All around the northern hemisphere, farmers are putting away gazillions of bales of hay for the winter.
In Maine, we’re getting glorious payback for last summer’s horrendous season. That's when we saw one lousy cut, caught in between the exasperating, everlasting days of rain.
[Last year, an acquaintance from Wisconsin cheerfully told me they were working on their fourth cut. I nearly smacked her.]
This year, most Maine farmers will harvest two or three cuts, bringing supply up and prices slightly down.
Hallelujah.
Haying is a happy time, once again.
My folks have fond memories of haying season in their home states of Michigan and Ohio. By age 10, they were learning to drive farm trucks on the fields and backroads. They hung out under the tanning sun with siblings and cousins. It was busy, tiring, and fun. It was family and community coming together.
On fields around me, families and friends are still rounded up to get it all done.
The whole Bailey gang was on the field when I picked up a hundred bales in Pennellville. recently.
Steve Bailey runs a small beef operation in Durham. He and his wife have three children of their own and another two they adopted when his sister passed away a few years ago.
From age 6 to 15, they all pull their weight.
The older boys, Kaleb and David, load hay and are learning to drive the tractor. Sister Jamie can swing the bales mightily, too. The younger
ones, Kohen and Karleigh, drive the truck and trailer as hay is loaded from the field and otherwise do whatever they can.
It was another family affair on a field in Pownal, where the Burnhams cut 800 bales last week and I swung by to pick up another 100 bales.
Donald Burnham, 78, has been farming for decades.
He beamed when he yelled to me from his tractor,
“Your horses are going to get fat on this!”
His son, Rob, and nephew Nick Harriman stacked bales seven-high onto the hay wagon. They’re young and strong. When they joke around, they start throwing bales at each other as if they were beach balls.
Combined, these families will put up well over 20,000 bales combined.
Meanwhile, I got 200 into my barn.
On the field, my mom drove the truck. Friends Chris Lombard and Ashley Hutchinson helped packed my truck and stock trailer. For the offloading, though, I was on my own.
My three big, strong, and helpful teenage sons were all away at summer jobs. I missed them dearly.
That’s ok. Nothing a good radio station and cold beer couldn’t solve.
It’s haying season, after all. And it was only 200 bales.