Hay There!

And the rain came pouring down...on my freshly cut field of overgrown, stemmy, hay. The best laid plans of mavens came crashing down. The feed store owner, who I had clung to for reassurance through the rains of June, told me to just stop worrying about. There was nothing to be done.

And he didn't say this, but having been through the year that I've been through, I was able to keep in mind: 1) Worry is sin--it truly is. It is saying that your plans are better than God's and He'd better get things straightened out to please Me; and 2)There are way bigger fish to fry than a little field of hay. We paid $6/bale a couple winters ago and we made it, so all things considered, this was a hemorrhoid, not a crisis.

Being the complete hay ignoramus that I am/was, I called Hay Guy to ask about whether he was going to flip it over to dry it. (There are all kinds of pieces of mystery equipment with wheels going every which way that can flip the furrow of hay over 180 degrees and put it back down in place.) That seemed like what we should do, but Hay Guy said no, he wasn't going to touch it for a couple of days, that raking or flipping or spreading it back out or whatever would simply knock all the leaves off of it and he wanted to "leave" it sit and dry.

(Another lesson I learned this past year: It's okay to just accept your circumstance and do the best with what you are actually in control of--and not try to manipulate.) So, I watched and waited and drove by the field, watching the lovely hay turn a glorious shade of drab brown with whisks of gold--great for straw, painful for hay.

And then, there he was, a tractor out of the mist...since the field is around the corner from me, I never even see what direction the Guy rolls in from or how he gets there. He's there, he waves and has hay crumbs stuck all over him.

In the interim, I am trying to arrange how we are going to pick up all this stuff and what we're going to carry it on and where we are going to put it. You can leave the bales lay in the field overnight if you have to, but there is definitely a theft possibility (especially two years ago when hay was going for $25/bale in CA and FL). Also there's the dew factor, so the best plan is to get it picked up immediately.

I talked on the phone so much that week, my cel phone battery would get hot. It was ridiculous and all my calls were to men. The Hay Guy, Handyman, the Field Owner, Neighbor Rob. Bunch of men on speed dial--who wouldn't love it?!

I remembered when I was in 8th grade and we had moved to the boonies, so I could have a horse. I begged my mom to let me join the boys 4H club. Because girls were snotty and prissy and I didn't fit in. But boys, boys just want to goof around and they'll take ya. What you see is what you get. If they don't like you, you'll know it and you can move on.

But girls, girls are awash in false impressions and facades. You're never quite sure if you're standing on solid ground or about to have the rug yanked out from under you...all this to say, it was a little fun, I love to arrange things. I especially love to arrange things when things work out. All the convolutions are worth it, when the pieces come together.