When the sun shines

What a crazy and busy long weekend we had!



Over this Canada Day, because of how Matt's shift landed, we ended up having 4 days off! We started our weekend the usual way: by making a To Do List far longer than we could ever hope to accomplish! We tried to prioritize what we thought was most urgent and scheduled those things into the days we had ahead of us.

Of course its never that simple! Sunday morning dawned cloudy and warm and Matt said to me, totally out of the blue, that he thought we should cut hay. I was very doubtful as we already had more than a full weekend ahead and it hadn't even crossed my mind to cut yet.
Matt has been playing a game for as long as we have been married. During the summer months he would one day get up and say "If I was farming, this would be the day I would cut hay." Then a few days later he would pat himself on the back for a good choice.
Even thought this will be just our second time making hay ourselves, I knew we could trust his farming intuition, so Sunday afternoon we cut hay.


 

 

 


I can think of some pretty intense haying moments in our past. The time the hay wagon tipped on the road while fully loaded and Matt fell from the height of the power lines into a ditch. Or there was the time he got his leg run over by the tractor, or even the time the round baler kept malfunctioning as the thunder rumbled overhead. Despite those adventures, it think this weeks haying wins for most intense. 





The weather continued to get hotter and hotter with a nice drying breeze. Perfect haying weather!

When we bought this farm two years ago we also purchased a set up of haying equipment. It was totally in disrepair and some equipment, like the mower, had been damaged to the point where the gears had worked themselves into a tangled lump of metal. Matt worked hard on each piece, and last year we hayed for the first time and it felt like quite the victory! We had once piece left in our fleet to get field ready: the tedder. It was given to us by a friend Matt hayed for when he was young. Sunday afternoon our wonderful welder friend came and did some serious welding on one of the arms and with a little more work it was good to go! This was our first time tedding the crop, which basically means, it spreads and fluffs up the hay to dry it more quickly.



With some tedding and good sun we were surprised to be able to bale the lighter crop on Tuesday evening. The heavier stuff seemed like it could benefit by having just a tiny bit more sun so we decided to leave it until the next day. A friend from church called and offered to help us bring the hay in, which was wonderful! That is one of the neatest things about haying. Neighbors and friends come together and we have been so blessed by the help we receive every year. We don't even have to ask and people have come and pitched in and shared our load. We have been so blessed by it!





We hayed so spontaneously that we didn't get time to borrow our neighbours hay wagon. We used the pick up truck which made for a much more labour intensive night. There wasn't too much baled though, so it wasn't too bad.

The next morning we woke up to grey, oppressive clouds and a warm, heavy feel to the air. The forcast called for evening thunderstorms so the clock was ticking. Hours started to pass by and the dew was still moist on the hay and the whole sky blanketed with low clouds. Finally we resigned ourselves to the fact that the majority of this fields crop would have to go the compost. Matt went out to rake it and round bale it to be used for composting. Just as he was finishing the raking, a sliver of blue appeared on the horizon. As he put the rake away the blue was starting to grow into a patch of sky. With nothing to loose we decided to wait. It was already very humid day and when the sun made its way over, it was a scorcher! We got a good two hours of hot sun and the dew very quickly dried and the hay became a crunchy green. And then, right where the sliver of blue had appeared, we could see a dark pillar of grey clouds building. Unmistakably a thunderstorm on the horizon.



We leaped into action. It was right at little farm boy's afternoon nap time so as he went down, Matt readied the tractor, baler and hitched the pick up to the stock trailer. The plan was for Matt to bale while I picked up with the trailer. Once at maximum capacity we would park it safely under the cover of the hay barn and just use the pick up to get as much as we could into the barn before the rain came.



So off we went at a dead run. Matt baling as fast as he could and me and little farm girl driving and parking every 40 feet and running to fit as much as we could into the trailer. The dark clouds were creeping closer and closer with every bale. I was covered in sweat and hay and hauling as fast as I could. Our friend from church came just at the right moment and I was so thankful! I was really having trouble trying the wedge bales into the spots against the ceiling of the trailer. Once the bale was over my head, I didn't have the strength to be accurate enough to manipulate them into a tight, high spot. Bale by bale we filled the trailer. The air had a sticky ominous feel that urged us to go as fast as we could push ourselves. The trailer was full just as Matt finished baling. We parked it as quickly as we could and raced out to get more bales, noticing how the clouds looked like they were streaking to the ground.



With the three of us we filled the pick up as quickly as we could. Matt's usual neat stacking job was forgotten as we raced to clean up the last of the bales. As we neared the end of the field a few big drops started to splatter down.



 We threw the last few bales in. Then with my heart pounding and lungs heaving, I raced off to get the hay barn open while Matt kicked the truck into third gear across the hay field. The thunder was ringing and we got the truck into the barn just seconds before the skies let loose.

We didn't even have time to celebrate our little farming win. The skies let go with an intensity that I have never seen before! I hardly even had time to pull the hay barn gate closed behind me. The rain pounded on the roof causing a cloud of spray to envelope us. It quickly turned into the largest hail I have ever seen. It was deafening on the tin roof of the old barn and reached such a fury that I feared for our safety. It was hard to see through the torrential rain and hail swirling outside but I could make out branches being ripped from the trees in the pasture.




 


I know around the world they have all sorts of intensive weather, but this is the first I have seen of this sort of fury. With the adrenalin and sweat of getting the hay in, it made for quite the memorable haying!  It amazed me that we had just enough. Just enough sun to get everything dry, just enough baby nap time for me to be able to fully help, just enough time, pretty much right to the minute, to get the harvest in.
And we were so thankful for willing and helping hands! God is good!

The garden is showing some signs of the pelting it took. The lettuce and pumpkins look like they withstood a firing squad and the broccoli and cabbage is leaning at odd angles. It could have been much worse!



Today I am doing some of the lesser celebrated haying tasks. You probably won't find a 1000 piece puzzle  featuring a painting of the farm wife struggling through a pile of itchy, hay-covered laundry. None the less, its part of the haying fun, so off I go...