You Never Know When Something Might Break Down

We have five sections of hay to cut each summer. The first four went splendidly with our new horses. When we got to the fifth section, our daughter, who was kindly helping us, yet again, said, “It's a lot nicer to hay when it cools off in the evening. Let's start at five instead of noon.”

I agreed with the first statement, but couldn't agree to the second. “You never know if something's going to break down, and the forecast might change. It could rain tomorrow.” It had not rained in weeks, but the laws of haying are firm: if it's not raining, you must hay.

My daughter groaned. My fellow and the horses groaned, as they went from the shade of the barn to the blazingly sunny field.

We figured there were four loads, so we would finish around five, in time to make supper. We got two loads in before the first hayloader broke. My fellow and our daughter spent an hour and a half trying to replace links in the chain. No luck.

“We could run it until the chain on the other side breaks,” I suggested. I was unloading the haywagon. The load of hay seemed a lot bigger when I was working by myself.

“But then we'd have two broken chains,” said my fellow, “and still might not get the hay off today.”

“Why don't we just use the other hayloader? Don't we have two for exactly this reason?”

“Yes,” answered my fellow, “but it's going to take a while to grease it up.”

“Well, I've still got a lot to unload here,” I said grumpily.

Finally we took the second hayloader up to the field. We went 100 feet before we heard the banging. One of the thing-a-ma-jigs that shuffle the hay up was broken.

My fellow balanced precariously on the back edge of the haywagon, while my daughter handed him twine. I stood in front of the horses to keep them from moving ahead in case my fellow fell off. He did not fall off. We went another 100 feet. More banging. The twine had broken.

We repeat the precarious procedure with wire. A hundred more feet. The wire breaks, or maybe this time it is more pieces of the thing-a-ma-jing.

“Looks like we're picking the rest of this hay up by hand,” says my fellow.

“We don't have enough daylight,” I moan.

“I'm calling everyone we know,” says our daughter, which translates into the handful of people who might help us in the heat. One is at work, three are in Maine, and the fifth is at work and has evening plans with his spouse. But he comes anyway.

“Are we glad to see you!” we say.

The evening comes on quickly. We have to make smaller loads, working by hand, and that takes even more time. Dusk brings out the giant flies, buzzing, landing, and biting, which means horses bucking, kicking, and wanting to run.

My fellow stands in front of the team, talking firmly and calmly, using a long whip to chase off the flies. But it is a little dicey, and maybe it's good that our friend might not fully realize that, as repeatedly he hops up on the load to stomp the hay down.

My daughter and I pitch hay for all we're worth. The dog, who's had it with being tied around my waist and having to go with me for every forkful of hay, is excited by the bucking and kicking. He wants to stand in front of the horses and bark. Instead he gets tied to a tree and barks.

Then it is dark. We can't see the hay anymore. We might have it all.

“Good enough,” I say wearily, and we all go back down the hill. “I wish we had a nice supper to offer you,” we say to our friend. “How about some cold water?”

“That sounds good,” he says.

Last load of hay in the barn and no one hurt. That sounds good too.

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Sept 17 - Sept 20, 2025

The Big Hayloader Moment

Our new team of horses was going to be haying with us for the first time, and I was nervous.

On mowing day, Willow and Fern were not daunted by the strange clackety-clack of the sickle bar mower. The next day, they weren't bothered by the whir-whir of the tedder. The third day, there was no problem with the quiet rake.

But the next step was the big one: introducing the hayloader. If draft horses are going to be afraid of farm machinery, it's often the hayloader that worries them. It's a big noise coming from behind, high up, and some horses do not like that at all, which is why I was nervous.

After the raking, the horses rested in the barn with hay and water, while the farmers got the barn ready.

Ideally, this would have been done well ahead of time, but every year, it gets done the hour before the first load of hay comes in. Or, rather, the hours. We had to move out the two hayloaders, the spreader, the tools, the piles of junk accumulated over the winter. We had to move a million greenhouse tables that had been set outside in the way.

I got more and more nervous as the hours ticked by. I wanted to get the first haying over with, so I could quit imagining disasters.

