As I laid awake in bed last Friday night the sweat beaded on my face and underneath my pajamas while I listened closely to the rumbling night sky outside our bedroom window.  The relative humidity was very high after three intensely hot days that were spent mowing 100 acres of hay – the total of which would account for nearly all the hay we need to feed our cows through the winter.   As I laid awake in bed I could only hope that the threatening thunderstorm would skirt pass the farm and spare us a downpour that was sure to damage my hay.  The flickers of lightening through the window indicated that the storm was nearing.  I tried to close my eyes and ignore it.  Suddenly I felt a bright light in the room.  When I opened my eyes I heard Marcelle say, as she stared at the weather radar on her phone, “we are gonna get hit any minute now”.  So much for hoping the storm would miss us.
 
Though growing vegetables is our prime focus on the farm we also own a herd of about 25 head of beef cattle.  Aside from creating work for us outside of the growing season these animals provide an important fertility input for our vegetable production.  We harvest hay from our own farm plus three other properties in Pass Lake during the summer.  Each animal in our herd eats about 40 lbs of hay per day from November to June – roughly 210 days of the year.  That means that we are feeding about 1000 lbs of hay per day to our herd of cattle.  And while growing vegetables is where the vast majority of our income is derived, we absolutely cannot drop the ball on making hay for our animals.  If we come up short of feed it means we are either getting rid of cows that we otherwise would like to keep in the herd, or we are buying hay by the end of the winter.  This past spring we ran out of hay and it cost us about $500 per week just to keep our cows fed!  That’s a lot of money for a couple of people who don’t get paycheques!
 
The old saying “make hay while the sun shines” is absolutely true.  The key to making hay is as much about good timing as it is about gambling against the weather.  Ideally, the hay (which is a mixture of grasses, clovers, and other plants) is cut on the first day after the morning dew has burned off.  The cut hay then lays flat on the field for about 3 days where the sun dries it out.  On the 5^th day the hay is ready to be raked into long windrows, and then immediately baled into square or round bales.  Once the hay is baled up we then look for a good opportunity to take the bales off the field and store them in a barn or under a shelter until they are fed out in the winter.
 
If the hay is rained upon during the drying process it not only requires additional days of lying in the field, but it also drastically reduces the nutrient quality of the feed.  When rainwater is absorbed into the almost-dry hay, nutrients are lost as the hay dries back out.  Imagine washing a dirty face with a clean cloth, then rinsing the cloth under the faucet and wringing it out.  The dirt that comes out of the cloth is akin to the nutrients lost from the wetted hay.
 
The worst-case scenario is that the hay never has a chance to dry because the weather does not cooperate and warm up for many days.  In this case the hay will completely spoil beyond salvage.  It is a total loss.
 
This is the time of year when I am rather pre-occupied with making hay.  Pretty much all of my other duties on the farm are suspended while I try to “make hay while the sun shines”.  Failure to execute this important task properly means we face going into winter with inadequate feed for our beloved cows.  Until the hay is safely baled up and stored I cannot relax, knowing that Mother Nature may not give another window of opportunity to make hay.  The closer we get to fall the less likely we are to have another 5 day window of warm, dry weather with which to get the job done.
 
There is an undeniable vulnerability that comes with the job of making hay. Obviously I want to feed our cows the best quality, most nutritious hay I can.  And, for my own sake, I don’t want to spend cash money to do so.   Until the hay is actually baled up and in the barn many things can go wrong and threaten our winter feed supply.
 
The threat of poor weather is the biggest concern I have during haymaking season, but so too is the inevitable breakage of equipment.  All of the machines we own for making hay have a lot of moving parts, and most of the machines are not exactly new.  The reality is that nothing breaks until it is hitched up the tractor and run in the field.  I don’t know how many times I’ve had equipment breakdowns while making hay with rain clouds in the distance!  These are some of the most stressful days for me on the farm.  I had a fairly significant breakage on our hay mower last week that I fortunately was able to weld together, but not before losing almost 5 hours of prime-time sunshine hours.
 
Making hay, and farming in general, is chock-full of variables beyond our control that leave us vulnerable and sometimes anxious.  Arguably all of the jobs we do on the farm are important, and many of them are both important and urgent at the same time!  But life being what it is will sometimes give you a break, and other times put up hurdles.  I have come to be a lot more accepting of this fact - most importantly the recognition of the things beyond my control and the fact that life will go on.  In 2015 I had the opportunity to work on learning how to surrender to a difficult situation as I laid in bed with two broken feet for the whole summer.
 
After a lengthy build-up, the rain started on Saturday morning at about 1am.  At first the rain was slow and intermittent, but soon it came down hard and continued for about 20 minutes.  A typical thunderstorm that came and went, leaving behind about 15 mm of rain.  As soon as the rain stopped Marcelle and I both fell fast asleep.   As I fell back asleep I reminded myself that there is nothing I can do about the hay that was rained on but give it more time to dry and hope that Mother Nature gives me a window to get it baled and safely in the barn.  For me, regret comes from not doing my best.  Having known that I had done my best I went right to sleep, woke up on Saturday morning and harvested zucchini, then headed off to the Red Rock Folk Festival and enjoyed a hot summer day while my soggy hay did the same!