Step up, sir. Raise your right hand. Your other right hand. Do you solemnly swear or affirm the testimony you will give in this matter will be the truth, so help you God?
MR. HAAG: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: Watch your step coming up. And that chair is on rollers, so be careful, okay? The microphone is not going to make you any louder, so you want to make sure you speak up loudly and distinctly for us.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
THE COURT: State your full name.
THE COURT: My full name is Perry Jacob Haag.
THE COURT: How do you spell your last name?
THE WITNESS: H-a-a-g.
THE COURT: Okay. Mr. Dungan?
MR. DUNGAN: Thank you, Your Honor.
PERRY
JACOB HAAG
Called at 8:32 a.m. by the defense, sworn by the court, testified:
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY MR. DUNGAN:
Q. Mr. Haag, what’s your address please?
A.
Q. What kind of property is that?
A. It’s a farm, about a hundred and fifty acres.
Q. Do you grow on that farm?
A. I grow hay.
Q. Anything else besides hay?
A. Little corn.
Q. Hay is your primary business out there?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. All right. Do you sell that hay to the public as a business?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How long have you been doing that, sir?
A. About twenty years.
Q. And when you package your hay, are you round bale or square bale or both?
A. I do both.
Q. Would you tell the judge what the term round bale means?
A. Well, it’s kind of self explanatory. It’s round. Bales that I make run between, run between a thousand and fifteen hundred pounds.
Q. And what’s the price for a typical round bale?
A. Right now they’re running between thirty and forty dollars a bale.
Q. What determines the difference in price?
A. The quality of the hay. The more alfalfa you got in it, higher you got in it, whether the hay has been wet or not. You know, I guess that’s about it.
Q. Do you sell square bales as well?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Those are exactly what they sound like?
Q. All right. So quite a bit different and smaller than what a round bale would be.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What makes the hay differ in quality? Is it just the presence of amount of alfalfa or are there other things that go into quality?
A. Quality of hay is, is done on a protein basis. To know how much protein is in there it needs to be tested exactly. There are ways to test the hay to tell. But the protein is how hay is rated on how good it is or isn’t. But the only way to know how much protein is to have it tested.
Q. Do you do that?
A. I can. I don’t. I know how.
Q. All right. How would you consider your hay quality-wise?
A.
I’ve never had any complaints from anybody and I’ve had it at
Q. When you say you’ve had it, does that mean you’ve sold it?
A. Yes sir.
Q.
To
A.
No. I took it up to
Q. Okay. And you–-
A. But I don’t have it tested every year is what I’m trying to say.
Q.
All right. When you had it tested
at
A. No. They said that I’m doing a fine practice.
Q. All right. Do you know an individual named Matt Mercier?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How is it that you know him?
A. I’ve sold hay to him.
Q. For how long?
A. Better than a year.
Q. And what type of hay does Mr. Mercier purchase from you as far as round bales, square bales, or both?
A. Well, he does both round and he did both squares. He did both.
Q. Does he buy more of one from you than the other?
A. Yeah, more round bales.
Q. All right. But some square bales as well?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And over the last year that Mr. Mercier’s been a customer, how often does he come to purchase from you?
A. He came every other day, sometimes three times, or every third day, but never any longer than three days.
Q. All right. So at least every other day or every third day?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Is it just one trip per day when he comes?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. All right. And does that include a time period say between December of 2006 through March of 2007?
A. Yes, it does.
Q. And when Matt would show up to purchase hale, hay from you, let’s start with the round bales. Is there a particular number that he would purchase at one time?
A. Well, he’d bring a hay wagon over and whatever I could get on it, which would complete(sic) between eight to five depending on how large a bales I had.
Q. Eight to five round bales?
A. Yes. If they were the smaller ones, it was eight bales. If it was the big bales, it was five.
Q. All right. I think you had said those were about a thousand to fifteen hundred pounds apiece.
A. Right. The fifteen hundred he’d get five, and then the thousand he could get eight.
Q. And when he would purchase square bales, how many would he purchase?
A. Anywhere from twenty to thirty at a time.
Q. Now, when Matt would come to see you to purchase hay, would he purchase round and square at the same time every time?
A. Well, not always. Sometimes he’d come over and get some squares and didn’t get round bales, and then he’d come over and get some round bales.
Q. Okay.
A. And sometimes he’d get both, so..
Q. Do you know who Jim or James Henderson is?
A. I know of him.
Q. You ever met the guy?
A. No, sir.
Q. Has he ever been out to your farm?
A. Not to my knowledge.
Q. Has he ever purchased hay from you?
A. Not to my knowledge.
Q. All right. You understand the case that you’re here in court today, right?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did Animal Control, any of their representatives ever contact you about this case?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And do you know approximately when that was?
