Harvest

At one point, there must have been 30 people running all over
our hay field, each group moving in a different cardinal direction.
Bales of hay flew out of the baler as hefty, young hay assistants
hurled the bundles of stored sunshine onto trailers and into the
backs of pickups. By the end of this frenzy, the field was empty,
as was most of the barn, and not one drop of rain had fallen on a
single leaf of alfalfa. But this idyllic scene was the result of
some long, frustrated waiting with a huge injection of patience
being a must.

Growing dryland hay is enough to make a grown blonde cry and
this year’s crop had Mary Frances nearly in a tizzy. First off, the
spring drought nearly killed our crop. When we left for nine days
in Hawaii on May 30, it was with the understanding that there would
be no harvest this year. While we were gone, the hot, dry, windy
weather continued as the grass shrunk to the bare minimum. By June
10, it was about four inches high. Since we normally harvest by the
fourth of July, we assumed that all of the John Deere equipment
would get an extra year’s rest.

That’s when all of our company started to arrive, mostly from
New York and Arizona. Naturally, the weather made a 90-degree shift
and suddenly it rained for a week straight. The temperature dropped
into the upper 40 sat night. The frozen relatives left for home
with a clear understanding of how unpredictable the weather really
can be here in Colorado. At one point, my brother’s putt on the
14th green hit a pool of standing water, which stopped it dead in
its tracks, floating 10 feet from the hole.

Of course, the weather has stayed cool and wet most of the
summer. Our house has been pummeled with pea to baseball-sized hail
to the point where even the chickens were ducking for cover. The
pants hanging in my closet were drenched by an extensive leak
coming out our light fixture. Every roof at Sunset Ridge Ranch now
needs replacing. We assumed that the alfalfa could never withstand
this barrage. But somehow, mysteriously, it did.

In addition, the brome recently started to grow and the crested
wheat wasn’t far behind. Although it wasn’t very high, the grass
was dense and surprisingly healthy-looking.

Last December, we bought tickets for the Folk Festival in Lyons
on the weekend of Aug. 13-15. The last thing, and I do mean the
LAST thing, we thought we’d be doing that weekend was baling hay.
But the storms continued and although we knew the harvest was
coming soon, the weather just would not cooperate. Each weekend, we
thought we might be about ready to cut but the weather continued to
be gloomy.

Mary Frances cancelled a trip to her sister-in-law’s parents’
summer home near Lake Michigan because she expected to be baling.
We sat out the week in rain. We curtailed a trip to Steamboat
because the driving rain forced us to hole up inside our pickup for
two straight nights. I was forced to be quite creative and flexible
on an Outdoor Ed. trip with my class, as we dodged lightning bolts
and drenching rains. We were forced to postpone a weekend visit
with close friends because we were expecting to be cutting. No
dice, but plenty of rain.

When did the sun finally come out? It was Thursday, August
12.

Simultaneously, the alfalfa was in bloom and it begged to be
cut. A hole in the forecast suggested several days of unimpeded
sunshine. Mary Frances was ready. Like a whirling dervish, she
careened out to the back hayfield and let her John Deere MOCO do
what it was born to do. Grass flew everywhere into beautiful long
windrows. By Thursday night, dew crept in and the cutting had to
stop. That’s when Tom called me from the Folk Festival. All my
friends were wondering what was up with us.

What was up was that there were windrows on the field. That’s
when the clouds slipped in and Mary Frances glued herself to the
computer in hopes that she could find a forecast that would free
her from all worry about soggy hay. That night, and for the next
two nights, she fell into an uneasy sleep. The early morning was
filled with clouds and persistent dew. Mary Frances waited and
waited until she finally could bale the field. In the meantime, we
were constantly calling our loyal and dependable field hands saying
that the baling would start Saturday at 11.

The MOCO performed without a hitch and now all of the hay lay
ready to be baled. All it had to do was to dry out. But hay does
not dry quite the same in 70-degree August weather as it does in
95-degree July weather. The damp ground refused to cooperate either
and the hay, which normally dries within 36 hours, seemed to need
more and more time.

