Straw is what is left after grains have been harvested, whether oats, barley, rye or wheat. While there may be some grains, unless the combine was faulty, there should be very little grains in the bale. Cattle, and most horses, will eat straw, but the quality and the calories are less than an equal amount of hay. Straw is lighter in weight, fluffs up more, and because the stems are hollow, is more absorbent than hay, so makes a good bedding. Hay is grass or legumes, cut and dried especially as animal feed. Oats can be cut in the "milk stage", before mature enough to harvest as grain, and dried to feed as hay - oat hay. The best quality hay is cut either while the grass is still growing only as leaves, or before the seed heads are mature; this is usually regarded as "horse hay". Cuttings made after the seed heads are mature has less feed value, but is still good cattle hay. Hay can be cut up to three times in a summer, depending on the fertility of the soil, the moisture (rain or irrigation) and the variety of grass, etc., growing in the field - irrigated alfalfa fields in the west may be cut more frequently. And if there is no rain, then fewer cuttings can be made - there will possibly be a second cutting in my area, now that there has finally been some rain, but it will still be sparse - the first cutting was about half what it would have been in a good spring.

I googled around after I read your question and it seems that both Autumn Fantasy and Autumn Blaze are the result of crosses between red and silver maples, so they are not Acer rubrum. I agree with QQ that you can tell by looking at the leaves that it has Silver Maple parentage in it. By the way, there is yet another place on the web with an incorrect name ... how about Acer freemonti 'Autumn Fantasy'?

from reading around on the forum, it seems that cracked corn is the "food of choice" for your lawn throughout the season. true or false? would alfalfa or soybean be a better option? False. Any of them would be good. corn gluten meal seems to be praised for its pre-emergent herbicide qualities. does that mean it's only ideal for use early in the season? also, do the other meals possess the same herbicide qualities? The testing was done on corn gluten meal. As far as I know no other materials were tested. CGM is simply a great fertilizer. and then, soybean meal seems to be the fertilizer of choice for the lawn's "final meal" at the end of the season...any other time it's useful? False. It is a great fertilizer any day of the year. also, the feed store i'll probably be getting everything from has the alfalfa and soybean meals in either granulated or pelletized form. is there a benefit to one over the other? it would seem to me that the pelletized form would be longer-lasting as the soil microbes would take longer to break it down, but is that true? does corn gluten ever come in pellets? Pellets last about 30 seconds longer than the granulated. As soon as a pellet gets damp, it melts into mush. CGM comes in dust and in granules.

Granite names are not standardized - a quarry can name a stone one thing and another quarry will give it a different name. Plus granite is a natural material so its appearance will vary depending on the quarry and even depending on where it's mined in that quarry. Mineral content is MOL the same but the ratio of minerals will vary and that affects a stone's appearance. I've seen slabs of Blue Pearl that varied from being a deep blue to being quite gray-blue. It's very unfortunate that you've had to learn this the hard way but hopefully you'll get a satisfactory resolution. In the future, *always* go to the stone yard and hand pick your slabs. That's the only way to guarantee that you'll get the granite you want. Hopefully Karen, our stone guru, will chime in. What I've typed above is based on what I've learned from her (and hopefully relayed it to you correctly, despite my sleep deprived state).