Side hill Haying

Egon · Jan 15, 2016

I'd been looking for haying in the alps for a while. Finally found some from Switzerland on YouTube. Then I just followed what looked interesting.

Most of us are unawares of the machinery in the videos as well as tractors with air ride suspension. It intrigued me.

ultrarunner · Jan 15, 2016

They really have it down to a science in the alpine dairy regions... some of those fields have been tended for hundreds of years by the same family... generation to generation.

Last summer I visited one of my exchange students... she is in a nursing program in Salzburg and was working 8 weeks at a hut high up in the alps... it was a vacation highlight and she was dressed in the traditional native dress and the cows were simply happy to be grazing above the treeline...

They had just finished mowing and the pictures show the slopes!

Bichlalm in Großarl | SalzburgerLand Magazin

Egon · Jan 16, 2016

The Alpine Farms and their setting have always attracted me.

Ed of all trades · Jan 16, 2016

I thought the farm I grew up on had some steep hills. Wow. Ed

stuckmotor · Jan 16, 2016

Ultrarunner,
It always amazes me that alpine people can make a living walking behind their haying equipment on the sides of mountains. Is farming their main source of income or do they make most of it from another source?

ultrarunner · Jan 16, 2016

It's harder for sure...

On the plus side, at least in Austria... the land has often been in the family for generations, property taxes are very low and there is a very strong movement to buy local.

My cousin makes goat cheese that won all kinds of prizes in competition... the local 5 star hotel will buy all she makes.

Just about everyone I know there buys the meat/produce locally and organic, pesticide free AG is huge...

They are willing to pay more to know the pork came from the pig farmer that raises all his own grain and hormone free...

Everyone has health insurance so that hurdle is not there... farmers, just like everyone that works have social security.

Small mountain farms do have outside sources of income... many have bed and breakfast or offer hikers/travelers food and drink...

By and large I find the population fit... an active lifestyle outdoors for for country folks...

Unlike here or at least my part of California... wood heat is very common and supplementing income by selling firewood is good business in alpine regions...

My friend has people he calls that will pay him for to salvage fallen trees on his property... in the SF Bay Area we have to pay to get rid of firewood!

Farmer495 · Jan 16, 2016

My luck I'd fall down the hill several times and expend more energy climbing back up to where my equipment was than actually haying.

Ed of all trades · Jan 16, 2016

Farmer495 said:
My luck I'd fall down the hill several times and expend more energy climbing back up to where my equipment was than actually haying.

I read a book about one of the first people to enter the Smoky Mountains as an outsider. In his book he told about a woman that fell out of the corn field and broke her arm. She just put it in a sling and went back to work in the corn field. Ed

Ed of all trades · Jan 16, 2016

Farmer495 said:
My luck I'd fall down the hill several times and expend more energy climbing back up to where my equipment was than actually haying.

I read a book about one of the first people to enter the Smoky Mountains as an outsider. In his book he told about a woman that fell out of the corn field and broke her arm. She just put it in a sling and went back to work in the corn field. Ed