A. Maybe April. I can’t be held to the date.
Q. And do you know who it was that contacted you?
A. Yes. Officer Wheaton.
Q. All right. Did she tell you her purpose in contacting you?
A. Yes. She wanted to know if Matt Mercier was buying hay off of me.
Q. What did you tell her?
A. I told her, yes, sir, or yes, ma’am.
Q. All right. Did you tell her essentially what you testified to in court today?
A. Yes, I did.
MR. DUNGAN: All right. Thank you, Your Honor. I don’t have any other questions.
THE COURT: Miss Lamp will have some questions for you, Mr. Haag. Miss Lamp?
MS. LAMP: Thank you, Your Honor. Just a moment.
CROSS EXAMINATION (At 8:38 a.m.)
BY MS. LAMP:
Q. Mr. Haag.
A. Yes.
Q. Do you recall talking to Officer Wheaton?
A. Yes.
Q. Was that by telephone or in person?
A. Yes, by telephone, yes.
Q. Telephone, okay. Do you recall telling Officer Wheaton that Matt Mercier comes to buy hay twice a week, that he buys six rounds, requested the grassy mix and pays forty dollars per bale?
A. Yes. He likes hay, but it’s got grass in it. But I told her it was every other day.
Q. Is this your primary source of income?
A. No, ma’am.
Q. What is your primary source of income?
A. I farm and I’m retired from Ford Motor Company.
Q. Okay. Now, Mr. Haag, when you sell this hay to Mr. Mercier, do you give him any type of receipts?
A. No, he’s never asked for anything.
Q. Do you keep records of your sales, your income and your expenses as they come in and go out?
A. Yes, ma’am.
Q. How do you do that? What’s your method?
A. I, I have, I log them on my computer. I have to have it for the IRS.
Q. And what information do you put on your computer?
A. The person who bought it and how much they paid me.
Q. Do you put method of payment?
A. Yes, ma’am.
Q. And do you put what they bought?
A. Yeah, if it’s hay or straw I don’t, you know, put down the, you know if it was like grassy hay or is it alfalfa hay, or no, but I put down whether it’s hay or straw or whatever they bought.
Q. Do you put whether it’s round bales or square bales?
A. No, ma’am.
Q. Do you put, I guess you wouldn’t put quantity then if you don’t put down what type of bales it is.
A. Right. I just put down, just put down the hay.
Q. Is this on a spread sheet or something that you do that?
A. Yeah. I do it on my computer. I mean, it’s…
Q. So you would actually have a record on your computer of all the times that you’ve told hay to Mr. Mercier.
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. And how did you come to know Mr. Mercier?
A. He come one day to my door looking for hay. I had some to sell, and from there it carried on.
Q. And as I understand it, we had some phone communication about a hay wagon, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. Was that your wagon that was on Mr. Mercier’s property?
A. Yes, he borrowed it to haul hay over.
Q. Did he normally borrow a hay wagon?
A. No.
Q. Okay. And Mr. Haag, you said that you had taken your hay to MSU to be tested. Is that correct?
A. Yes. Not last year though. I just, two years ago, it was two years ago.
Q. And is there a reason that you took it to get tested?
A. No. Just to see, just to have it checked to see what I’m doing or whether I needed to do something different practice or see what they recommended. Every five years I take some up so they can run tests on it.
Q. How did Matt transport his hay when he picked it up?
A. He had his own hay wagon. I loaded it for him and he took it home.
Q. Why did he borrow your hay wagon?
A. He had, his was broke at the time and he wanted to know if he could borrow one. I said yes, I wasn’t using it.
Q. When did that occur?
A. Around the first of March.
Q. Did you loan it to him just for the purposes of transporting the hay from your property to his, or like for an indefinite period of time?
A. Well, until he got his wagon fixed.
Q. Okay. That was your understanding?
A. Yes.
MS. LAMP: Thank you, Mr. Haag. I don’t have any further questions.
THE
COURT: Mr. Dungan?
REDIRECT EXAMINATION(At 8:44 a.m.)
BY MR. DUNGAN:
Q. You had mentioned that, at one point that Matt seemed to like the grassy mix?
A. Yes.
Q. And that suggests to me you had different types of round bales?
A. Yes.
Q. What are the different types?
A. Like I’ve got some that’s pure alfalfa, some that’s fifty percent, some that’s all grassy. Everybody wants something a little different.
Q. Is that more of a personal preference thing or are the different mixes used for different purposes or different animals?
A. Well, it’s kind of, for different animals, but everybody has their preference, so if they want more alfalfa, that’s what I sell them and if they want more grasses, it’s kind of more I guess I’d say a personal preference.
