our hay - when she can find it...

The Barn... I think I've mentioned before that my kids are 5th generation on the Jamison Family Farm.  My great grandfather, James Henry Jamison, built the barn that has seen use for over 100 years.  My grandfather, George Lewis Jamison, made sure the fields were well fertilized and often the old barn was full to the top with square bales of hay.

​In James Henry's day, loose hay ruled.  He built the original barn for horses, storage of loose hay and in the back was a manger for feeding cattle or sheep.  The beams in the barn are held together with wooden dow pins.  It originally had a wood shingle roof.  That was replaced during World War II and my Dad helped with the replacement.  Due to the material needs of the war, steel roofing was not available, so tin was used.  The old barn always had a shinny roof.  I recall my Dad telling me that it was fall when they replaced the roof and he was on top of the barn working.  Directly ahead - across the road on the farm is Linton's Ridge.  It is a wonderful and plentiful place to squirrel hunt.  My Dad recalled that while he was helping with the roof - where he really wanted to be was on Linton's Ridge squirrel hunting.  Sometimes my boys or my brother will kill a few squirrels and my mother will make a tasty squirrel pot pie!

While the old barn served the farm extremely well, over the years it has been wearing and breaking down.  The roof is coming loose; tin ripping away in the wind, roof supports with holes from bumble bees that bore into the wood, overloading the barn - designed for loose hay, yet packed with squares for over 50 years took their toll.  Strong winds have caused damage and believe it or not, ground hogs digging under the barn have damaged the underpinnings of the barn causing it to sag in critical areas.  Below are some recent pictures of the barn.​..

As bad as the barn looks, some of it is still useable.  Last year we filled every nook and cranny that was available for hay and if needed could still store some hay in the old barn.  But this barn was built in a different time and as great as it is/was, it is not tractor/implement friendly for today's haying.  All hay stored in the barn had to be carried inside for stacking; a tractor or wagon could not fit under it.  If rain was coming, unloading was a real fire drill to get the hay off the wagons and into the barn and haying wasn't finished until ALL hay was unloaded and in the barn.  Sometimes we were close to midnight getting hay off the wagons and stored.  Bottom line - it was time to either rebuild the old barn or build a new one.  Given our haying needs, I felt a new barn - one designed for haying that fits what we are doing in 2019 (and beyond) was a better option.

Below are a few more pictures of the old barn.  One is a picture of hay neatly stacked in the barn, another is with myself and Iva stacking some hay and finally my lush barn office...

So with the decision made to build a new barn, a few thoughts permeated my head.  To start with - this would be the first and last barn I'd ever build; it had to be a home run.  This barn had to meet our haying needs - to include features that made it easier to work around our day job hours.  It had to be built to a different standard - one that would help preserve and sell First Quality Hay.

The New Barn...

While this is a pole barn, it is not the ordinary pole barn one might see or use for hay.  It is designed with three doors, one on each end and one on the side.  The doors are 16 feet wide and 16 feet tall; they will have sliding doors covering the openings.  The two end doors enable drive through and the barn is wide enough to turn in/out the side if necessary.  This barn is 32 feet wide x 88 feet long with a clear span 16 foot interior height.  It has two foot roof over hangs on each side and one foot overhangs on the ends.  There are gutters along each long side to divert water away from the building.

Most pole barns have metal roofing, so does ours, however, metal roofs are notorious for raining condensation onto the hay below.  Sometimes a bubble or felt insulation is used to minimize this, but over time it generally fails to stick and peels off the underside.  Our barn uses plywood under the metal roofing (with a felt barrier between) to provide additional strength to the roof, but also to serve as insulation - preventing condensation.

A barn needs to breathe as hay sweats and continues to dry down after baling and air movement is critical.  The two foot over hangs on each side of the barn are vented; the roof has a ridge vent too.  There is a lot of air movement in this barn; even when we have the doors in place, this barn will breathe nicely.

​It's handy to have some natural light in the barn, so we designed-in clear polycarbonate panels under the eave's of each side of the barn.  We want light, but not to much as it discolors the hay.  We opted for continuous light panels down each side of the barn, but limited their height to limit to much light from entering the barn.

The pic below shows those light panels from the inside...

