HIGH COUNTRY RANCHERS TO START BONSAI HAY CROP INDOORS

(Gunnison) Due to shifting weather patterns ranchers here will start ornamental hay crops indoors in 2020. The plan, the brainchild of a rural alfalfa cadre, suggests that the hay crop be planted in small pots and placed in sunny window spots in late April.

Whether or not the use of new seed, trellises and synthetic fertilizer will be employed was not clarified. Although some ranchers have been hesitant to embrace the indoor growing concept, many have agreed to give it a try.

“I’ve been stubborn about changing the way I grow hay,” said Gabby Crispe, who irrigates 2000 acres near Baldwin, “but this tomato plant approach to hay makes sense. Over the years I’ve seen summer drought, spring flooding hellbent wind and unseasonable frost take their toll. If it ain’t wet weather when the hay’s on the ground its low water when we need more irrigation,” he added. “It’s nothing but a shooting gallery when we count on nature to do our bidding.”

Crispe went on to say that of late nature has been a little lax when it comes to helping the rancher. He stopped short of suggesting that livestock grow their own food since they are an imperative on the food chain, “at least for the present”.

After the initial steps of planting and nurturing the infant hay crop, ranchers will then transplant the seedlings into summer pasture and start the irrigation process just like before.

“Only this time the hay will be a month or two ahead of schedule allowing, with any luck, another cutting or two in the fall,” said an agricultural consultant from Weld County. “Over here we have to be very careful with regards to our image with the recent upheavals.”

The disruption, alluded to above, concerns recent squabbling over water rights, saddle sores and grazing on public lands. The conflict reached heated dimensions last month with the seizure of downtown Greeley by vegetarian paratroopers under Simone Tofu, the hero of Head Cheese Hollow. Although the vegetarians have agreed to negotiations, strategic highlands remain in their hands following a frontal assault my elements of the breakaway Downwind Boys, much feared olfactory ruffians from nearby Ault.

“What in the sam’s hell are you talking about?” asked Emma Vulcan, a longtime Gunnison Valley beekeeper and quasi-animal husbandry technician. “First, you talk about growing hay in little pots in the window then about military actions by armed vegetarians over on the prairie. I was just in Greeley last weekend and everything looks the same as it has since Horace was a boy. I used to believe what I read in your Horseshoe paper but now I’m leaning toward the Gunnison Country Times for my information,” she frowned.

According to sources at Cheyenne Mountain, which does not really exist and all, the town of Greeley was sacked on June 21 in a classic pincher movement by the Down Wind Boys. It was covered in The Times in both Gunnison and New Yrk.

“That was one of the finest martial maneuvers in Prehysteric America! Since Washington crossed the Delaware! Since the formation of the IRS!” said General Worthington Bulbous from his half-bath logistic proximity Colorado Springs bunker. “If I had ten men of that caliber I could retake the Panama Canal, maybe even Canada!”

Meanwhile clay pot shortages and further rumors as to the spread of hemp growing in the region have fallen victim to fears of herd cleansing in the aftermath of Greeley atrocities.

– Earl MacAdoo