We have dry land grazing only. That means from when the snow melts until the summer sun cooks all the juice out of the plant-life, we can graze our livestock. But once the grasses dry and brown, there is no nutrition left and we have to rely on hay to provide feed for our animals.
We have hopes of having a small, dry-land alfalfa field one day, but it will only be a small supplement to the amount of hay we need every year.
Thankfully, my Dad lets us have the hay from his place - but I hate relying on that. Our ultimate goal is to be self-sufficient, including the majority of hay we need.
Even though I had hoped that we may decide to stay here the rest of our lives, I am not sure if this piece of property will turn out to be viable to sustain our dreams of growing and producing our own food in the way we want and need it to.
But for now, it is our little piece of earth, and gazing out over the dry fields watching our cattle graze on what little bits of green stuff they can find is a very satisfying feeling indeed.