Hay
Making Hay
as published to Medium.com, July 21, 2021: elizabeth-lynn-schneider.medium.com/making-hay-58619abc58dc
You never think much about something like what it takes to grow, cut, dry, bale, and collect hay for your farm animals until you are the one doing the work. Isn’t that the way it is with most things in life? As a kid, I didn’t think much about the cost of and attention needed to drive a car to get places, or the effort it took to grocery shop and prepare dinner every night. These things just happened. They were done in unseen moments by busy parents, and I reaped the benefit of so many little (and big) things that were done for me, often, I am sure, without my appreciation. I do have appreciation now for what it takes to get hay from its simple beginnings in the ground to neatly collected rows of bales in the barn.
The hay grew in fits and spurts, from an unpromisingly dry spell that lasted all of May, and into the lushness of June, when finally we were rewarded with a few healthy thunderstorms. June into July is a blur of heat and activity. My dear husband played with a 60-year-old defunct hay cutter, replacing dull steel knives my grandfather’s hands had last touched. With many hours of welding, banging, welding some more, and hoping against hope it would work, the cutter squealed back into use. Picture the biggest lawnmower you’ve ever witnessed, and you’ve got the idea of the hay cutter. The little knives swishing back and forth were startling at first, then hypnotic as they sliced through the blades of grass like soft butter.
Drying the hay is a farmer’s purgatory, a weird time during which you lay low, walk on eggshells, and whisper a prayer or two. You don’t boast about your hay yield during this time, or the weather gods may well strike you with a thunderstorm that will turn your golden grass into rot. I never understood the cliche of farmers always talking about the weather — they do it for a reason, not just to make conversation. We had a plan to cut on Saturday to let it dry, then rake the hay and bale it a few days later. It’s a fine skill to know when to do this, and to do it efficiently and well. If you don’t dry the cut hay long enough, you risk rotten hay bales. If you let it sit too long, it loses freshness and can get rained on, undoing all your hard work. You cut, dry, rake, then bale. Sounds simple, right?
My dear husband cut the hay, then planned to rake and bale it the next day. Thunderstorms were quite possible on Wednesday, so it definitely needed to be done by then. However, plans go awry in the world of farming, and Wednesday was the day to get it done, or get rained on. The husband unfortunately had to go to his real job, and farming had to wait. Hay does not wait, though. My farmer dad, who has become a hay connoisseur after years of growing, baling, and selling it, helped to rake and bale it into square bales, which are really like little rectangular boxes. They conjure images of shredded wheat and all things rural and down-home. I was planning to follow in the pickup truck, throw the bales into the wagon behind the truck, and stack them in the barn.
You don’t realize how heavy a square bale is until you try to pick one up and heft it into a wagon. Not so bad at first, but by the fifth or sixth, your muscles are screaming and you are panting just to keep up. I consider myself pretty strong and very capable, but this was tougher than I had imagined. I filled the trailer and drove back to the barn to unload. Images of quaint Amish barns with stacks to the ceiling came to mind and were quickly dismissed as I attempted to make some sort of order out of the bales. Did I mention that hay is not just prickly, but sharp? I stupidly wore shorts and a t-shirt to complete my task, soon realizing what a mistake I’d made. My thigh was bleeding from a deep scratch I didn’t remember getting, and my arms were irritated with a red rash. I needed a break.
We stopped after the baling was done, and I went in to cool off in the shower with half of the bales collected and put away. Not too bad, I figured, and no storm in sight. We could pick up the rest when the husband got home, and with his help, it would be much easier work. Exhaustion reigned as I sat in the shower, letting cool water rinse the hay dust off of my angry skin.
Not a half hour into my recovery, I thought I heard thunder. Maybe it was just a truck rumbling by? No. That was definitely thunder, but the kind that’s far enough away to let you get your clothes in from off the line and close the windows around the house. My heart dropped thinking about the 16 other bales sitting blithely on the field, unaware that they were about to be poured on.
I did the unthinkable, and put on jeans, boots, a LONG-SLEEVED shirt on this 90 plus degree day, and went out to collect the rest. Dad had taken the pick-up home, and the husband was still at work, so how to collect them? Why, with the help of my handy…Toyota Prius! I was happy for the rubber mat I put in the back of the car as I drove around the field, hatch wide open, stopping periodically to pick up a bale and shove it in. In case you were wondering, a Toyota Prius can fit four square bales. I’m pretty sure that if they didn’t already think I was crazy, my neighbors do now.
Just as the rain could be heard tapping on the barn roof, I tossed the last bale into a messy pile that would have to be repaired another day. My exhaustion had somehow transcended exhaustion, and was now a kind of calm amazement that I had actually collected 16 hay bales with a Prius in several trips back and forth to the barn.
While I don’t plan on using my car to collect hay again (ohhh the vacuuming!), I realized I can do a lot I didn’t necessarily think I could. It really does bring you a sense of pride to see the intangible beauty of unassuming grass growing in a field, spun into golden hay and compacted into neat blocks. Doing things for yourself, or at least really watching and paying attention to how things are made or done, is really a worthwhile thing to do. I also realized what a stubborn person I am when it comes to getting a job done. Even though I’m willing to put in the work, I hope it gets a little easier as I learn the tricks of the trade, and I know now why farmers sleep so soundly at night.