Now, ya’ll may not find this interesting. But as a dyed-in-the-wool ignorant suburb-baby, I find it absolutely and utterly fascinating. Stick with me and I’ll have you well educated in the art of angsting over the coming winter and knowing the importance of praying for hay. The very Real Life which our ancestors worked so hard to spare us from. Awesome stuff.
All spring and early summer, I worry about hay. When you grow alfalfa (which we do up here in the desert middle north), you live on a knife’s edge. Four cuttings is what we should get out of one alfalfa plant in one season – the first cutting is weedy and – I can’t remember – too full of protein or not enough, one or the other. The second cutting is sweet, but not too sweet, deep green, almost weedless and perfect for horses. The third is good in those ways, too. The forth is like stringy-stemmed broccoli -still good for you, but more fiber than fun.
But the rain took out the first crop this year. The cow stuff. It was a long, wet, cold spring – which you undoubtedly know. And thus the prayers became earnest and desperate: enough rain to grow the stuff, but not enough to soak it once it’s been cut and on the ground. Once you cut the hay, it lies in heaps, in what are called “wind-rows.” (Lovely, lovely.) You need sun, then, to dry the plants, and a good warm south wind to do it quickly, before rain can fall. If the hay gets seriously wet, you may be able to save it by turning it over and over, getting the sun down into the midst of the rows. But you lose the leaves and the delicate parts with every turn. If the hay doesn’t dry right, it will mold – badly, horribly, and that can kill an animal.
Second crop this year was beeeee-u-ti-ful. But will Farmer John H have enough for little old me and my little old beasts? Always a question. I lie awake at night worrying over it. This year: YES!! He came by my place and we set a day for delivery. Right in the middle of my sliced leg recovery.
That morning, I rose early and went to the barn – there were emergencies there. Worse than planning a big 4th of July party. Had to set all the pallets out. But I was short six. And where to get them? We searched the ads. Panic. Had to set out the tarps to catch the crumbs of hay that inevitably fall to the ground in the hauling. Had to clear the old hay out of the west stall so that the gigantic number of new bales would fit (what do you do if they DON’T fit?). And I am under strict orders NOT to lift over twenty pounds.
I went to IFA, our country store, to start. Needed work gloves for my all-volunteer hay crew, and some new tarps. They don’t sell pallets. But guess what???? THEY SOLD ME SOME ANYWAY. I’ve lived in this town thirty years, (at least) but I never went to IFA till I had horses. Now, I have very good friends there.
This is not a growth coming out of Craig’s shoulder. It’s Cindy, who refuses to have her picture taken.
And Adam, is it? Who stood out in the boiling sun, helping me with the pallets. Being patientand generous of soul all through the, “Well – wait, that one has a broken – naw. I think it’s broken, but the one under it . . .”
This great big old poster features a studio client of ours, Greg Hansen, who did not win the west, but wears an Australian duster quite well.
Here, you may see him in context. I love this place. They just need some English tack.
I came home with G’s fishing truck full of these huge pallets, and G spent his skinny lunch lifting them out of the truck for me, and letting me boss him as to where they should be placed. He couldn’t do much, because he had sessions to run in the studio. Cam couldn’t help either; he was on deadlines—and work is such a blessing these days. I looked sadly at the old hay, knowing I couldn’t move it myself (which I would have tried to do if not for the surgery), and thought of Murphy, so far away. I kept saying to G, “If I just had one person.” I was thinking, “Just one son to help me.”
We went home, and I was still trying to think of some way out of my helplessness. About five minutes after we got home, there was a knock at the door. I didn’t want to open it. I was too tired and sad. But when I DID open it – there was – TA DA – my OTHER SON, the one I borrow, my Murphy’s shadow son, Brennan – here to borrow rabbit stuffing (not real rabbits) for his mother. I said, unbelieving, “Why aren’t you at work? You wanna help me?” And of COURSE he did. So he went back with me to the barn and he moved ALL the old hay, and fixed EVERYTHING. And did it make me cry? You bet it did. That day, my Brennan was a gift from God.
So we were ready, which was good, because the hay came an hour early. Horses locked out of the arena, tractors roaring – the drama began, like a huge parade, like deliverance from winter, like the miracle of the turning of the earth. The only sadness I have about the day is that I was too stupid and involved to remember to take pictures of the work Brennan did, then the empty barn, then the piles of hay so the scope of this project would come clear: it was a monumental work.
