The haying season didn't start out too well. First of all, we missed two stretches of haying weather in June, because we were overwhelmed by the garden and the beginning of CSA season. Then we took a chance on a less than stellar weather report, and our first batch of hay got wet – twice.
The hay was finally dry again on one of our harvest days. We harvested from five in the morning until after one. By three, we had already made not one but two separate trips to Jack's Hardware for the right size spring for the hayloader.
It was an easy fix with the right spring, but we were in the delicate process of moving the too large hayloader out of our too small barn, which requires some finesse and sturdy chucks, when two perfectly innocent young people, there to arrange a visit from a wilderness education camp, came up the driveway.
Instead of “Hello! Welcome!” I hollered, “Will you move your car so our CSA members can park?” The two quickly complied and rushed over to the barn, offering help. “No,” I said ungraciously, “We've been doing this together a long time and help only makes it worse.” They stepped back a little, probably wondering if this farm visit with 11-13 year old girls was a good idea.
We got the hayloader out, and I tried to be more congenial, along the lines of, “We have a very full day, but we can answer a few questions. If you talk fast.” Did I mention that this was a nearly 99 degree day? We rapidly and sweatily figured out visit details, and then my fellow and I slowly and sweatily picked up our crummy hay until dark, with our working hayloader and our wonderful horses, Willow and Fern, the best hay horses we've ever had.
“Sorry you have to eat this crummy hay next February,” we said to the horses, who are much more gracious than I. In fact, it was the horses' charming natures that made the girls' farm visit the next day worthwhile. (Along with our charming farm pooch, who raced to have his belly rubbed by eleven girls and three counselors.)
My next gracious comment, as I was setting the girls up for some weeding, was “You're all doing it wrong.” Happily, they seemed undaunted by the worn-out, grumpy farmer. Plus they loved unloading the crummy hay: lots of delighted yelling, and “Jump! It's really fun!”
All of which brings us to the perfect part of the haying season. No machinery breakdowns, the wonderful horses, a stretch of ten days of exquisite haying weather, all in the eighty degree range.
My fellow kept checking the weather, and he and Willow and Fern would mow, ted, and rake the successive batches, and then we would all pick up. Meanwhile I kept the rest of the farm together, harvesting, watering flats, transplanting, making an occasional meal.
By day seven, when I had been up gasping in the night with leg cramps from loading hay, and my fellow started antibiotics for Lyme Disease, we were losing our haying fire. Thank goodness our daughter came home to help at the beginning, and two farmer friends came to help toward the end.
By Friday, the third of the 5 a.m. harvest days to coincide with haying, we were moving pretty slowly. So were Willow and Fern. But we did it. We pulled the last load into the barn at six p.m. Then we went to get ice cream. Then we came home and picked beans until ten with a flashlight. Then we collapsed into bed, dreaming of a barn full of (mostly) beautiful hay.
Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Aug 19 - Aug 25, 2026