Dear Folks, The hay’s in the barn, all’s right with the world!

Sometimes I think I make the hay a drama every year, by worrying about it too much.  Sometimes I think it actually is a drama.  I can’t remember putting up hay when it wasn’t darkening in the west, with a few preliminary raindrops falling — just enough to get the adrenalin flowing.  It happened this year too.  Those few drops scared us into throwing the bales around so fast we had the job done in no time — and the storm never came.

Sylvia and I were sorting out the dry bales for storage from the damp bales for immediate feeding to the horses when Dave said, “Gee, I thought hay was hay — I didn’t know there were so many kinds of it!”

I’d better back up, and explain who Dave is.

Dave Preston lives at Foundation Farm now, replacing Aimee, who went off to the Philippines to plant trees (thanks to the help of my friend Elsa Escano from Manila).  She’ll go from there back to Mt. Holyoke for her senior year of college.

Dave is a painter, like Don — it was Don who talked him into coming here to live and talked us into having him come.  Dave’s a New Hampshire native; his father owns a painting business in Franklin, NH.  Apparently Dave had a stormy growing-up.  His father told him he had to go out and earn his living as a hired painter for two years before he could come back and help run the business.  So Dave joined the firm where Don works, and came here to live.  Since then the two of them have joined forces, left the company, and are doing painting jobs on their own, for much more money, on a schedule they choose.  They’re hard workers and experienced painters (Dave literally grew up with a brush in his hand), and so far they have more jobs to do than they have time to do them — especially in this rainy summer, which is not good for either painters or haymakers.

Dave moved in, fortuitously, the weekend the hay was cut.  I had been waiting for the McNamaras to come do the cutting all week, mad every day that they hadn’t shown up, then grateful every night, when it rained again, that they hadn’t.  A lot of hay got spoiled by rain that week.

(Technical note: If it rains on hay right after it’s cut, that will delay the drying.  The hay might still be all right, but unless it’s turned an extra time or two, it might mold, either on the field, or worse, in the barn.  At best, moldy hay in the barn turns inedible.  At worst, it heats up, smolders, and sets your barn on fire.  If the hay gets rained a day later, after it’s begun to dry, most of its nutrients will wash out and the hay will be worthless except for garden mulch.)

The McNamaras doggedly cut hay all week, dodging rainstorms, baling up whatever they could.  “Will that hay really be worth feeding?” I asked as they took the once-soaked but finally dried cutting from Ruth Whybrow’s field.  They gave me the standard New England answer, “It’ll be better’n snowballs!”

We really lucked out.  McNamaras got to our field Sunday morning and that Sunday and Monday were the only two consecutive dry days all week.  Monday evening they looked at the darkening sky, declared the hay dry enough, and started baling.  We drove the truck along behind them, loading bales and carrying them to the barn.  With both Don and Dave, two strong guys who think it’s fun to throw 40-lb bales up into the barn loft, things went fast.  They did the throwing; up in the loft Sylvia and I stacked.  Anna played a crucial role by keeping Heather out of the way.  It was a perfect team, but the black clouds were rolling in.  The McNamaras took pity on us and started blowing the bales up onto their great haycarts, so we could throw a tarp over them if a real rain started up.

But it didn’t rain, not until the next day.  So we stashed 250 bales in the barn, all we need for the sheep, and had over 100 bales to put into Ruth’s barn for the horses — the biggest cut we’ve ever gotten from that field.

(Technical note: That’s because it was cut so late and because of all the rain.   Wet years are bad for drying hay, but great for growing it.  As the grass grows, it adds bulk and builds up protein content, until its seedstalks begin to form, about the middle of June.  That’s the perfect time to cut; high biomass and high nutrition.  If you do it sooner, you get less hay.  If you do it later, you get more mass, but the seeds form and shatter out, and the nutrient content plunges.  The rain this year prevented cutting for three whole weeks, but the cool temperature kept the grass growing and delayed its seeding.  We will probably never again have such a big cut with such high nutrition.)

On the west side of the field, as often happens, the afternoon shadows of the hedgerow trees had kept the hay from drying fully. That’s where Sylvia and I were sorting out the damp bales, when Dave made his comment about so many kinds of hay.