As I mentioned, the doors on this barn are 16 feet wide x 16 feet tall.  The idea with these large doors was multiple.  One of them was to have a barn door opening large enough to allow a tractor trailer to back-into for a load of hay.  More importantly though, was a need to get hay baled, quickly into the barn and out of the weather for unloading later.  These doors are large enough that until the middle of the barn fills-up with hay, we can pull our wagons right under it.  This is a huge help when you are haying around a full time day job and/or just trying to beat the rain.  Remember the old barn - everything had to be unloaded - regardless.  The new barn:  We park the wagons under it and unload later - when it's cooler, when it's raining or another day.  There are no fire drills with this barn...

We wanted a barn large enough to hold all of our present hay yield and future increased yields - as we continue to take back old pastures and convert them into hay fields.  We actively manage our fields from depleted old pastures, lacking in just about everything, to strong hay producing acreage.  On our first cuttings this year, we had one field that yielded 150 bales per acre.  In contrast, a typical, wore-out/depleted field without any inputs on this farm, might make 40 bales per acre per year.  So with the increased acreage and increased bales per acre, storage capacity is important.  If we stack hay to the bottom of the trusses, we can put just over 6,000 bales of hay in this barn.  It is unlikely we will ever get that many bales of hay in this barn at once - though anything is possible.  Hay inventory ebbs and flows as we make our cuttings.  We have already sold a fair amount of our first cuttings and are a couple weeks away from our second cuttings.  Our short term goal is at least 5,000 bales per year (all cuttings) and that goal will be achieved in a few years.  It's good to know we have a barn capable of holding that much hay.  We no longer need our other sheds/shelters to store hay and the headaches (read loss of hay) that went with them.

Color...  We wrestled with what color this barn should be.  Seems simple enough, but we spent a lot of time over the winter considering the look of the barn.  As you can imagine, I've got this slickery website with nice pictures and when customers would pull into the farm, our shelters visually left something to be desired - to say the least.  Ever look online at beach hotels only to book one based on how nice it looked in the pictures, but when you got there - maybe the hotel looked that good on one side, one time in the past, but in person - it was a dump?  I kind of thought our old shelters, especially our dome shelters - while functional, did not convey a warm and fuzzy with respect to First Quality Hay...

This new barn needed to look great AND sell hay...

I thought I wanted a red barn with a silver or white roof - a traditional looking barn.  We drove around looking at barns of every color, looked on the internet at pictures and you may not believe it - agonized over the color scheme.  This is the first and last barn I'll ever build - it has to be right, down to the barn colors.  We were 99% sure we were going red until we drove out from Sweet Springs West Virginia to Union.  Along the drive we saw red barns, white barns, beige barns - some wooden barns that had never seen paint.  What we did see was a few nice white barns with green roofs.  Mindful the farm house is white with a green roof - at the last minute we decided to go with white sides, green roof and but added green wainscoting around the bottom.  I'm a little biased, but against the mountain backdrop, I think our the barn color choice looks pretty good.

Good enough to show the same barn picture from above - again...

I can ramble more about this barn - ask me when you come for a visit or a load of hay...

The MF...  Over the years we have upgraded our equipment and the machines we use to cut our hay has evolved from a simple sickle mower to a sickle mower conditioner to a disc mower conditioner.  If the sickle mower required 25 horsepower and the sickle mower conditioner required maybe 40 horse power, our disc mower conditioner (to realize it's fullest potential) requires 70 horse power minimum and in heavy hay, at a good clip, even more power.  We also wanted a very heavy tractor such that when we have a loaded hay wagon, we can safely bring it down from the "hill" without being pushed to the bottom.  As I mentioned in an earlier blog, we searched all winter for another tractor and settled on a Massey Ferguson 1105.

This tractor has a 110 PTO horse power and weighs in at close to 15,000 lbs.  It handles our mower conditioner like a dream.  At 7 mph (our sickle mower conditioner on a good day made about 3.5 mph) and in heavy hay, I can mow four acres in one hour.  The tractor mower combo makes it possible for me to arrive at the farm and mow late in the evening, into the dew and/or dark.  The disc mower conditioner will not clog the cutter bar like our other sickle machines in dew damp hay or tangled lodged hay and plows right through everything leaving a golf course cut.  MF has the power to run it as fast as I can stay in the seat and loaded hay wagons do not push this tractor around.

​The Massey Ferguson 1105 is a welcome addition.

A few more pics...

