Hey Hay Hey Hay

Tedding and then baling day today. Tedding is when they fluff the hay up into rows that the baler can then gather into squares. The fluffiness allows the grasses that were laying on the ground to dry as well. We have perfect drying weather, although it was starting to cloud over around 1pm. No rain though so the hay should be good.

Haying time was always laden with worry when we had horses . The sky would be checked often for signs of rain. We needed 3 good dry days to get the hay in safely – a bit of rain would make it dusty, a lot of rain and you risked mould and degradation of nutrition. Hay time is when I first started praying to the earth gods – I remember one time in particular that that the hay was cut and still lying in the field. We needed one more day for it to dry. There were thunder clouds to the north of us and thunder clouds to the south – I stood in the middle of the field and asked Mother Nature to spare us – she did – she left a strip just a few miles wide dry. We weren’t always so lucky.

The day the hay was baled was sure to be the hottest, most humid day of the summer. The first several years we had small bales, each of which had to be stacked by hand. First bales would be tossed to the ground from the wagon, then they’d have to be carried to the barn and then stacked. Carm and I did it ourselves a few times, but it was a pretty big job for two office workers. For a few years we hired some boys from the local group home, and then we had a friend and my sister help. Finally we went to large – 650lb square bales that would be stacked with a tractor. That left us with some heavy  work in the winter but in much more manageable chunks.

Today’s word of the day is ritzy (RIT-see adjective 1: being, characteristic of, or befitting a snob : snobbish ; 2: impressively or ostentatiously fancy or stylish : fashionable, posh). Carm’s niece Jennifer is getting married in a few weeks. Since Italian weddings are often quite ritzy I have decided to wear my coral sequin dress. I can finally fit into it again! I thought that would never happen :-) Anyway, it is an over-the-top shiny, sequiney dress that is this beautiful orange pink colour. Swish! But hopefully not too eye catching – I’m hoping that Jennifer’s friends will be  dressed to the 9’s!