HAY SEASON ON THE FARM

June is a paradox for children who grew up on farms. It heralds the end of the school year when there are no more books, no more homework, and no more long bus rides winding through the rural backroads ten times a week. It is also a month when the hard work on a farm gets even harder.

June is haying season. It’s a time when hot summer days bring temperatures in the 90s, and farm kids work a job that’s hard, dusty, and endless.

Outside, mowers clatter along in the fields slicing swaths of sweet smelling clover, timothy, fescue and other grasses to be dried in the sun. Later, the hay is raked into fluffy windrows and collected and hauled to the barn’s haymow, pronounced “haymau” with the “mow” rhyming with “cow.”

Before we owned a baler, we collected our loose hay onto an old flatbed milk truck pulling a hay loader. As the dried hay was swept up onto the truck bed in an endless ribbon, Dad spread it evenly around until it reached a heaping full load. Often he let out a sharp whistle to the driver to stop while he pitched out a snake who took a free ride up with the hay. A whistle would also ensue when part of—or an entire—load slid off the bed on a steep hillside with him sailing along with it.

When fully loaded without mishap, the truck was pulled into the haymow where a two-tined hayfork on a track running along the barn’s peak was dropped by a pulley and rope and inserted in the hay. Pulled back up by another rope, the hay bundle slid up and along the rail to be tripped and dumped at the proper location in the barn’s loft.

The words mowing away hay to a farm kid's ears will bring a series of grunts, groans and weary-sounding expletives as a retort. On a hot day, mowing hay meant tearing apart the big heap of hay with a pitchfork and spreading it out to all corners of the loft. The mow was often several temperatures higher than outside. This exhausting, sweltering task went on again and again until the truck bed was empty. 

I often mowed hay for my dad. And I can truly say, I uttered a relieved sigh each time the last forkful was dumped, spread, and I could escape the itchy hayseeds and broiling heat to get a cold drink. Then it was back to the hayfield to do it all over again, constantly searching the bright sky for the smallest hint of rain—the farmer’s worst enemy during haying season. 

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Featuring FOUR WHITE ROSES 

Finalist in the Book Excellence Awards, the Georgia Romance Writers' Maggie Award, and the American Fiction Awards.