Busy weekend ahead

And it is months away from harvest time too, lol!

I have another hay van in. My gosh, next year I have to figure out how to have an extra two or three vans of hay on hand for late May and June. It's crazy, the number of phone calls I have had, people needing hay. Of course, the limiting factor will be money. It always comes down to the money involved. I just don't have an 30 thousand extra laying around to tie up in hay for 45 days and that's that.

Seriously, I could have moved at least 55 ton in the past week alone, based on the calls I got. Kind of scary, actually, but some people just don't seem to really "get it" that the hay is by pre order. And then I get this (which happens a LOT) Gal calls me up twice over the past year. I explain how I bring in the hay and call her both times when a van arrives so she could come look at it. I am confident that the hay sells itself, but want people to come see for themselves what they are buying, right?

So anyhow, this gal calls twice, and each time I tell her when the van is scheduled, and take the time to call her and let her know its in. She lives about 6 miles away so you'd think that it wouldn't be much of a problem for her to zip over and take a look for herself, right? Um, nope, never happened. As it happens, a friend/coworker/employee of the woman (not sure of relationship) gets hay from me, and arranges for pick up today. The customer calls me on the slim chance that I have "several tons" not "spoken for".

Not. Every ounce of every van is already purchased (with deposit in hand) before I order it. Once in a while, someone can't take all their hay due to circumstances. In which case I post on a couple local groups about the excess and it's generally gone in a few hours. In fact, I regularly have people pleading for hay, each and every van. Those are the people who don't plan ahead, aren't regular customers, and are in a bind for forage for their animals. And then there are the folks that stop by as I am unloading on the weekends......and I cannot help them.

I feel bad that I don't have the hay that people need, but on the other hand.....I am not a feed store. I must have hay for the horses I am responsible for feeding too. I have given in to my compassion way too many times in the past few years when it comes to supplying people with hay. Inevitably, none of those people ever order hay through me again.

If you can't plan ahead and make a deposit for hay, how do you plan to feed your animals throughout an entire year? Run to the feed store every couple of weeks and pay a couple hundred more a ton?

At this point I don't have much sympathy for the people involved-the horses, of course, have my heart :(