Luckily our daughter was home, with a visiting friend, who wanted to help hay. The vigor of two twenty-five-year-olds got us through the hours of junk and table moving. Plus I couldn't let my nervousness turn to outright grumpiness when we had a guest. So when my fellow remembered he had to put a new pole on the hay wagon, and we needed to cart a lot of musty old hay from the barn to the compost pile, I had to grin and bear it. Or just bear it.

Finally we were ready for the big moment. I worked hard to imagine everything going smoothly instead of runaways and smash-ups and horses getting hurt and farmers getting hurt and daughters getting hurt and guests getting hurt.

First we hitched the horses to the wagon and hayloader in the driveway, and my thankfully calm, confident fellow asked the team to walk just a few steps, with the hayloader out of gear, to minimize the noise. Willow and Fern flicked their ears back, listening, but weren't alarmed.

Then came the pull up the hill, including the top of the hayloader catching on branches, and the rattle and bang over rocks in the lane. I walked briskly ahead, with a pounding heart, in case I had to try and stop stampeding horses. At least it is a steep hill, so the horses would have to work hard to run away pulling the haywagon and hayloader.

But Willow and Fern weren't even considering running away.

In the field was the last test: putting the hayloader into gear, which made more strange new noises. Willow and Fern didn't blink an eye. Then the full glory of this new team of horses was revealed. Tried and true, slow and steady, their classic funeral pace proved to be a blissful match for hayloader work.

My fellow farmer, our daughter, and this nervous farmer were all exulting. How easy! How fun! How downright relaxing to make hay with these fine and slow horses!

Our guest seemed surprised by the nervousness/borderline grumpiness turned to glee. “I guess I came on a good day to hay,” she said.

“You sure did,” we burbled. “No smash-ups, no break-downs, no runaways, not even a person falling down over and over trying to load the hay while the wagon jerks and jolts and bounces behind a trotting horse!”

“Wow,” said our sweaty, chaff-covered, worn-out guest, who was probably glad we hadn't mentioned such possibilities earlier.

“Yes!” we said. “This is heavenly haymaking! Lo, the hay angels are singing!” (Well, we didn't really say that last bit, because we didn't want our guest to think we were entirely wacky.)

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Aug 20 - Aug 26, 2025

The Holiday Farm Hustle: Yogurt and Unicorns

Around the winter holidays, we New Hampshire farmers have to hustle. Well, not exactly hustle. We have to get off the couch.

We want to go visit our human relatives, which means we have to set up our cat and draft horse relatives for a few days on their own. The list is always the same. Horses: food, water, fence. Cats: food, water, litter. The cats are easy; it only takes minutes to fill the food bowl and check the various sources of water. First is the actual water bowl, scrubbed and refilled.

Second is the small plastic cooler where we make yogurt once a week. The cats don’t like it when we make yogurt. They like it when the cooler is open, the jars are gone, and the water, which has kept the milk warm enough to yog, is available to drink. 

They are also fond of the leaking tap in the bathtub, a leak which drives a thrifty farmer who wants to practice sustainable water use crazy, and which now has a bucket under it, for watering houseplants. The kitties think the bucket is a perfect drinking vessel.

The litter takes longer, as we lecture the cats on how a proper sturdy farm cat wouldn’t need a litter box at all. Our long-time kitty Cricket finds this no problem, as she is fuzzy and happy to be outside. She says she is only using the litter box because we won’t be here to let her out. 

But our new kitty, who is sleek and not fuzzy, and therefore cold, says I never meant to be a sturdy farm cat. You’re the one who brought me here.

But you didn’t use a litter box at your last house, I say.

I had a cat door, he replies. Make me a cat door.

What if skunks get in, I say.

I will curl up with them, he says. They are warm.

Hmm, I say, as I put fresh litter in the box. At least we use softwood pellets, meant for a pellet stove, which means it is kind of sustainable.

Now for the horses: checking the electric fence is easy. Filling the water trough is easy. Then there’s food: seven meals worth, for four horses, which is a lot of hay, especially when it is in the form of our own loose hay, and not tidy bales. 