As I'm writing, it's getting late; about 2 am.  I think this is the longest blog I've written yet.  May the Hay Dog thinks it's a bit much and would like me to knock it off for the night...

Hope everyone has a great Summer.  If you are in need of good hay, additional info on our hay or have questions - send us a note to FirstQualityHay@icloud.com

We are glad to see Spring 2019 come to the Jamison Family Farm.  With a break in the weather, we are very busy preparing for our 2019 haying.  Equipment repairs and maintenance are underway; this past weekend, we finished fertilizing.  Spraying for broad leaf weeds will come a bit later as they begin to grow into our hay.

I posted the pic below on our Facebook page...  The wind blew my hat into the fertilizer spreader and the spreader gave it - it's best effort to spread the hat, ouch!

The fertilizer spreader is a Lely spreader; probably 50 years old.  It is rusted at the bottom and on it's last leg.  The charts are useless for metering fertilizer due to metal lost to rust - but we make do.  My boys and I (several years ago) spread bags of fertilizer on each setting.  We recorded the PTO rpms, width of spread, ground speed in MPH and the amount of time it took to empty the given amount of fertilizer.  From this, we calculated pounds of fertilizer spread per acre.  We still use 50 lb bags of fertilizer and based on our calculations, we can just about apply and come out of the field within one bag of having the exact amount.  We could hire spreading of our fertilizer, but prefer to apply it ourselves; we want an exacting amount as prescribed by our soil sample recommendations based on expected yield.  VA Tech does our soil analysis.  Accurate fertilizing is important to making First Quality Hay.  Below is a pic of one ton of nitrogen 46-0-0.

Typically fertilizer is applied with respect to N, P and K - which is nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potash (K).  One can buy a blend, such as 10-10-10, but our soil recommendations never call for even amounts of N, P and K.  So we buy each separate and apply as needed for each field.

One would think that with all this gibberish regarding accurate metering of fertilizer on our fields via soil samples, calibrated spreader, etc., that we would use some kind of high tech GPS to guide our spread.  I suppose we could, however, we have found that a drop of toilet paper here and there shows the way.  Don't know if the Engineers at John Deere had it in mind, but the throttle lever on our fine JD 5055D has proven to be an excellent dispenser for the TP.  We don't have GPS on the Jamison Family Farm, we have TPS!

Other chores are building more kicker wagons.  We expect to have six total wagons ready for haying this year.  Each wagon holds at least 130 square bales and if we are good at tossing into the wagon, 150 bales.  Best case, we should be able to move 900 bales of hay off the field as we bale without any field labor other than driving the tractor and changing out wagons.  Above is a very good running gear we are stripping off the old deck and runners for a new life as a kicker wagon.

We have plans to build a new barn that allows these wagons to be parked inside and at the same time for unloading later.  The goal is to get the hay timely baled for First Quality Hay and out of any potential weather.  Our new barn will let us unload - sheltered and dry.  In years past, it could be a race to get the wagons unloaded before rain moves-in; this barn will be a welcome relief from that situation.  We can put 130-150 bales on a wagon in as little as 20 minutes; a game changer when a thunderstorm is threatening and getting hay off the field and under cover ASAP is a must.

If you've been on the Jamison Family Farm, you know it is divided by a highway.  "Below the road" and "over the hill" are terms thrown about on the farm; you've heard them too.  We have focused our efforts mostly on fields below the road, including the bull pasture and the 10.  In addition we have a really nice stand of timothy over the hill on Crown Hill and the Orchard Field, however, there is much more acreage to be reclaimed and put into hay.  To expand, our dilemma haying "over the hill" has been two fold, one - we need more hp than the mighty IH Farmall 756 Gasser can deliver to drive our Krone mower conditioner on these hills.

The second challenge is to bring loaded hay wagons off these hills safely without being pushed to the bottom!  Note - we would only hay on the ridge lines, tops and mild slopes - not the steep part you see in front of the tractor!

The remedy is more hp and more weight; hp to sufficiently drive the Krone and massive weight compared to a loaded kicker wagon to resist push and maintain traction and control moving hay off the hill and to below the road.  We have been shopping for a suitable tractor in multiple states over this past Winter; Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky - all of which we have traveled for a look-see at a potential tractor buy.  For various reasons, none of the below made the cut...

