Bringing in the Hay

Last summer our family hay field produced 230 bales of grass hay; this is an amount of hay that can be stacked on trucks and put away in the barn in one evening by whatever gang of people my brother George wrangles up. This year George produced numerous children and assorted (current and former) boyfriends of his daughters to help load the hay. There were six of us lugging bales and one kid driving, George's youngest, Matt. My Ford 350 with the stake bed holds 65 bales easily, and the other Ford pick up holds about 45 without showing stress.

However, we did not take into account what it meant that Susanna had fertilized the field this spring, for the first time in thirty-five years. Instead of 230 bales of hay, there were 500. We got the baling underway by about 7 p.m., and everybody was worn out by 11 p.m., and we were only half done.

So after 11 p.m., I came home and grilled Christopher a chicken and cheese sandwich (he gets home at 11:35 p.m.), but then could not sleep for worrying about the forecast, 30% chance of rain, turning to 50% chance later in the morning. At four o'clock I got up and looked at the weather radar and saw blue specks all over the place. At 4:30, I headed back out to the hayfield with some big tarps. At least I could get some of the hay under cover.

A few hours of dragging bales across the lower field into two long pyramidal stacks nearly killed me. By the time the sun rose, the twine had battered my hands through my work gloves; my arms ached, my neck and wrists were scratched. My legs were also scratched from the previous night, when wore long shorts rather than pants. I was so tired. And I had gotten maybe 140 bales under cover. There were still almost that many in the field.

The thing with hay is that, quality-wise, it is a delicate commodity. This hay got rained on the night it was cut, and so it was already very much compromised. It would never be beautiful and green and soft like the best grass hay. But if the finished bales got rained on, in addition, the hay would have been awful and it might have rotted in the barn, or worse, if it really was wet when we put it up, a fire hazard.

Anyway, I got finished tarping the hay, brought one small load into the barn, then came home and looked at the radar. Storm centers were rolling toward us across Benton Harbor, sixty miles to the west. So I grabbed my neighbor Jim Coe and his son, Evan, and paid them to come out and help me load two trucks up. We got those bales under cover, though not stacked in their permanent locations. The barn is cluttered and crowded.

After George got home from work, he cleared the last 22 bales from the field, and all the hay is under cover for now. Susanna is off in West Virginia at a music festival, but she can't really move hay any more anyhow.

There's still plenty more to do. We need to sell the 140 bales that are still in the field, under the tarps, or else stack it in another barn, but disaster was averted. Oh, I don't know where this is going, but I am just feeling overwhelmed by it, by the fertility of the field, by the work to be done in this life, heavy lifting and otherwise. Everything seems overwhelming these days. Though I do less than a lot of other people (say, those with young kids), I feel the strain of projects needing to be done. For years I have meant to repaint the bathroom. Six years ago, I tiled 2/3 of the hallway, and haven't gotten to the rest of it. The donkey pasture needs to be re-fenced. I've never trained my donkeys to do anything significant, though I've meant to. I've always thought I'd find a way to spend a few months walking around Michigan with one or both of my donkeys, just wander town to town, sleep on the ground. It's likely I'll never do it. I wanted to spend a year learning to breathe the right away. I've wanted to build an excellent tree fort. I thought I'd write a lot of books, dozens of them, and send them out into the world. The weight of all the things I'm not getting done is dragging on me.

I had invited Amy Newday, poet and former dairy farmer, to come help with the hay, but she couldn't. She wrote me afterward:

"I was actually feeling regretful last night that I had to get up & teach this morning so I couldn't volunteer to help you. I do miss haying--the intensity of it (we were always squeezing it in between milkings) and especially that moment when you finally get your tired body into bed afterwards and the exquisiteness of not having to move any part of you and the bed is just so deliciously soft."

She's right. It feels good to have tired muscles, and to have finished a job, to have gotten the hay out of the rain's way. Maybe that's the thing, and a good night's sleep will ready me for the next job.



The top photo is Chris's favorite photo of Susanna, with our big truck; lower photo is Rick Campbell's, featuring horse being trimmed by Drew Anderson. Children are Sheila & Tom Campbell, plus Danny Wickman.

Twice-Baked Pie

This weekend a bunch of us got together on the island in the St. Joseph River to celebrate the 100th year of Frank Herlihy, but we didn't end up talking much about FWH (or "Herlihy, you old stink," as Bob Ardrey called him in a letter I brought along, but did not read.) Instead the formal portion of the event was made up of Sam Lipson, Mimi Lipson, and Sonia Lipson (respectively) leading praise of (Uncle) Terry Herlihy, Susanna, and Joanna Herlihy. Those three children of FWH seemed to be just fine with this.

We then attended 12 minutes of fireworks in St. Joseph, and were dumbfounded by the hour-long traffic jam getting out of town. We found that the police had closed off one lane of highway 63, for apparently no reason. Perhaps they needed the overtime. Afterward we spent many hours talking around a campfire. Twenty of us stayed the night in the two river cottages.

We celebrated Kellee's birthday on Sunday, with a twice-baked pie. Or perhaps we'll call it a pie casserole. Here's the recipe. One person accidentally baked a sour cherry pie without sugar. So we took that pie, tipped it upside down in a pan and broke it up until the (delicious homemade butter-based) crust was broken into bite sized pieces. Added some sugar, some sour cherry juice, and some very soft cream cheese and swirled it around a bit. Then we baked the mess until it was good and hot, until some crustiness formed on the crust-bits that were on the top. We cooled it, and then we striped it generously with an icing made of cream cheese, butter, half and half and confectioners sugar. It was a hit all around, especially with vanilla ice cream.

As I write this, many Lipsons & assorted others are traveling across the eastern U.S. on an Amtrak train that will go from Chicago (where Sonia, Felix & Lucy board the train) to South Bend, Indiana (where Mimi, Sam, Luc, Joanna and Ava get on), to Albany (where Mimi and Luc get off), and switching to Boston, final destination. Imagine it, a train full of Lipsons!

The above photo features Ben, Susanna and Terry; the picture below is Kellee & self with twice-baked pie.