(Technical note: little did he know!  There’s clover hay, alfalfa hay, timothy hay, bromegrass hay, first cut hay, second cut hay, haylage — around here we know hay the way Eskimos know snow.  Timothy is the favorite grass for hay, because it does well in summer heat and makes a second cut.  But it’s bad for sheep, because its foxtail seedheads get badly embedded in their wool.  So when I replanted the hayfield, I planted bromegrass and orchard grass.  One also wants a legume — clover or alfalfa — to add protein to the hay content and nitrogen to the soil.  I planted red clover, but it has winter-killed.  I notice a few old alfalfa plants are still alive in the field, however, so I’ll try to overseed alfalfa next year.)

So that job is done, a big one.  Don’s been using Ruth’s manure spreader to cover the hayfield with a mixture of horse manure and wood ashes (accumulated from our woodstoves), which the rains are washing in.  The grass is coming back up so fast we may actually get a second cut, even though the first one was late.  If we do, it’ll go to Don and Sylvia’s horses.

This week, finally, it has turned summer-hot and summer-dry around here.  What a difference from last year!  Last summer this part of the world was a desert; this summer it’s a tropical rainforest.  (Anna says that’s what she likes about New England, she doesn’t have to go anywhere to see the world.)  The vegetables and flowers are thriving.  So are the weeds and bugs.  I kind of forgot about the raspberry patch for a few weeks and had to spend two weekends pulling out weeds as high as my waist, battling hordes of mosquitoes the while.  I guess our record mosquito population has made the national news — in all my years here, I’ve never seen them so bad.

We’re at the end of pea season, in the middle of snowpeas, beets, kohlrabi, and turnips, with zucchini, beans, broccoli, and cucumbers coming any minute.  Anna is out there cheering on her well-organized, staked, and pruned tomato patch every day.  Daylilies are in bloom everywhere, and bachelor’s buttons, stock, calendula, nicotiniana, marigolds, beebalm.  There are nine beautiful and varied bouquets scattered around the house just at the moment.  The household is doing a good job of keeping the lawns mowed and the weeds down — the place looks great.  In spite of bugs, weeds and rain, I can’t remember a more beautiful summer, or one I’ve enjoyed so much.  At this time of year, there’s no place on earth I’d rather be than right here, eating freshly picked salads flavored with mint, arugula, fennel, and dill.

Speaking of eating, my Overeaters Anonymous program has gone into an interesting, and to me revealing, new phase.  OA is nondoctrinaire about actual diets and programs of healing; my compatriots follow all sorts of food plans and spiritual practices.  No one tells you what to do.  You get to choose, and the main way you do that is by choosing a sponsor.  Your sponsor oversees your recovery.  A strict one will put you on a rigorous program, a relaxed one will let you experiment with any program you’d like to try.

I didn’t understand that when I entered OA a year ago.  I picked as my sponsor a woman I simply liked and wanted to become friends with (which is what happened).  It turned out she was the relaxed type.  Kind of blindly I worked out a program for myself, which became stricter over time.  First I gave up sugar absolutely (it’s poison for me).  Then I began to cut back on food portions, finally I decided (with only partial success) to give up bread and pasta, which tend to be binge foods for me.  Gradually I went to more meetings (4-5 a week) and made 2-3 daily phone calls to other OA members.  I pretty much ignored the spiritual part of the program, which I thought was sappy, though anyone who has been reading these newsletters for awhile can clearly see it working on me.

That all worked fine.  I lost 35 pounds and kept it off.  Physically I felt better and better.  As I came to know the people in OA, I felt emotionally supported by a strong community of caring and wise human beings.  And finally I wanted more.  I was still about 15 pounds overweight, still losing my grip on the food from time to time, still compulsive about other things, especially work, still not as Wise and Good as I want to be (will I ever be? is anyone?).  So I took the plunge.  Knowingly and willingly (I still can’t believe I did this) I took for a sponsor a practitioner of what the looser members of OA call the “Nazi graysheet.”

The graysheet is a rigid, no bending, no snacking, no cheating food plan (printed originally on a gray sheet, I suppose — now it’s xeroxed many times over onto white ones).  Every bite that enters your mouth is weighed or measured to be sure that not one compulsive ounce sneaks in there.  It goes, basically, like this:

breakfast:

1 protein (2 eggs or 1 cup milk or 2 oz. cheese or 1 cup yogurt or 4 oz. meat or 4 oz. tofu, etc.)

