Q: How long have you been in this line of work?

A: I’ve been haying for myself since I bought my first farm, the Old School House Farm in Kennebunkport, in 1997. But I had done it previously, since the mid-1980s, as part of my farming operation in New York state. 

Q: Do you own a farm? 

A: Yes. I own about 38 acres in Lyman. My wife and I support sustainable agriculture and grow most of our own food, including garden produce and berries and all of our own meat. We raise free-range chickens, pigs and sheep and sell the wool too. For the past few years I’ve also kept bees for honey.

It’s mostly an organic farming operation. Our goal is to harvest for ourselves and then market the rest to high-end restaurants and others as a means of income. I harvest about 1,200 bales of hay for my own horses and sheep and sell the rest to customers. 

Q: Is that harvested from your own hay fields or those of others?

A: Our Lyman farmland is too rocky for haying, so my haying operation is actually on my former farm property in Kennebunkport and on another property. Basically I hay other people’s fields as part of my land management business to maintain the properties of others. It’s about 30 acres total. 

Q: Do you have to pay a fee to harvest it?

A: I do not pay a fee but I am under obligation to cut the field at least once a year as part of my land management work. Some of the property owners are under obligation with a land trust to preserve their property as an open field, but they don’t have the equipment to do that. I help them fulfill their obligation by haying it for them. In exchange, they get some of the hay for free and they also buy some of it from me. And I get to keep the rest for my animals. 

Q: Is the adage “make hay while the sun shines” true?

A: Yes. It takes three sunny days to make hay. On the first day, you mow and use a tedder (a machine equipped with two wheels and long tines that spin like an eggbeater) to spread the hay out over the field to dry evenly. On the second day, you allow the hay to dry. On day three, you rake the hay into windrows (or heaps), then bale it.

You want that hay to be completely dry before you bale it. Otherwise, it could cause mold and even spontaneously combust and burn your barn down. In my cutting operation, I bale and store my own hay and allow customers to come directly to the field to pick up their own bales. 

Q: How do you know when it’s ready?

A: Hay is ready to cut when it develops buds that have not yet gone to seed. 

Q: How many times a year do you harvest the hay?

A: I try to get two cuttings in per season — the first at the end of June and the second at the end of September. It all depends on the weather. Typically, in Maine the hay is ready to harvest earlier than we can cut it because of wet ground conditions. If you go in too early, you risk making big ruts in the field and pushing the crop into the mud. If you wait too long, you risk missing a second harvest. The second crop is not as plentiful as the first crop, but the quality of the hay is nicer. It’s leafier, which is what the animals like.

There are a lot of variables for me as to when I can harvest it. In farming, many of the things I do need to be done in good weather, and I have many things to tend to plus family obligations. So, the first consideration when the crop is ready is when I will have a three-day stretch of good weather. 

Q: Is hay grass a crop that you must plant?

A: Hay can be anything from native grass to a planted crop. Some farmers like to plant specific varieties like alfalfa that horse people prefer. Others reap natural grasses. You don’t have to reseed it every year because it reseeds itself. My hay is a mix of native grasses, with timothy and clover. I only reseed it if I want to improve the quality of the hay. 

Q: Are weeds or invasive plant species ever an issue?

A: They can be, especially things like thistles. The more cutting you do, the better your chances of keeping (the weeds) in check before they go to seed. And that is important for me because I don’t use herbicides to control weeds. 

Q: How many bales do you harvest each summer?

A: I put up between 1,000 to 1,200 bales to feed my horses and sheep and another 1,000 to 2,000 bales for customers. 

Q: What animals eat hay? 

A: Cows, sheep, goats, llamas and horses. 

Q: Is this a supplement for a grain-based diet?

A: In some cases, yes. I prefer to feed my animals a grass-fed diet, supplemented with a little grain. Cows are not really meant to eat grain. It changes the chemical makeup in their stomachs (at the risk of allowing E. coli to grow and with it the risk of illness from eating that meat). E. coli cannot grow in a grass-fed animal. 

Q: Where is the hay stored? 

A: I store mine in a second-floor loft in my barn. 

Q: How long does hay last? 

A: It’s fine for a year or more, but typically you use it the year it’s harvested. I usually get calls in the spring from farmers who have run out of their hay and are looking to purchase any extra hay that I may have left. 

Q: What sort of equipment is used to harvest the hay?

A: I use a 35-horsepower tractor, a disc mower, a tedder, an old-fashioned pinwheel rake and a baler that makes square bales. 

Q: How many workers help you harvest the crop?

A: I do all the mowing and baling myself and enlist the help of family and friends to help me bring in my own crop to the barn. Payment for the work is usually in the form of a big meal that we make for our volunteers, using many of the things we grow on our farm. I also send them home with things from the farm for helping, like a surplus of something we may have from the garden.You want that hay to be completely dry before you bale it. Otherwise, it could cause mold and even spontaneously combust and burn your barn down.