Making hay the hard way
(It's hay making time. Here's a guest column Papa Sparkling wrote
last year at this time for the Armchair Mayor News)
The sun was shining, so I made hay. OK, it was more like weeds with some hay mixed in, but either way, it was made. And for the most part, it will get eaten by our horse, who's about as picky about what he eats as a teenage boy at a buffet. Like everything else we've experienced on our hobby farm, making hay has been a long — sometimes gruelling — process. My first kick at the can came in the first few months we moved to our property in 2011. The grass was knee high, dark green and waving beautifully in the breeze. We had no animals to feed on the grass, but I was curious if I could make a little pile for fun. I read up on it — a day after cutting, turn it over into windrows to dry, and the day after that turn it again before bringing it in 24 hours later — and believed there would be no problem. As usual, there would be plenty of problems.
With my first go, I used a hacksaw (a hacksaw!) to cut a small area of grass to let dry. I turned it as I had read, but when it came time to inspect the finished product, it looked more like yellow straw than olive-green hay. No big deal, it wasn't for real anyway.
(The first attempt at making hay was with a hacksaw blade)
Then came the goats. And the cow. Then the horse.
Buying hay, of course, is always an option and there are plenty of hay farms around McLure that supply hay, and to be sure, we have bought hay when our own runs out. That route, of course, costs money and I like the idea of supplying much of my property's needs. The question is how best to do it on only a few acres. A tractor, and all its haying equipment, is out of the question, so it's been a slow journey of using different methods. When we first got goats, I used the hacksaw another time, but soon realized that was, well, insane. My next device was a sickle mower. A sickle mower is designed to mow tall grass with clippers similar to a large sickle that old-fashioned tractors used. With the blades crossing over each other with great speed, I thought I found the answer to my hay-cutting dilemma. Unfortunately, it never quite worked. The second-hand mower just couldn't cut well, and when I did get into something that resembled a rhythm, it stalled. Like so many other things on our hobby farm, it quickly became an exercise in frustration. After ordering parts, taking it apart, and giving it a decent amount of kicks and insults, it now sits forlornly in the back of my shop. All it needs is a dunce cap. Since then, my lawn tractor has been put in service to cut hay, with mixed results. First of all, I was given the lawn tractor from my inlaws, who got it for free at a garage sale. I have since realized why it was given away for free. I have had so many problems with that temperamental thing since I first turned the key to get it started, that it's getting closer to the fate of my sickle mower. Still, I have used it for hay and it has worked. The process, like much of what I do here, is really quite ridiculous. I drive the lawn tractor slowly — very slowly — over my hay field while holding a big stick in my right hand. When the hay becomes too much for the lawn tractor and it starts to get bogged down and begin to stall, I use my stick to scoop out the grass from the side of the blades as I continue to creep across my field. I still probably stall about 10 times, but I do get a decent amount of hay in the end. Once the hay is cut, I have found that turning it once with a pitchfork is plenty enough for the grass with the heat we have in the Interior. One day after turning, I rake it into big piles and begin the slow, painstaking process of piling my small wagon with as much hay as possible, and trudge off to the barn. It takes about a week for me to do half an acre. While the lawn tractor has worked, the fact is, I don't like going that route and, in the end, the hay isn't as of great quality. Although the horse doesn't seem to mind. So, I have now moved on to using a scythe. Super old school, I know, but like Levin in Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, I, too, discovered something therapeutic about cutting grass. I may not be reaching that level of transcendence that Levin reaches on his Russian farmland, but I do find comfort in the hard work of swinging a scythe. As corny as it sounds, I feel much more connected to our land when I do things by hand. To be sure, it's tough work. Brutal work, in fact. But when the animals are dining on a couple armfuls of hay in mid-December, due to your hard work, it makes muscle-aching process worthwhile. As first appeared in July 2014 in The Armchair Mayor News