Randy, with the first load. I drove down to put the horses in, and danged if these guys weren’t already here. “What about four thirty sounds like three thirty to you?” I yelled at them. They only grinned. “You get hay when it comes,” they said. That’s Remmy on the motor scooter. I taught him better than that in Sunday School – but his father is SUCH a bad influence.
It was a merciless bright day, and I was so excited, I just started shooting, forgetting all about light sources. So I played with this shot a little – I like the way the only real detail is that grin on Randy’s mug.
I took the color out of this for several reasons – one of which was to underline the age of that tractor. Farm equipment is something you buy and then keep forever, keeping it together with bailing string and duck tape and sheer will till it drops dead of ancientness. I don’t know how old this guy is; wish I’d thought to ask John. I had a wonderful little green rubber toy tractor once. I kept trying to straighten out the front wheels. But looking at these, I suddenly learn that they were supposed to be pigeon-toed
Our friend, Randy – Brennan’s boss, one of John’s sons.
John, himself, on the BIG TRACTOR. Look at all those hoses. A tractor is like a skeleton of a truck.
Does this man like his work?
John and sons. They DO love vehicles.
I want to give you a sense of how much hay came – but I kept shooting people.
There were two huge wagons and then another half wagon. See what I mean about a parade?
The Big Tractor has this thing on it called a “hay hand.” HUGE.
He lowers this thing gently, neatly, beautifully – and precisely over these stacks of about twelve bales.
I couldn’t believe how exact the fit.
And up they go. He’ll swing around and put them behind that wagon load you see behind him.
See how it works? All those loopy things are actually sharp hooks. Once the framework is placed over the bails, John pulls a lever, and all those hooks grab the bales. You can see the load there on the ground. 240 bales we ended up with. Hours of work.
The thing that struck me as I watched this is how clever farm equipment is – really ingenious machines. I wish I could show you the baler – it drives along the windrows, scoops up the hay, presses it into bales, straps it twice with baling twine and spits the bale out the other side, all in a matter of moments. Coolest thing ever.
You will note that the Big Tractor does NOT sport a standard seat. No, John the father-farmer knows how to treat himself right. He tells me that they replace this tractor seat every couple of years. I loved it.
You know how, when you invite 573 people to your wedding reception, you only get 237? (Yeah, people like me don’t show up – because they never know what day it is.) Or you throw a nice little party and invite sixty people and get fifteen? Well, invite a bunch of people to come and sweat in 100 degree heat in a metal barn, hauling sixty pound bundles of tiny green knives and dust – and how many are you going to get? I invited ten and I got thirteen.
You know what they say about friends in need? About good neighbors? About many hands making light work? Well, it only begins to touch the miracle of friends and neighbors like these – and sons and husbands. I did not sit in the middle of the barn and weep, but I could have. Instead, I just ran around telling them how wonderful they all were.
Cam, in the red, shows you how hot it was. Brennan, in the white hat, shows you the cheerful spirit of the day, Ron, behind him, shows you what a good choice it is to be Samoan.
My Seth, who has lived across the street from me all his life, and who earned his spending money at the local dairy when he was pretty darn young, helped Cam with the awful work – up in the hottest air, bull-dogging each bale into place on the very top of the pile.
Brennan and L’s brother, John K, scale the wagon the way you’d scale a crumbling rock wall.
Youth wins. But the military will catch up.
This was supposed to be fun and dramatic, the dropping of the bale. Fizzled.
My neighbor Quentin, one of the great men.
Cam joins the wagon-clearing crew.
Here’s Emmy again. Along for the ride. She found the haying a little less exciting than she’d expected.
But even when you’re completely worn out, there are always places where you can prop yourself up, and look charming while you’re doing it. Emmy is the ninth child in her family – and most cherished. I think HER shoes are new.
See? Haying is exhausting.
In the end, they put all 240 bales away in under an hour.
Here they are. My heros. Some, I’ve know since they were babies. Some I barely know. All were willing to do what needed to be done, and do it in the best humor possible. I was so proud of every one of them. These are the men who will change the world. These are the men we can trust with the future. They are America – everything it stands for. I’m gushing, I know, but I’m still shy of saying what I mean. They broke my heart with their goodness and made me feel like life is, after all the rest, worth it.
See, Scooter? This is what people can do when they pull together. This is the kind of man your daddy is.
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