However, after much travel, effort and empty handed frustration, we finally found and bought another tractor - one suitable for haying "over the hill".  It is 100 hp, has a cab, heat and AC.  It will weigh-in around 13,000 lbs.  If we put fluid in the rear tires, it will come-in at close to 15,000 lbs, almost 8 tons.  We're not sure May the Hay Dog can wedge herself into the cab along with the driver for a command view...

The tractor is not new and has about 4,800 hours; it is in excellent condition and delivers the mail on all points we set-out during our tractor purchase quest.  This tractor is located in...

Our "new to us" tractor will be trucked-in to the Jamison Family Farm sometime between now and May 1.

I'd like to tell you what we bought, however...

Stay tuned to our next blog where you will read...

More info on this tractor, it's make, model and pictures.  I'll give an update on our haying efforts unfolding over the next weeks and months - as we strive in 2019 to make First Quality Hay...

From time to time I venture off the Jamison Family Farm and make my way into West Virginia to a town called Union.  Year round - the drive is spectacular and today was no exception.  The roads are straight, rolling and lined with farms and mountains - it is truly a time for clear thought and meditation for all things worth pondering.

We had snow and ice last night and with Church canceled, I got myself into the Jeep and began the drive...

Soon - I crossed the Great Eastern Divide.

Just beyond the slight hill ahead - on which this sign rests, the valley and scenery fully open...

Looking over my shoulder...

As I continue my trek towards Union, I come to a place called Gap Mills...

In Gap Mills, there is a terrific store that sells all sorts of nuts, chocolate, deli-meat, flour - cheese and more.  It is worth a stop - but they are not open on Sunday...

The store is called Cheese N More...

Moving along on Rt-3 West...

The scenery continues...

Another stop along the way (when it is warm and snow/ice free) is the Rehoboth Church.  It is hard to believe this area was once the Western edge of the frontier.

Continuing along a soothing, meditating, stress relieving drive...

One soon finds themselves upon Union...

An integral part of our haying is soil inputs based on soil tests.  We send the soil samples to Va Tech for analysis and with their recommendations, we buy our lime and fertilizer from Mountaineer Farmer Center in Union.  They are great folks with whom to do business.

Throughout the drive - there are many quilts...

At the end of the journey to Union - I recommend taking time to break bread.  Sometimes I stop at the Korner Kafe or the Kalico Kitchen...

Today I had a relaxing breakfast just beyond Union in a place called Pickaway - at a resturant called the Pickaway Pickins...

As you begin to exit Union - to the North, there is the Union Presbyterian Church with wonderful stained glass and a beautiful sanctuary with a balcony.

Behind the Church to the left is a Civil War monument...

If you'd like a good read, I recommend buying, or better yet, subscribing to the weekly news paper, The Monroe Watchman.

After the drive to Union and a big breakfast - for desert, make a U-turn and enjoy the scenery again as you make your way back to - The Jamison Family Farm.

Today is January 1st 2019.  Happy New Year!

Probably shouldn't say, "good to see 2018 in the rear view mirror" as who knows what is ahead for 2019, but I am glad to see the start of 2019 and a new year on the Jamison Family Farm.  Spent some time today there and found ourselves cutting and gathering a bit of firewood.  Things are drying out a bit; the wind was brisk and it felt unseasonably warm.  All in all, it was a calm, uneventful day - a nice way to start off 2019.

The tree we cut shown in the picture above was in the Bull Pasture.  It has been dead for a few years and made a steady contribution of dropped limbs and twigs in that field, so we cut it for firewood.  The trunk is left high as we will put a bull dozer against it to get the stump out and rid the field of the whole tree.

We are hopeful for 2019 and if the weather cooperates, expect a bumper crop of hay.  Additional acreage is going to be added and in addition to our Timothy, we expect to plant some annual Teff grass.  We will build more kicker racks on our existing hay wagons to go along with our baler mounted kicker...

John Deere calls it a " #42 Ejector".  All I know is that it's a massive labor savor as it eliminates a person on the wagon stacking in the hottest of hot days.  Depending on the size, we can fill a wagon with anywhere from 130 to 150 square bales of hay in 20-30 minutes.

May the Hay Dog is glad to see 2019 too.  Dressing up for Christmas 2018 just about wore her out...

Field ready...

Looking forward to making First Quality Hay in 2019 and wish everyone a very...