Q. And the bales themselves, are they always going to be I guess consist of pure hay and only hay, or do they sometimes get sticks or leaves in them or things like that?
A. Yes, they get, you know, if we were in a wooded area sometimes you’ll get the leaves fall off the trees and they get in the hay. I mean, you know sometimes you got sticks when you go along the woods. But I mean it’s not like it’s all full of grass or all full of leaves or all full of sticks, you know, it’s, anything like that I set aside or feed it to something else. Cattle or whatever.
MR. DUNGAN: All right. Thank you, Your Honor. I don’t have any other questions.
THE COURT: Miss Lamp?
MS. LAMP: I do.
RECROSS EXAMINATION(At 8:45 a.m.)
BY MS. LAMP:
Q. So when you have the mix that has the extra sticks and leaves and stuff in it, are you saying that that’s not the hay that you normally would sell?
A. It has, when I say that, there’s going to be some in every bale of hay, you’re not going to get it out, but like I said, if you get a bale of hay that’s full of leaves, you can see it when you bale it. Yes, some’s going to have leaves in it, some’s going to have sticks in it, it’s going to happen. I mean, I don’t set it all aside, but like if you had a big, if I went along there and there’s nothing but, you can look in there but leaves, well, then that gets set aside, that doesn’t get sold. But does there, is there leaves, is there sticks, yes.
Q. I would presume that there are, but I’m saying the mixes where you, as I understood what you testified to, when you have one that’s full of leaves and sticks, that you don’t sell it and you use it for something else on your own farm. Did I misunderstand you?
A. No. But what I want to make clarified here is that what you’re, what I’m saying is full of leaves and what I’m saying has got leaves in it are two different things. Full of leaves would be you’d look at it would look like say a maple tree, it would be full of it. Because there’s going to be leaves in there, there’s going to be sticks in there.
Q. And those are the ones you don’t sell, right?
A. The ones that are, look like a tree, yes, full of leaves.
Q. Okay. I believe I understand you.
A. Okay.
MS. LAMP: Thank you, Mr. Haag.
THE
COURT: Mr. Haag, you mentioned you have
a computer that keeps your records. Is
that correct?
THE WITNESS: Mm-Hmm.
Yes.
THE
COURT: Do you ever get on any web sites
and read about horses and what’s going on in this case?
THE WITNESS: No. I
don’t have an internet. I just use my
computer for….
THE
COURT: Okay. Is Mr. Mercier in the courtroom?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE
COURT: Where is he?
THE WITNESS: Right there.
THE COURT: That red and blue tie?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: All right. The record will reflect he’s identified Mr. Mercier. Mr. Haag, I’d like you to take a look at photograph number thirteen. Let me ask you this first. You’re just a crop farmer then or do you have animals?
THE WITNESS: Yes, no, just a crop farmer.
THE COURT: Take a look at thirteen. Have you had a chance to take a look at it?
THE WITNESS: Okay.
THE
COURT: Do you see hay?
THE WITNESS: Well, there’s something on the ground but I’m
not telling you what it is by this picture.
I can’t tell you whether it’s straw or whether it’s grass or whether
it’s hay or what it is. But there’s…
THE COURT: You know the difference. Is there a difference between straw and hay then?
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: What’s the difference?
THE WITNESS: Difference is is that the straw is the stuff that is taken off after you’ve combined the oats or the wheat or the barley or the rye, and that’s the leftover matter that you’ve taken off and usually you use that for bedding. To bed the horses.
THE
COURT: You can’t tell if this is hay?
THE WITNESS: To sit there and say, yes, sir, that picture
is not a good indication for me to sit here and say what it is.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE WITNESS: Could be either.
THE COURT: Take a look at number fourteen. Have you had a chance to take a look at that, Mr. Haag?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: Do you see any hay there?
THE WITNESS: No, sir.
THE COURT: Take a look at number sixteen. Do you see any hay in that picture?
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir, the horses are right there eating it.
THE COURT: Okay. You can tell the difference from this is picture thirteen where you said you couldn’t tell the difference between hay and straw—-
THE WITNESS: And the reason I couldn’t tell you that is because the horse was eating it and you could tell it’s a lot piled up there, there, it’s all spread out on the ground.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE WITNESS: That’s what makes a difference.
THE COURT: That’s fine. Take a look at number seventeen. When you do I’ll have the same question about whether there’s any hay there. Or you see any hay, excuse me.
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: You do see hay?
THE WITNESS: You can tell the hay is there. You can tell by the motion that the horses are sitting there eating on it. You see how they’re down there eating? If that wasn’t hay or it wasn’t a crop that they were going to eat, they wouldn’t be down there doing that.
