Make hay while the sun shines…..hopefully. There are so many emotions wrapped in the simple world of making hay, or haylage, or silage. You watch the weather with eagle eyes. Willing and wishing for 5 days in a row. You check the forecast, it gives you hope and then a little rain drop half way through those five days and your buggered, deflated.
So you start finding other forecast apps, anything to give you the optimism you need. The thing is, is that making good hay, the type that smells in deepest January, of long warm hazy crazy days is an art. It's making the decision as to when to ‘go’ i.e cut. Once you’ve started there is no going back. It normally takes 5 days of 20 odd degrees, but with a fair, no, strong wind, it could be 4. If it rains just as the sward has been cut, it doesn’t matter to much, but rain on 3 hours before you are going to bale and it's hair pulling out time.
So here we are, rain tomorrow, and then 7 days of sunshine, off I go to the shed to hitch up the old 6ft drum mower. Sad and dormant for 11 months. I get this feeling in my stomach, a sense of excitement, apprehension, you feel almost heroic, with the sense that its up to you to bring back the harvest..those animals, sitting in the fields, gazing over the Taw valley are relying on you, dont mess it up. And then you’re off, the noise, the insects smacking against the headlight, the heat from the engine, the oil, the view, the grass going down into symmetrical rows. Its graphic, the rows shine in the sunshine. Then the grass wilts, the colour starts to change…..I’m getting carried away, lets wait and see, tomorrow the forecast could change again.