On Saturday, we called to tell our helpers that we needed more
time. We would bale at three, no four, no six o’clock. That’s when
they showed up and the baling began.

We filled our trailer with more than 90 bales. Meanwhile our
sometimes-finicky stack wagon scooped up another 60. By nightfall,
we had sheltered 150 bales of our beautiful hay in the
barn.

Meanwhile, two customers swept by and picked up 115 more bales.
But much of our field would not yield. Damp, damp, damp ground kept
the thickest low-lying hay from drying. We were forced to shut down
for the night.

Meanwhile, I was doing my thing in the kitchen.

“If we can’t bale,” I grumbled, “I’m going to cook up an Italian
storm.”

Two plates of lasagna slid into the oven, a plate of manicotti
soon joined them. A large pot of meatballs and Italian sausage
simmered and bubbled on the stove and filled the house with a heady
fragrance of tomatoes, garlic, wine and oregano. By 8:30 we were
all feasting.

That night we slept fitfully. A neighbor had dropped off a
quiet, stray dog and asked us to watch him for the weekend. It
seemed like an easy enough task. Saturday morning, he barked enough
to wake us up around six. Sunday morning, I think he started
barking at three and didn’t stop until I paid him a little visit
with a rolled up copy of The Denver Post at nine.

Although I kept the kennel fence between us, for his safety, I
made it quite clear how little I appreciated his behavior. With a
few slaps of the newspaper on my thigh, I believe I made my point.
I still can’t figure out why we hadn’t had the same discussion at
three. Somehow when you’re tucked under warm, cushy covers, going
out in the cold morning is not very appealing. So I listened to his
yapping for hours instead. Meanwhile, Mary Frances fantasized that
a rogue cloud had made its way across the Continental Divide and
was heading directly for her hayfield. Egad!

Sunday broke dry and sunny. No major clouds were forming and no
dew lay on the ground. Mary Frances and I rode out to the field and
checked it out.

Most of it was dry and ready to bale. Some thick hay in the draw
stubbornly clung to its greenness. I convinced her to start on the
dry stuff and let the other hay catch up at the end. I made my
calls. I called the helpers and the customers. Other former
customers called me back. It seemed that everyone would arrive at
the same time, around one o’clock. Our field hands arrived first. I
jumped in the pickup, while they decided to balance standing on the
trailer as we bounced out to the hayfield. By the time we returned
to the barn, two, three, four customers all arrived at the same
time. Hay was leaping off the field faster than Mary Frances’ John
Deere could spit it out.

Meanwhile, my hard-working troops were looking a little ragged,
so I cooked them up a few hotdogs and brought them two rounds of
Pepsis. As they always do, they perked up and we headed out to the
field. Bedlam lay before us.

Trailers zigged and zagged while kids leaped out and picked up
hay. It reminded me a little of a military operation, except this
one had no coordination at all. By the time an hour had passed, we
had dumped two loads onto customer’s trailers and were riding off
empty.

Mary Frances was bogged down with a faulty baling-twine
connection, which had fouled the works. She soon worked it out. Now
we were following her down the last windrow. As she was disgorging
bales, we were scooping them up and putting them on the trailer.
Finally the field was empty. There wasn’t one high-protein bale of
alfalfa and grass that had gotten even one drop of rain on it. Not
one single bale was baled with any excess moisture in it. The sun
was shining down upon us as six different vehicles aimed at the
gate that led to the trail back to the house and the barn. In a
flash, hay season was nearly over.

But three customers wanted even more hay. First one, then the
other, then the third slowly emptied the barn. By six we all stood
there. All of the equipment was in from the field. All but 70 bales
were gone from the barn. Most of the songs at the Folks Festival
were finished.

Suddenly, we found ourselves alone in our house. And quite
tired.

Arty Smith helps Mary Frances bring in hay and feed the troops
mostly in

July at Sunset Ridge Ranch near the town of Elbert.