1 grain (2/3 cup cereal or 1 cup cooked oatmeal or 1 cup rice, or ….. no bread, no pasta)

1 fruit (1 apple, banana or pear, or 3 plums, or 1/2 cantaloupe, …)

lunch:

1 protein

2 cups salad or cooked vegetable with 2 tablespoons dressing

dinner:

1 protein

1 cup vegetable or grain

2 cups salad with 2 tablespoons dressing

Not one bite more, not one bite between meals (not even to taste as you cook), no caffeine, no alcohol, nothing that isn’t on the list.  You must eat all three meals.

That’s not all.  There’s also a spiritual program, certain readings, certain prayers, a certain number of phone calls every day and meetings every week.  You have to make a gratitude list every night (I like that).  You have to report to your sponsor every day.  Etc. Etc.

Believe me, there is nothing more alien to my character than to submit to that kind of control from any human being or institution.  I suppose that’s why I did it; not because of any deep belief in that particular program, but just to practice the submission of my will, and to give the spiritual side of the program a fair chance.  I did choose to get myself into this (I have to keep reminding myself).  My own will is not trustworthy when it comes to food (the brilliance of my rationalizations for pigging out is truly appalling).  I don’t have to do it for the rest of my life (though I did commit to doing it for 90 days.)  Interesting experiment, I thought.  Let’s see what happens.

Well, typical of me, I did great for about 5 weeks.  Sailed through, punctiliously.  Best little graysheeter OA had ever seen.  Lost 7 more pounds — I’m now within TWO POUNDS of what my driver’s license says I weigh, for the first time in living memory!  Fit back into clothes I haven’t worn for 10 years.  (How can it be that I still have them?  Hope springs eternal!)  I was finally eating exactly the way I have always known I should eat — though knowing it never let me come anywhere near close to doing it.  I was so proud of myself.

Then I had a fit of rebellion and blew my abstinence and had to start the 90 days all over again.  Been blowing it about once a week ever since (it doesn’t take much to blow it — snacking on raspberries while weeding the patch will do it).  My sponsor, a much more submissive type than me, is horrified with me.  She can’t understand these bouts of rebellion.  She says one more slip and she’s not my sponsor any more.

Well, as of this moment, that’s where I am, abstinent for today (not yesterday), hanging on the brink of graysheet acceptability, marveling at my creative and destructive willfulness, wondering if I can ever follow a really precise discipline for any length of time.  It’s not a big deal — I can go back to a less rigid OA program any time.  But it’s a fascinating exercise, one more way to learn things about myself, not all of which I want to see.  My willfulness, my tendency toward procrastination, my penchant for instant gratification, my need to control, are not only problems when it comes to food.  They have to do with my working patterns, all my living patterns really.  They have to do with growing up and leading an unsloppy life — producing, with grace and acceptance,  a column every week, a newsletter every month, a book on time, and a farm that works.  Whew!  What a challenge!

Sylvia and Don just led their beautiful horses down from the barn to take off for a ride over the countryside.  Sylvia’s mother is here for the weekend, happy to watch Heather, which gives Sylvia some much-needed time off.  Heather, nearly two now, is blossoming into a very verbal child; what fun to get a better idea of what’s going on in her mind!  She insisted the other day that she saw Simon (the cat) flying like a butterfly.  She calls a fork a “Mommy spoon”.  She can carry a tune now and knows most of the words, most of the time, to baa, baa black sheep and ring around the rosy and other great musical works, which she never tires of.  Last week was Sylvia’s birthday, with balloons and candles and all, and Heather has been wondering why it isn’t a birthday every day (the next one is hers).

What a pleasure, a small child!  What a pleasure, a farm!  And a hard job of writing to do.  And a program of discipline and growth to test yourself on.  My life is full of pleasures, though I don’t always see it that way.

Well, this was a real ramble here; I’d better quit.  My apologies to those of you who really didn’t need to know so much about hay or gardens or OA.  That’s what my life has largely consisted of this month, that and writing, about which much more next time.

Love, Dana