We had a nice amount of rain in the spring after planting and the hay seed germinated nicely. We had almost no rain all July and a lot of it wilted and shrivelled up under the standing barley. Our seed salesman said to be hopeful as long as it started nicely in the spring even though it looked dead the roots should still be alive. We had some rains after harvest and it started to perk up again. Yesterday we got over a foot of snow than it blew very hard overnight from the south and most of it melted. Lots of water and slush laying everywhere and it's supposed to freeze very hard tonight into tomorrow. I expect that will cause enough ice problems to ruin most any new alfalfa just the same as it did last January. Do any of you grow oats peas and barley as a silage crop? If this January ice is going to be the new norm for here we need to rethink our silage crops plan and gear more towards annual silage crops instead of hoping it winters well and will be good the next year. We already grow enough corn for half our milk cow feed.