One of us forks the hay down from the mow. The other weighs it out on a platform scale, and tosses it into the mangers, which are actually sheep panels tied into a circle, handy for hay when we are away. 

Then the farm daughter gets in the manger too, tromping down the hay, and as the stack gets taller, so does the daughter, until she finds herself looking down at our big horse Clyde, who is helpfully eating out of the manger as we try to stuff it full.

“Look at your daughter,” laughs my farmer fellow, and I stop flinging hay around to look. There she is, standing high above Clyde, braiding his abundant forelock into three braids, and then the three into one, which is so thick it sticks out like a unicorn. 

We all find this most amusing, which will give you the sense of the fun you can have on a vegetable farm while hustling for the holidays. Now all we have to do, before we go, is visit our nice neighbors, and ask them to keep an eye on things for us, bringing them a basket of root veggies as thanks. Plus we have to pet the horses and kitties a while, and wish them a happy holiday, with a little help from more root veggies, and a spoonful of yogurt.

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Jan 12-18, 2022

Haying with Horses

Haying with horses on a New Hampshire farm is an enjoyable experience. Sometimes.

This season, haying has been dreadful. All that rain in July meant either no, or bad, haying. It also meant that the new growth was pushing up into the old growth, making for a miserable mowing in August, with big clots of grass binding up the sickle bar and the farmers' and the farmhorses' tempers.

The raking and the loading were also unhappy affairs, thanks to those same heavy, wet, sure-to-mold-in-the-barn clots. We would toss the wet off the wagon in the field, feeling the kind of grump that comes after you've spent a long time making a nice supper, and it turns out badly. There it is, the same amount of work, but it doesn't taste that great, which is probably what our horses will be saying about the hay all winter.

On top of that, all the hayings ran right up against our little bit o' summer fun.

First was the long-delayed-by-the-pandemic visit to my family. We didn't arrive until 11:30 p.m., after the haying. But our nice sleepy relatives cheered our arrival.

Second was my fellow's family visit, here on the farm, also pandemic-delayed. These nice alert relatives helped us hay and ordered take-out for us, so that we could have a meal together at 8:30 p.m., after the haying.

Third was our nice Philadelphia friends' visit, who also helped us hay, and made us a delicious supper, which we ate at 9 p.m., after the gloomy haying. 

“Did it turn out the way you wanted it to?” the supper-maker asked kindly.

“Kind of hard to tell, isn't it?” We sort-of laughed, thinking of the crummy hay in the barn.

Most recently, the hay ran up against a much-anticipated Rhiannon Giddens concert.

That day, we got out to the field by three, hoping the hay would be dry. We should have had plenty of time, except there was way more hay than could fit in one load; and the horses were grumpy and not working well together; and the farmers were grumpy and not working well together. In fact, I accidentally hit my fellow with my pitchfork tines, which caused him to swear and me to profusely apologize. 

Then, since we had to unload the wagon in order to pick up the second load, and the barn is getting full, which means a long slow unloading, with my fellow on the wagon, and me stuffing the hay into the rafters, and hay occasionally falling back down, which is maddening, and causes my fellow to really push those forkfuls of hay up firmly, and causes me to really grab hold of the hay firmly, all of which then caused my fellow to accidentally hit me with his pitchfork tines.

Then I swore, and he apologized profusely.

We got the last of the hay on the second wagon at 4:59. I wanted to leave at five, after my pleasant shower and change into fancy clothes. Instead, I raced in to swipe off the worst of the sweat and grub, and to gather snacks, vaccination cards, tickets, water, wallets, and keys. My fellow unharnessed the horses, and by the time I ran out to help lead the horses to pasture, my fellow had already taken all four at once up the narrow lane, which did not please them. But there was my sweet fellow, running down the lane with his shirt off, preparing to put on his fancy clothes.

Here is the nice end of the story: we got to the concert on time, and it was wonderful. I wish I could also say this was the end of the haying and my complaining, but alas, it is not, as we still have a section and a half to go. 

Of course, haying with horses still could be enjoyable, even in this season. But I'm not holding my breath. 

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Sept 22 – Sept 28, 2021