Once again, our local Craigslist has become a battle ground about hay. You have to have at least high speed DSL and all day to sit in front of your computor to keep up with the postings-before they are flagged down by the (rightfully) annoyed and frustrated. I can only imagine what I have missed, lol
This is turning into quite the soap opera, with she/he said, she/he said and accusations flying as fast as the rumors, my goodness one needs a score card to keep track of all the players there-only a few of which are brave enough to sign their names. One side is firmly convinced that all hay farmers are out to rip off hay buyers. Another side thinks anyone who imports hay is "nasty". Yet another seems to think that Alaskan hay is the best thing since sliced bread. Still another lays out the situation as they see it. Then someone else will come on and whine why their post was flagged...and so on and so forth. They should take it R&R where they can have it each other nonstop, instead of clogging up Farm & Garden with such tripe.
These eruptions seem to happen about once or twice a month, and run for a couple of days. In the meantime, folks selling hay, or those needing it, are ignored or flagged, or both. Many posters don't allow a personal response....just yesterday, I took pains to respond to one person who complained about how the cost of hay should only be three or four bucks. I told the poster my own experiences with that, from the early 90s, but of course got no reply. I know they got it because it did not get kicked back from the CL remailer. They either were thankful they had their eyes opened (one could hope!) or they were so consumed with bitterness they just got angry and deleted it-either way, at least I did try.
Now I am not quite as dumb as some people like to presume, and when I have friends and acquaintanences calling or emailing and asking about what's happening on CL...well, I have to tell them the truth-I am not posting there. So all those flying off the handle and presuming I am....well, have fun with that! It's much more entertaining to just read and smile, or giggle, or feel sorry, or sympathy or any number of things.
If this is any indication of what is come over the winter months, it's surely going to be interesting!
Popcorn, anyone?
2 comments:
Uugh! I find it very frustrating. Now you have to screen through "hay" ads that are not "hay for sale" ads.
If a individual hates the local hay so much why are they living here?! If a individual doesn't want want to buy imported hay, then don't.
Why frustrate the rest of us with it!
Heck, I have had horses for over 25 years here in Alaska and have been feeding the local hay, horses do fine. Now the past 5 or so years I have had to supplement with over 50% imported but that is because there isn't enough clean dry hay available all winter.
If local hay is lacking in value content it is very easy to add a vitamin/mineral/protein supplement to make up the difference and fairly inexpensive.
Boy me too. Very frustrating that some folks are abusing CL that way.
BTW, all the offending posts were gone off the list in an hours' time. Either some folks were very busy flagging or someone finally reported the mess to CL?
I agree with you about the hay supply 110%! It just stands to reason that there is less acreage in hay today, than just five years ago-look at the amount of subdividing going on during that time. Yet, we have more horses arriving every year from the Lower 48. I don't know what's happening with the populations of other livestock but I have a hunch they are about to show a startling increase as people move away from expensive, hormone laden prepackaged meats and attempt to grow their own.
You might have noticed a couple of slams against me personally. A bunch of folks obviously thought I was doing some posting there-but as I said, I haven't. I just feel awful for the hardworking farmers here who are not appreciated for their efforts. Despite Flo's claim to the contrary, they are not all "independently wealthy", not by a long shot.
But if they just used some logic here...I am certainly not cutting into any farmers' business here, not at all. This last week, both M Bar D and AFW were out of hay! Demand is up because as you said, there isn't enough clean, dry hay to go around-especially this rainy summer.
Like everyone else, I am attempting to stock up as much as I can against the coming winter and it's challenges.
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