Haymaking is a battle, a war with time and nature, a struggle whose sole aim is to make “all flesh grass”. We no longer live a village life, an Amish life or a life with any real community where work is shared. Our farm workers now are the accumulated stores of long dead plant life burned as fossil fuels that power the equipment.

One man, with practice, can manually cut an acre of hay per day, rake an acre of hay per day, rick an acre of hay per day. That is steady physical labor, all day, for days on end, for the simple goal of having enough forage to feed his animals during the winter months. Fortunately or unfortunately I do not have that type of stamina or time to devote to the cutting of hay. Instead we have a 45 horsepower Kubota tractor with all of the necessary implements.

45 horsepower: think about that for a minute, the power of 45 horses harnessed by one man for any number of tasks. Remarkable! We all use machines of such incredible power but so seldom reflect on what the power represents if absent from our lives. Absent and the center cannot hold, as Mr. Yeats wrote. Absent and we do not want to imagine the changes in store, cannot imagine.

My 2012 haymaking was fairly uneventful. On a fair Wednesday evening I hooked up the ancient disc mower to the aforementioned Kubota and began cutting hay. A soothing, methodical process of moving up and down the field cutting the fescue and clover at ground level, mowing is a great time to think. Six acres cut in three hours.

The following evening I tedded the field. Ted is an old English word meaning to spread hay out to dry. In the 19th century a machine was designed to spread hay out and was called a tedder. The tedder I use is my four wheel hay rake. An ingenious piece of equipment, ground driven (as opposed to machine) I ted by changing the directions of the wheels. Instead of all four wheels pulling hay to a single windrow they work against each other and toss the hay around on the ground. This action speeds up the drying time. Time spent tedding six acres was two hours. Done by hand? Six days.

Friday afternoon I took off from work and raked the fields. Using the wheel rake it took two hours to rake six acres into windrows. It was easy work, with a real sense of accomplishment when completed.

Saturday: I woke early to find the sky heavy with clouds. The forecast had moved the incoming rain from late Saturday night to early afternoon. #%$&! A mad scramble to get the baler hooked up, tires inflated, chains greased, new twine installed and threaded through the machine. A quick trip to the co-op for some of that precious fossil fuel and I was ready to begin baling at 10. The first three hours were very slow. The dew still lay heavy on the dry hay causing the hay to jam the baling tines.

The round baler has revolving tines that pick up the hay and feed it into a chamber. Inside that chamber the hay begins to turn. As it turns it creates a round bale that measures four by four feet and weighs several hundred pounds. When the baler reaches capacity an alarm is triggered. I pull a rope that engages the twine which wraps around the bale securing the hay, a pretty nifty and simple action. A lever activated by hydraulic power raises the back of the baler depositing the bale on the ground. It looks like a large metal bird laying an egg.

Sometime between 12:30 and 1 the dew dried and the baler began cranking through the windrows. Loud, dirty and jarring, riding for hours on the tractor while baling the hay is not pleasant. Finally at 4 in the afternoon, the rain still holding off, the baler squeezed out the last bale and I turned to home. Six acres of hay baled in six hours.

Four inches of rain fell on the farm the next 24 hours.

A lot of work to get the forage we need to feed the cattle this winter. But, it could be worse without fuel…indeed, much, much worse.

1. Fence pliers: Here is true multi-purpose tool. The tool clips barbed wire. The “beak” is used to dig out fence staples. It has a hammer on one side to pound in fence staples to secure the fencing. And the plier action can be used for any number of actions. (Seen on the right with the orange handles.)
2. Garden mattock: This is one of my favorite weeding tools. The handle is 16 inches long which gives the user significant swing with one arm. When you have pigweed threatening to overtake the watermelons a swift chop with this beauty sends the thorny weed into the afterlife. A mattock anvil on one end and a fork on the other both useful for grubbing out or chopping off. I bought it at a hardware store on their clearance table for $1.99. (Second from the right)
3. Japanese digging knife: A six inch shovel blade with a serrated edge on one side this knife is designed to dig in soil. We use it to transplant, weed or cut roots. We routinely have fights over who gets to use it. A carbon steel blade it holds a terrific edge but needs oiling after each use to prevent rusting. (third from the right)
4. Grafting knife: A German Solingen knife that I carry everywhere but on planes. If I could buy a dozen to hoard I would. There is simply no better all-around knife in the world. And it has a beautiful dolphin shape to the design. This knife is beveled on one side of the blade and easy to sharpen. The blade is curved like most grafting knives. It is used for any farm activity that requires a knife. I’ve cut hay bales, harvested asparagus, gutted rabbits and whittled a fork. I love my Solingen! (base of the Japanese digging knife)
5. A magnet on a handle: We are constantly dropping nails, fence clips, bits of wire in the grass while working on projects. Just yesterday I stuck a rusty fence staple in my shirt pocket. After mowing I pulled my shirt off while walking back up the drive and heard the staple hit the drive. Unable to spot it I retrieved our handy magnet. Shaped like a golf club with a magnetic disc on the end it is indispensable in preventing punctured tires and feet. A few swings back and forth and I heard a “click” as the staple hit the magnet. Problem solved.

