Making hay

It's a funny thing: growing up as a kid not far from here—fields and woods and lots of farms—I never truly appreciated the work of the men who made their livelihood tending crops. Each spring they'd rumble out to the fields in their tractors, spreading the stink of manure throughout the valley and raking up earth that sat buried for several months beneath layers of snow and cold, gray skies. I'd be out on my bike, riding off excess sugar and discovering new ways to crash, and from dawn to dark, those guys would plod through the fields planting, cutting, fertilizing and tending things that, somewhere along the line, gave us our very sustenance. All the while, I couldn't have cared less.

Over this past Memorial Day—a three day weekend, Monday off, I get to mow lawn and take it slow—every field surrounding our property was a beehive of activity. Sun and clear skies brought them all out: beautiful and dry, ripe for cutting and drying the hay. Like starlings they came upon the fields, chopping, raking, turning, and finally baling the goods. Monday, a national holiday when most everything is closed, I sat on the porch swing transfixed, watching them work until well past 9 p.m. Get it done before the weather turns. Before it's dark. Before all the work is ruined.

It's a tough life, to live by the whims of the weather. I complain of digging a few plots of earth for a garden, about the ache in back and the blister on my thumb, but watching those guys is good medicine.