Rain on the hay – my language could be stronger…

This year, every time we cut the hay it rained. This time it rained then it snowed then it dried beautifully. My friend and I walked out to the hay makers field before lunch yesterday. She had come down to help me with the winterizing.  Lunch would  be pumpkin soup made with pears and lemon accompanied by a lively white wine. With pizza bianca and pastrami (more on that tomorrow) and lettuce from my little patch.   I said,  as we walked, the man is coming to bale the hay this afternoon.  We stood in the field and leaned down to gather fragrant barely dried handfuls of green cow food goodness. Look at that, I said, as it broke perfectly but still holding its leaves.  I threw it in the air and it floated gently to the ground.

I smiled and said the bad word. Perfect.  As I spoke she looked at me and jumped slightly, startled, blinking her eye. I felt a rain drop, she said. No. I said. I spoke looking skyward. Light grey clouds, sitting like a lid but no rainclouds, no rain in the forecast.

And as I looked up and around, dragging her eyes up with me, it rained. No. I whispered. Not again.  But yes. We gathered ourselves together, tucking our chins in, arms folded, heads slightly bent to keep the rain from our eyelashes and scuttled back to the house.

It was a good shower.  It was still raining as we sat down to lunch and then drizzling  as we took the bottle and a couple of glasses to the fire place. And tailing off as we called the dogs in. And though the rain came down and the day darkened and the last of the leaves fell outside and the dogs collapsed in heaps by the fire,  I was happy to enjoy a blissful afternoon, a break with a friend,  a rare few hours sitting by the fire, our legs curled beneath us in big orange  chairs, our glasses almost  but not quite forgotten and our conversation dancing like butterflies on ether with the power of flowers, from this to that and back to this other thing. Girl talk.  Intelligent, well read, girl talk. The hay would be worried over later. The wringing of hands could wait.

The hay man came in the night and baled the wet hay into round bales. He will take them away and feed them immediately to his own cows. He has a big crew to feed. It would be mouldy before Daisy and Queenie has even begun.  At least this way it will not be wasted.

He will give me some of his dry bales as a fair exchange. But I hated to see it go. It had been a perfect crop until that miserable bloody shower.  Failed again. Foiled again. Foibles.  Smoibles. Toy bells.  Ah well. My friend and I had a lovely day regardless.

Today I am going to go to the barn to diligently scoop and clean. Then I will write 5,000 words. 5,000 legible words that is.  Piper paying time.

Have a lovely day.

your friend on the farm,

celi