[egglady]

what is pea hay?

[seldomseen]

Pea hay is fantastic and full of Protein, All it is, is the plant after you have picked the peas.
As soon as the peas are picked and nothing is left on the plant, pull it up and dry it....as green as you can, so quickly basically, dont forget its a legume so the same family as lucerne, reading all the Russian books (well Tanya reads them as I canna read Russian, it would take me a life time to decipher all those cirylic letters lol they say its better than Lucerne for goats, (I dunno might be might be not)
Luckily all my goats love the stuff, you should hear then chatting away to them selves when they eat it.
If they get fed up with it they will use it for bedding.
As far as the sickle is concerned, yes after a day I went out and borrowed a Scythe, instaed of taking me 3 days to cut it on my knees lol it took me about 2 hrs.....much better.
Every night I complained about the back and knees lol Now its ok where to next lol

[egglady]

can i just tie it up in a dry place (like a barn or stable) to dry out?

[seldomseen]

it makes a solid mat, I mean a mat if you dont spread it out a bit, and any peas left on the plant may re seed them selves so dry it in a place you dont mind the reseading lol
Babushka used to semi dry it then put it in the barn roof to finish drying, but I looked at it and it seemed black so I just assumed it was some kind of mold....(but may not have been anything but really dry leaves, I was taking no chances)