Making Hay

“Make hay while the sun is shining.” It wasn’t a maxim I was known for – probably the opposite – but Dad had it mastered. It did apply to him as a general rule, but Dad also baled hay on several farms around the neighborhood, and as a boy it was always one of my greatest pleasures when hay season rolled around. Hay season meant several things. For one, it meant summer was almighty close. For another, it meant riding tractors and being out in the fields exploring. It’s like this, much of my memories of farm work are from when I was too little to do most farm work, which is probably the reason it holds such a favorable light to me. I love farm work; I could watch it all day!

                Those days were glorious to me as a boy. I would ride with Dad, who would always be wearing a faded pair of denim jeans and a worn out, used-to-be-white, V-neck t-shirt, and the two of us would go from farm to farm so he could make hay. Naturally, I loved every minute of it. I just had to stand there with the warm, late-spring winds blowing through the trees and fields and across my face, while Dad would unload the old Massey Ferguson tractor. If you asked me now which stood out more, his farmers tan or that red tractor out in the pasture, I’d be hard pressed to answer. It all represented work and was an inspiration to me. Lines on his arms and neck and lines in the field - it made sense. From the first lines he made, the sweet smell of cut hay lifted into the air. It was a smell like no other and meant only one thing: it was hay season.

One of the best parts of hay season was the meal. Now, I like picnics just as much as the next person. In fact, I was half raised on picnics, but nothing quite tastes as good as the way I remember those lunches. Home brewed sweet tea and bologna sandwiches made with Grandma’s relish and Mom’s homemade sourdough bread was a meal that was surely invented in heaven. You just don’t find much better. Sitting under the shade of the oaks and hickory at the edge of the field, Dad and I would polish off a lunch like it was part of the job. As the breeze floated by, the tang of the relish wafted around us. I’d tilt back the scarred plastic jug and listen to it gurgle as I pulled at the tea it held. Fact is, Dad had to ration it or else I’d have drank the whole thing and left him with nothing.

                I never got to ride on the tractor much while Dad was working, but that didn’t stop me from having a good time! It wasn’t altogether uncommon to come across a nest of wild rabbits that the passing mower left exposed. Sometimes they were small enough to just pick up without much trouble, but sometimes they were just old enough that it wasn’t too easy to do! Picture this: I come up to a nest of young rabbits that’s been left homeless, they scatter to the four winds and the chase is on! Fixing my attention on one I take off, zig-zagging through the lazy afternoon panting and grinning. I wish I could have seen myself because I just bet you I could have given an old hound a run for his money. When I did finally catch up to a rabbit, it was totally worth the workout. I got scratches a few times from bunnies that weren’t too keen on being held once I did catch them, but unfortunately for them I was resolved to pet a rabbit.

Sometimes I would run behind Dad and his tractor out in the field. Barn swallows, gliding like ghosts through the ensuing dust cloud, circled again and again above my head as I followed behind. That dust would settle on my sweaty skin and clothes and fill my mouth and lungs. Back then it was just the dirt of the task at hand; now it seems more like the dust of a generation gone by. Ghosts of memory soar through the haze of time just out of reach as I follow behind my Dad and his work. I still enjoy it, though. It seems so many times that he does the hard part and I get to enjoy the benefits of running off after dreams and eating his lunches!

I have kids of my own now, and though they may never see me on a tractor baling hay, I hope they get to experience the thrill of chasing dreams across their own sun-drenched fields.