Hay!

     I got 40 bales of hay delivered! I had been doing some effortful craigslist searching and mental worrying over the past few weeks that I wouldn't be able to procure any, and lo and behold, I got a hold of Martin, who told me, "I'm your man!" upon returning my call. I even got into a semi-fight via text with a complete stranger, whose ad I was responding to. He said that he delivered to where I live and had a 30 bale minimum, with bales @ $4 and requesting texts for any questions. So I texted him that I was interested in just that, and he responded back:
     - "160 bales min $1350 w ferry."
     I said, "Ok, thanks. Don't need that much/can't afford it/no means to pick up myself. Thanks!"
     To which he commented: "That's why u pay the feedstore $25/bale."
     I did not appreciate this annoying comment, so I decided not to just take it ("up the tailpipe," as Courtney on The Bachelor would say).
     So I wrote, "You said you delivered to [my area] and had a 30 bale minimum on your ad. I have some more local options available, thanks. Don't need that snarky attitude."
      After hitting send, I immediately wondered if he could trace my phone number somehow and find out where I live. A coward behind this phone keyboard, indeed.

     But we patched things up and my local man, Martin, really came through. His wife threw the bales off the truck, Martin stood on the ground and threw them inside the doorframe of the greenhouse, and I organized and stacked them. It was hard. Martin is 72 years old. Born and raised on the farm that he still runs a small beef cattle and egg operation on. The whole transaction felt like I was dealing with real, good-old farmers, who do the hard work to get the job done.

     Now the garden can be fantastically mulched (hopefully not too many weed seeds in there), but as I've been learning from Steve Solomon in Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades, I can't just add any old organic matter I want at any time! We have to be smart and add the right kind at the right time! I always knew that you can't add manure too soon before planting because you can burn your plants, and it won't breakdown in time for it to be useful for your plants, (plus not get your organic/biodynamic certification)... but I DIDN'T know that when you add crude/uncomposted organic matter, there's a sharp rise in soil decay organism populations, which use the same nutrients as plants to build their bodies, and thus they take up all the nutrients that the plant needs and therefore there are far fewer nutrients available to plants at this time. So adding crude manure or vegetation to even established plants can be more detrimental in that there will be far less soil nutrients available to them! So the hay will go to mulch all the pathways to keep weeds down and create composting action so that the pathway soil can then be shoveled onto the beds when it's fully decomposed. Then in the fall we'll be ready to mulch the beds. Plus, the stack of hay will probably raise the temperature of the greenhouse by a degree or two!