Rainin'

It’s funny how rain affects life on the farm. Most days, when the sun is shining, there are enough things to keep you busy outside from sunup to sundown. But when it rains, it prioritizes things in a hurry – only the most important things get done. And especially during hay season, a farmer always keeps one eye on the job he’s doing, and one eye on the skies. Haying isn’t necessarily a difficult thing to do, especially if you’re baling the big round bales and not small square bales. Haying is, however, a fairly labor-intensive, weather-dependent summer sport. First, you go through the field with a tractor that has a mower (we have a disc mower) attached to it. Then you let that cut grass lay in the sun and dry out for a day or so. You go through it with another tractor with a rake attachment, then, that gathers all the cut grass into rows. Last, with (surprise!) another tractor, this time with a baler attached, you drive down those ‘windrows’ of hay and the baler sucks it up, rolls it up, ties it up, and spits out a nice big hay bale. Then when all the haying is done, you gather all the bales into a barn, or a hay pen in a field, line them up and fence them off, and you use it to feed your livestock in the winter. Voila!

I don’t know if all farmers are this way, but my dad feels about his field grass like a lot of suburban men feel about their lawns: almost unreasonably particular. If dad has some hay cut that’s waiting to be baled, and it gets rained on, the man is not at all pleased. In his defense, the hay quality isn’t as good if it gets rained on, and he likes to do things ‘right’. So, yesterday the horizon started to get black, we had some hay down, and it threw our haying operation into frenzy mode. Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines! Fire up the tractors, race around the field with the implements, and get the hay baled as quickly as possible. Go, go, go! Done!

The rains came down, and leisure ensued. Napping, sitting on the porch, and general laziness for all. We did the chores, worked with the border collie Kip (more about Kip later, I promise, 'cause she cool), then I went for a run in the rain. Except for that stupid semi that pelted me with water while I was running … jerk … it was an awesome day.