~o:> Having a Hay Day 2010

Okay, I have so dang much to write about.  And I’m behind reading everybody else.  Why?  I don’t know why.  Stuff keeps happening.  So – write or read?  Write or read???  Okay – both. But me first.

By the way, I LOVE it when you guys leave a word for me.  LOVE it.  Makes me feel like we’re connected.  A bit of conversation.  Even when you disagree with me, which I am assuming happens pretty often.  It just makes my day.  Odd that it does, but it does.  (She/he noticed me!  She noticed me!!) And I’m going to work on answering comments after I finish this.

So I think I’m going to start with hay day.  I’ve written about it before—and probably will every year—because it’s such an amazing and huge deal in our lives.  This is the most directly connected I am to the earth – needing to provide food for the horses.  The alfalfa grows.  It’s a crop that regenerates every year (except the years when you have to rotate for the sake of the soil).  Spring is always scary – too much rain, and the crop will mold in the field.  Too little and you get no growth.  Drought, and the plants may die.  Will it be too cool for too long, or get unusually hot too early?  This is world of the farmer – reading the sky, trying to time everything just right in the midst of a dynamic planet’s systems.

The barn three days ago, end of season – almost empty.

John has a huge machine that cuts the alfalfa when the field has gone about 2/3 into purple flowers.  The hay lies where it’s been cut – in long lines across the field, called windrows. Is that the most romantic word ever?  Then we have to hold up the skies by a combination of prayer and iron will so the rain won’t fall.  If the cut and slightly mounded hay gets heavily or repeatedly rained on, it will mold, right where it lies.  John can mitigate this by using another machine to rake the stuff and turn it.  But every time he has to do that, leaves break off and nutrients are lost.

This year, the crew beat the hay to the barn.  Waitin’ on the hay –

Three of Rachel’s adorable Kikoy young men from the Valley University and a friend of theirs.  All African – now here and about to get a schoolin’ in the American Outback.

My gorgeous Cam, in waiting mode.  Behind him, my beloved Seth – who has lived across the street from me all his life – and friends.

Finally, he uses the baler to package the hay into seventy five pound prisms tied with bright baling twine ( something on a par with duck tape for usefulness).  And then he uses several other machines and trailers and tractors to bring a mass of it to my barn door.  And that’s when I can stop holding my breath – well, after a couple of days  when ALL the hay’s up, bailed and stowed.  Then the thunderstorms can come.

The guest of honor arrives.

John grows the best hay IN THE WORLD.  And he makes fun of me.  It all makes me very happy.

Backing up to the barn.  The crew hustles to get everything in line.

For ancient people like us, here is a lesson: having sons is good.  But if you’ve only got two, and you need to stack hay, you have to adopt others, quickly and temporarily.  This is a litmus test we run on the people in our lives: well, wait – the main test is whether somebody, having seen Joe Vs. the Volcano, has actually “gotten” it.  But the second is: who will accept the invitation to sweat himself soaked, breath in a cloud of hay dust, tax every muscle in his body – just to help us out once a year?  Because anybody who actually shows up is a real friend.

Backed right up to Dustin’s stall.  The blue carpet rolled out.  Somebody has already climbed the stack, and here we go —

Three flippin’ bales at a time.  Careful how you catch that stuff, Cam!  I put the tarp down because I collect the bits of hay that are knocked off the bales.  I can feed the horses for four days off the crumbs –

I’m never sure what John is thinking (other than that he doesn’t want his picture taken).  Maybe he’s just taking in the general chaos that ensues when a bunch of town kids attack farm work.  Or maybe he’s admiring the instant organization that spontaneously formed:

A sort of bucket brigade with big bales of hay instead of buckets.

Seventeen men showed up, aged fourteen to—just how old are you Quin?  Late 40s?  The stack grows, and at this point, all is pretty simple.

My beloved son in law in law – Cam’s L’s brother.  What a guy.  Military, adorable.  Ummm.  Available –

As the stack gets higher, the game gets a leetle more interesting.  Engineering on the fly –

One of five dancers on the crew.  Don’t you ever think that dancing is for sissies –

Our youngest crew member, Rachel’s Mr. T.—worked like a grown man.  Pretty dang proud of this kid.  See how he takes the bale by both strings at once?  His father put in an order for hand hooks for next year, but I’m not sure I’d have trusted just everybody in there, swinging hooks  –

Last bale on the trailer.

May I say how I love and admire the men and boys who show up to do this?  How I see great character there – to use their strength to benefit people who can’t do this for themselves?  May I say how gratifying it is to see your own sons right in the thick of it – grueling as the quick work is – driving themselves like pistons to do what needs to be done, and all with good humor and intelligence?  And how many extended sons we have to count on—hope for the world, these guys.  Builders of nations: there they were, in our own little barn.  If I’d had a chance to hold still, I’d have sat down in the middle of the thing and wept my eyes out with amazement and admiration.

And then the second load shows up – AHHHHH!!!!!

Our Seth spent his adolescent years making bank working for the local dairy.  There’s nothing he doesn’t know about hay.  And work.  And kindness.

The stack is nearly overflowing, and the guys, all seventeen of them, are still going strong.  That’s Murph, up on the top with Cam.  It’s really, really, really hot on the top.  Hot and dusty.  See the huge orange fan down there to the right?  Two of those running like mad to blow the dust out.  That goose is not actually flying through.

They’re at the point where they have to lift these bales up from ground to about eight or nine feet high.  So two guys to lift, Cam and Murphy to catch.  And one, and two –

And HEAVE!!!!

Then, just like that—and two hundred ten bales later, we’re finished.

(The bike belongs to one young man who managed to show up the second the very last bale was shoved in place.  Clean.  With a girlfriend in tow.  “Hey,” he said, grinning boyishly.  “At least I got here.”)

Uh-huh.

The dearly cherished John.  Showing the badges of the work.

People write about utopia.  They make speeches about the way things should be.  But it’s all very simple: all we need is for everybody to care more about the people around them than they do about their own comfort.  It’s just a matter of honest, frank, un-self-conscious service.

In my little barn last Thursday, I hosted the spirit of America—robust, laughing, straining—with the blood of hundreds of nations, mixed together in them—getting the thing done.  Afterwards, they all went home to shower and make themselves civilized and middle-class once more – but that working, serving, building heart is at the core of those boys and men, sweat-drenched or clean.

I have been honored to witness it.