Hay Day.

You have to make hay while the sun shines. When you farm you have to plan to be at the ready for hay season. If it rains and rains and then you have a week of sun….get to it!
The tractors roar by slicing down the waving field. The cutting down low is the easy part. Taking the lush sea of green and carving out neat lines of drying stalks is an easy day.

Then the tractors comb each strand together leaving a wake of dusty piles of hay.

The kids cheer each step…because they are waiting for the end result.

The final step is the baler. It lumbers by with its wooosh-woosh slow and bulky. Each bale that falls off consisting of thousands of once beautiful flowing green hay stems…now withered and dry. All crammed together tight.

They wait for this. They applaud each bale.

You have to make hay while the sun shines.

I drag out the quilt their grandmother made.
I carry out the blue chair their great great grandfather would sit at each morning as he got ready for the day.

When the last of the tea is gone we gather our things and head off to the last little league baseball game of the year. We return to find all the bales gone. Had I thought “We can have the party later today” it would have been to late. We would have missed out. All the fun of a tea party high up on a giant bale of hay would have been just a good idea. No kids laughing. Just an airy plan…a missed opportunity to do something special for someone else.

You have to make hay while the sun shines.