Ben, most of our hay is raised on flood irrigated ground so that is how we survived without having to buy much.
We buy hay almost every year but if there are good spring rains and a cool June/July we hay up in the hills on dry land fields.
You can make a lot of (easy)hay if the conditions are right.
That's the only way we ever build up a stash.
Last summer we irrigated as much as we did in the 3 previous years combined.
Thank God for a good supply of water in a jumbo reservoir about 50 miles upstream.
Speaking of runoff, this next snow could be a stock dam filler which would be nice. Warming up so slow that most of our snow has soaked in and the creek here locally has hardly ran.
Good for da grass but bad for the water holes.
Wet snow on froze ground followed by a warm-up means running water!
