Friday, June 20, 2008

Hay Day


(view from my back porch)
Today is Hay Day… not officially, but somehow, all the farmers seemed to get the message.

I could safely say that 50% of the land in my town is hay, well, fields that is. When I go bike riding, I am surrounded by, well, hay, and farmers... cause they rock and sweat.

The grass was getting long. The rain kept coming, which is lame for the farmers cause then they can’t cut the hay when it was wet.

Finally today they cut it around 8:00 in the morning, let it dry all day, and finally started to gather it up at 1:00 or so after it had dried out in the sun.

I find it epic how all the farmers seem to know this.

As I rode my bike, I started to keep track of the number of tractors I saw… I gave up at 30… yes, I give up easily.

Anyways. The have some pretty hard core contraptions to cut this grass.

Of course they need one to cut it… but then another one comes and sweeps the grass into neat rows.

Then one more machine comes. It drives right over the grass and then gathers it up in a rolling machine till there is just a giant roll of grass. Then the giant tootsie roll of hay is rolled onto the next machine that wraps the roll up in plastic around and around and around.

It is quite hardcore.

Until it looks like a marshmallow, that when I stand by it, perhaps comes up between my shoulders and waist.

On the end of the day, all the fields are dotted with these giant marshmallows…

But I love just riding my bike through. Watching all the farmers, the farmers’ wives, the farmers’ children, working together on this project.

I live in a farming village… and I love it.

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