Rain's Silver Lining

 Back with that story in a minute. The other day I reported that It's been raining in Idaho almost non-stop through much of the spring which makes cutting hay somewhere between difficult and impossible.

 You might remember Don Hale, President of Idaho Hay & Forage Association and a hay farmer in Blackfoot which is Southeast Idaho saying: “The more mature the hay is the less quality you have and there are some people who went out and knocked their hay down for the highest quality and then it’s been rained on for two weeks and that’s no good for anything.” For most of us, our hay’s ready to cut but with this rain that we’re having and still in the forecast to have for another week or so, how do you cut? How do you get it down and dry?

 He’s right! But listen to University of Idaho Extension crop horticulturist Wayne Jones from in Bonneville County: “It’s a mixed bag with the dry land growers, this is just pure gold coming out of the sky…getting irrigated for free for two weeks in a row. They’re going to have a bumper crop if they don’t get hailed out…we’ve had some hailstorms come through but they’re just tickled to death with this…dry land growers anybody growing anything on dry land here in Bonneville County is mainly dry land wheat. They’re gonna have a super crop. There’s a silver lining to all of this.”