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Barton Hay

We raise and sell alfalfa and alfalfa grass hay in Colville, WA. Custom fitting our forage to your particular animals is our specialty.
(5)

07/17/2024

Ellie and I went down to Costco in Spokane yesterday for her eye appointment after she did irrigation in the morning (and fed the cows and milked the goats).

When we got back home, I drove the tractor pulling the irrigation pipe wagon and she loaded the pipe from the field we just finished and moved it to a recently baled field that hasn't been watered yet.

She's been changing irrigation every morning and evening and I am so thankful for all of her help. She also is the one that rakes the hay after it's cut. Dennis and Luke have been working out of town for almost three months now, coming home on Thursday evenings so it's up to us to get 'er done. (Luke has terrible allergies anyway and can't help with the haying.)

It's been so hot and will continue to be in the high 90s and back above 100 this weekend so we will continue to focus on keeping fresh, cool water for the animals, changing irrigation in the fields and in the yard and avoiding doing any work during the hottest part of the day.

Still have another field to cut for hay, which I think I will do today and another line of irrigation to move tonight with Ellie. I will wait until Dennis gets home to start stacking the barley and oat hay. It's BUSY and HOT here!!

06/30/2024

After a busy week of getting hay in, taking cows to the vet for their annual testing, having a tour here, tarping stacks, we tried to get our irrigation going.

Our pump has been leaking for several years and after several attempts to contact a company in Spokane earlier in the spring about getting an irrigation pump (sent info and called three times, talking to three different people and after a month, I gave up), I found a company in Tri-Cities that was very responsive and they also have another local farmer as a customer.

The pump was built and brought up and when Dennis got home last week from working out of town, he hooked it up but it didn't have the volume it should and when I went out of the house that evening, I could hear it and it didn't sound right. I told Dennis we better shut it off and I would try to figure it out after I got the hay baled and in that week.

Well, I couldn't really figure it out but we had a friend come and look at it and found the amperage was adequate from the panel to the pump, there weren't any leaks in the system that we could find, and the suction pipe seemed clear and functional.

I contacted the sales rep and told him we had checked everything out and figured it had to be the pump. He responded even though it was the weekend and it seemed we better get the pump back to them to have them evaluate it, so we needed to load it up and get it at least to Spokane.

Our friend stopped by again to help (300 lb pump) and decided to try switching/checking the wires before we disconnected it. He quickly switched and taped the wires back up and we turned it on and I have never heard such a pretty hum in my life!! The water came gushing out the open valve we had and that pumped sounded BEAUTIFUL!

We were already behind on watering and 90° F temperatures are coming AND the first cutting is off the now-dry hay fields so every day without water is setting us back on the 2nd cutting.

It seems like there is always something that comes up that makes things complicated and difficult with farming, so I was feeling kind of defeated but I am so thankful I took Micah and Tania's offer to help...and Micah figured out the issue!!

We have water!!! Now to change pipe twice a day....Ellie??!!

06/25/2024

1st cutting grassy/alfalfa hay available in the field TODAY and TOMORROW!!

Baled 366 bales yesterday morning and I am headed out to bale more as soon as the dew evaporates just a little more.

With thunderstorms predicted early Thursday morning, and Dennis working out of town this week, it's all up to me to get the fields cleared. I have 100 bales going out today but have room for some more customers on this mostly grass/alfalfa hay (great for horses and actually my sheep and goats and dairy cows are eating really well).

I could also use some help getting some stacks straightened out and tarped.

11/22/2021

I get quite a few messages asking for hay. Unfortunately, we are sold out (we usually are by mid to late summer).

We have a customer list that goes by seniority and with the drought conditions we experienced during the growing season, we only got about 1/4 to 1/3 of the hay we usually get, so we didn't even have enough for all of our regular customer orders.

This is our stack for our horses, steers and donkeys which should last through the end of April. Hope everyone can find the hay they need!

Address

Colville, WA
99114

Telephone

(509) 684-5773

Website

facebook.com

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