HUMBOLDT — Hay is the go-to fodder for cattle when grass goes dormant or is in short supply.
The sweet smelling grass — to cattle at least — has few limits of being put in play.
No one knows the ins and outs of raising hay better than Dale Daniels.
Daniels, 83, has spent his life farming, with the typical combination of crops and cattle.
Putting up hay has occupied Daniels most recently. Despite the scorching temperatures, Daniels is looking ahead to an icy winter.
Farmers who don’t look ahead and prepare accordingly often are those who have “FOR SALE” signs on their land announcing a lack of planning.
Today, Daniels takes a more measured approach to what he does, common for folks his age and the result of the many days of working daylight to dusk.
“I was 6 years old when I started driving a tractor,” he recalled, not with bluster, just matter-of-factly. That may sound extreme, but farming is a family affair … if it is done right.
After graduating from Humboldt High in 1961, Daniels attended a vehicle mechanics school in Kansas City and worked a short time in the profession. That side gig has come in handy on the farm where there’s no shortage of necessary repairs on a range of equipment.
He also signed up for basic training with the Kansas National Guard which over the years pulled him away from the farm to fulfill its obligations, including two-week summer training stints in such places as Wisconsin, Minnesota and Fort Riley.
HAY HAS been around since the distant past, though not in the Americas until Europeans waded ashore more than five centuries ago.
Early forms of storage were simple, usually piled up mounds that were exposed to the elements and sometimes led to a high loss rate.
Today, once the grass is cut and cured, it is formed into huge bales and packed tightly in a circular pattern that can result in them weighing as much as 1,700 pounds, Daniels said.
That’s a far cry from only 30 years ago, when 30 bales were expected to weigh a ton, 2,000 pounds.
For years, hay bales were girded with baling twine. Now, plastic sheets tightly encompass the grass, making the bales more durable, sometimes for two or three years.
A barn’s hayloft is likely a misnomer these days.
