Nelson Green is in his mid 80’s, he struggles with emphysema and other lung issues, he tore a ligament in his shoulder baling hay a month or so ago. Nelson is a giant man with enormous hands, he has been on his farm his whole life. He showed up early this morning – like the other hay farmers, he never calls, he just appears and trusts to the fates – with 175 bales of hay for us for the winter. Nelson hates the phone. He is around hay all of the time.  I wondered if he and trouble breathing. Not today, he said, but most days.

What, I asked,  do you take for it? “Budweiser,” he son said, while tossing hay from the truck.

We all cracked up, including Nelson. “Yes,” he said, “I suppose that is so.” I love having hay in my barn for the winter. Around here, planning for winter begins in the Spring, we have five cords of firewood stored and stacked and hay in the barn. We are ready for fall and beyond. I usually put hay out when the first hard frost hits, and there is no nutrition in the grass.

We usually use two-thirds of a bale a day for three donkeys and eight sheep.  The hay cost $5.50 a bale, I am told it costs up to $50 a bale in Texas due to drought, one reason so many donkeys and horses are being abandoned and in desperate need of rescue. The barn carts love to sleep in the hay bales, they burrow deep inside where they are warm and safe. The chickens also sit on the hay in the winter, sometimes they lay eggs in there. I have a few more things to do before snow. I want to have a frost-free water line built out to the pasture, it’s not far and it’s a straight line, we’ll see if we can afford it.

I also want to dump more dirt in the pole barn, softer for the animals to lie on and also helps with drainage in wet and snowy weather. We’ll see what all of this costs. In the meantime, we are ready for winter, it is a warm, sweet and rich feeling. Nelson shows up, he writes out his bill with a pencil on a paper, asks me if there was any bad hay from the year before (if so, he deducts it from the bill, his hay is quite wonderful), shakes hands, tells me about all of his problems with his health, taxes, the rising cost of things and the weather. Farmers never ever say they are having a good year, it is a superstition with them.

Have hay and wood ready is a sweet feeling, I cherish it, it comes once a year, it is a harbinger of Fall, my favorite season. It tells me that winter – the challenging season here – is closed behind.