Making Hay While the Sun Shines
The old adage, “Make hay while the sun shines,” still holds true today. Even in the drought we are experiencing, scattered showers sprinkle the countryside sporadically. We knew that if we had hay cut, then it would rain on us. This is the kind of luck we usually have. Sure enough, the hay cutter just switched off its blades and was on its way out of the pasture when the sky darkened and thunder began rumbling.
True country people: working in shorts.
“Unbelievable,” I thought. Ever heard of a self-fulling prophecy. Rain on freshly cut hay is the absolute worse thing for hay. The water lays on the blades of grass and molds it. Moldy hay is not good for much except for garden mulch. We needed this hay for horses and other animals.
The wind picked up and the whole skyline of trees swayed back and forth. Lucky for us, it was just another scattered shower that did not affect us. We were thankful for once this year that we did not recieve the rain.
Three days later when the hay was nice and sun-dried. The man raked the hay into long strips while the man in the hay baler made square bales. It is so fun to watch the 50 pound rectangles fall out of the baler, but you do not have much time to watch when you are trying to get the hundreds of bales out of the field and stored in a barn.
We tried for days to hire some young men to help haul the hay for us, but everyone was either busy, unavailable, or already hired to work for someone else. My thirteen year old was not even here. So who was big enough to help? My husband, Lane, myself, and our eight year old son, Jake. Kyla watched the two smallest children at home.
Rows and rows of hay.
I drove the old, beat-up ranch truck pulling a long, flat bed trailer. Jake was in charge of arranging the bales on the trailer and doing anything else that Lane asked him to do. Lane was the muscle of our operation. He just about wore himself out hauling the bales of hay onto the trailer. It did not help that the temperature was over 100 degrees.
When you get the hay stacked on the trailer the job is only half-way through. Then you have to stack them in the barn. I let Lane back the trailer into the barn. It was not a job I wanted. I did not want to live down the day Lara knocked the barn to the ground. Anyway our jobs changed during the unloading phase. I put on gloves and began hauling the bales into the barn stall and stacking them as neatly as possible. I was also in charge of counting the bales. Jake stayed on the trailer, but helped us by having a bale ready to unload. Lane hauled hay like I did, but he was in charge of stacking the bales to the ceiling. I do not have the physical strength to lift the 50 pound bales higher than my head.
Jake on top of the stack.
As hot and tired as we were I recalled the stories of Laura Ingalls and her Pa cutting hay. She was having to stomp down the hay to compact it. He was cutting the grass by hand. Talk about physical labor! Thank God we did not have to do that! We do not have it bad at all.
After several trips to the field and back, we finally unloaded our last bale of hay. We were covered in dust and grass seeds. We were hot and sweaty. We were tired. We were also proud of ourselves. We all worked hard, we all worked together, and we all got the job done. The animals will have hay to eat in the winter time. Part of being a homesteader means thinking ahead. Planning what you need in times of want. Since grass will not grow in the winter, you have to be prepared. You have to “make hay while the sun shines.”