THE COURT: Okay. Even if it was grass?
THE WITNESS: Well, if it’s--I’m putting grass as, as, in this case as hay, but there’s no grass there. I mean grass growing out of the ground, that, that has to be put there, that has to be hay put on the ground.
THE COURT: How can you tell that?
THE WITNESS: Because, well, if the grass, that hay or this hay would have it all, the grass covered up. They couldn’t, if they were looking for that hay, if there was grass under there that horse would have pawed a spot in there so he could get down to get to the green grass.
THE
COURT: Can you tell that the horse
hasn’t pawed?
THE WITNESS: He’s not pawed. He ain’t cleaned out the area.
THE COURT: Well, both of them are just standing there with their feet on the ground, aren’t they?
THE WITNESS: Yeah. But if he was looking for, if he was looking for hay, I know my horses, I’ve been around them all my life, so that horse—-
THE COURT: I just want to know how you know he pawed?
THE WITNESS: He didn’t paw. I’m saying if he was looking for green grass, he would have pawed that area away from there so that he could get at it.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE WITNESS: Because he wants it as easy to eat as, as you and me would be. If you had, if there was a sandwich under there you’d paw the hay away--
THE COURT: You betcha.
THE WITNESS: Like this to get that sandwich. You wouldn’t reach down to–-
THE COURT: I don’t know if I could get a sandwich off there, but….
THE WITNESS: Yeah, ha, ha.
THE COURT: Number eighteen. Will you take a look at that and I’m going to have the same question for you, if you see hay there.
THE WITNESS: Now here I don’t, no, sir.
THE COURT: Okay. Number nineteen, take a look at that and same question for you, sir.
THE WITNESS: No, sir.
THE COURT: Okay. And number twenty-two. Take a look at that and I’ll have the same question.
THE WITNESS: Well, there’s a little bit of hay there, but I’d say more garbage there than anything else.
THE COURT: Okay, all right. Thank you. Mr. Dungan, do you have any questions on the pictures?
MR. DUNGAN: I guess just one follow-up on the grass comment that he had made.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION(At 8:51 p.m.)
BY MR. DUNGAN:
Q. You said you’ve been around horses your whole life?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And why is it that you say that they’d paw through hay to get to grass?
A. Because they like grass better. Especially in the spring of the year when they’ve been on dry feed, they like to get, they like to eat green grass. It’s fresh, it’s nice, it’s like eating a fresh piece of meat or an old piece of meat, you know, which would you rather have? And they would rather have the grass. If they can get the fresh grass, they’ll dig at it, they’ll go at it, they’re..
Q. So even if there’s plenty of good hay available to them, they’d still have a preference for grass.
Q. Well, they will eat as much grass as they can. If they’re not filled up, then they’ll go to the hay.
Q. All right.
A. But they will, especially early in the spring they try to eat as much grass as they can.
MR. DUNGAN: All right. Thank you. I don’t have any other questions.
THE COURT: Miss Lamp?
MS. LAMP: Just a couple follow-up questions.
RECROSS EXAMINATION(at 8:52 a.m.)
BY MS. LAMP:
Q. Mr. Haag, when you were working at Ford, were you farming at the same time you were doing that?
A. Yes ma’am.
Q. So how long have you been running your farm?
A. The farm’s been in the family all our, all my life, so, it’s a family farm.
Q. How long have you been selling hay?
A. Like I said, about twenty years.
Q. About twenty years, okay. And you had started to, and I’m not sure whether you finished. My notes don’t reflect it. Explain in your words what the difference was between straw and hay, and I understood that you were saying that straw is the leftover product after combining the wheat and the oat or barley. Is that correct?
A. Right. Wheat, oats, barley. You usually use that to bed the stalls down for the horses or cows or whatever.
Q. And what is hay then if you could just--
A. Hay is what the horses, the cows and whatnot eat, it’s the, helps maintain their nourishment.
Q. So and when you’re cutting the hay as I understand it, the hay is a fresh, you’re cutting something fresh for them to eat, it’s not a byproduct of something else.
A. No.
Q. Okay.
A. It’s just, hay is hay.
THE COURT: It’s a natural crop.
THE WITNESS: Yes.
MS. LAMP: Thank your, Mr. Haag. I have nothing further.
THE COURT: Okay, Mr. Haag. Thank you very much.
THE WITNESS: All right. Thank you.
THE COURT: Watch your step going down. May Mr. Haag be excused, Mr. Dungan?
MR. DUNGAN: Yes, Your Honor.
THE
COURT: Miss Lamp?
MS. LAMP: Certainly, Your Honor.
THE COURT: You’re excused to go about your business, sir. Thanks for your patience.
(At 8:53 a.m. witness excused)