So, Hay

It's the second half of September.  It's also just about the best hay making weather we've had all year.  After rain, heavy dews, and thick foggy mornings for pretty much the first half of the month, we suddenly got clear, breezy, warm but not humid weather.  Everyone around has been making hay in the last week or so; the last hay of the season.

I'm included in that 'everyone'.  Last Monday, the wife of the family who cuts my hay asked if I wanted mine done this week.  Heck yes, I wanted mine done!  Who can resist a perfect forecast like that when they have a field tall enough to make a decent number of bales out of?

So I played the farmer's gamble and cut hay on Monday afternoon. Gamble because even though the weather forecast looks decent, that can change in any given twelve hour period.  Especially with the wet summer we've had, you take a dry forecast with a grain of salt.  Or maybe an entire shaker full.

Monday night, clear skies and no dew. Tuesday was sunny and beautiful, extremely low humidity.  Tuesday night, just the slightest dew.  Wednesday, warm, warm, warm, and breezy. When the hay was tedded late morning on Wednesday, it was dry all the way through.

Which meant we were baling!!  Oh the joy that phrase brings when the weather is good and the hay is just right.  "We're baling".  Happy faces, happy smiles.

It also meant sore muscles and itchy sweaty bodies once the hay was put in the barn on Thursday. But happy smiles and a feeling of security.  Hay is done until late next spring.  The loft is full.  I have plenty of hay for my animals.  And plenty of hay to sell, too.

A barn full of hay going into winter is a wonderful thing.