A classic spring day is in the making on the farm this Sunday afternoon. The clouds are running fast from the southeast, a direction only seen in spring and usually signifying fierce weather. The sun is making appearances in hurried fast moving bursts of light illuminating an acre patch of pasture at a time before cresting a hill and vanishing.

The past few hours were spent walking the fence line on the back pasture repairing breaks in the barbed wire. Tip, Becky and Robby accompanied me as I made slow progress along the fence, deep in the woods on the west slope of the field. They remind me of childhood, no real obligations, curiosity and amazing bursts of energy, as they dash away to examine a box turtle and back again to rest underfoot while I work.

Methodically I remove limbs that have blown across wire. Using fence clips I raise the wire back to its proper height then reattach. To relieve the sagging of wire due to either age or deer pushing between the strands, a pair of fence pliers is used to crimp and tighten each stand. Working in the woods with only the dogs as company gives me great contentment. It allows me to slow down, distractions restricted by a wooded worldview. Sounds limited to excited barks and the creak of a dead pine leaning against a tulip poplar, waiting for the push of the wind before breaking the embrace and falling to the woodland floor.

Wild violets are spread across the ground, usually clumped around the base of a tree. Oyster mushrooms grow in shelves on a stump where I harvested a pound or more during a false spring in January. I’ll harvest them later this evening, dry them and use them with our pork roasts.

The dogs and I move out of the woods and follow the northern and eastern fence line, then back down the southern edge onto a fire lane and then to the lower fields and back to the house, pausing occasionally for an extra little crimp to the wire. Out in the field proper the fence stays in better shape and requires less maintenance.

With the field now certified for occupancy, the cattle will be moved in the next few days off their winter pastures.

As I neared the barn I saw the steers lined up by the pig paddock. The edge of a hill dropped off behind them creating an illusion that the world ended at their feet. They were bellowing into the fog in the predawn. Answered by the cattle at Mr. Kyle’s and echoed by another herd down near Johnson Valley.

I counted head and all were home. Continuing on my rounds I checked their hay, well stocked. Still they hollered, twisting and looking in all directions waiting on wolves that didn’t exist, I imagined. The echoes of the other bovines bounced around my ears as I finished the feeding.

I came back inside. But twice over the next two hours I went back outside to recount. I was sure I was missing something or some steer. Each time they were all on our property.

The sun rose over our hill at 8:45. The fog began to thin and was gone by 11:00. The sounds of the cattle in the valley gradually faded with the mists.

Why bees swarm is still more guesswork than science. But the principle reason seems to be based on a need to preserve hive health and to federate the colony. Swarms typically occur in the spring and happen suddenly, as we now know. The bees that leave the colony take off with the old queen. In the remaining hive a new queen cell is being produced. The bees, when they realize they are overcrowded begin to slow down brood production and begin to pack-up to leave by eating surplus honey.

Scout bees begin to fan out in the neighborhood looking for an acceptable site. When all the environmental factors are ripe the signal is sent and they all take off; leaving half the hive behind, the new pioneers settle on a branch or on a building. This is where we found them last week, in a pear tree.

Once they are out of the hive and bunched the scouts come back to the swarm and try and convince the others that their location is best. Bees fly off and visit the prospective homes. Basically the home that attracts the most visitors wins in a sort of bee democracy. At that point the rest of the swarm moves to the new home.

That decision could take hours or as much as a week. Our swarm was still in the pear tree on Sunday evening and unlikely to move during the chill of the night. Monday morning, while still dark, we suited up in our bee suits. Using flashlights and a tree saw we made preparations to capture the swarm. Cindy held the branch from just above and below the swarm while I sawed.

Once the branch was cut Cindy handed the swarm to me. We had a hive body (bee box) positioned on the ground with a piece of plywood underneath and a window screen to cover. Holding the branch I gave it a firm shake and promptly 90% of the bees fell into the box. After a moment we put the screen on top with a bottle of sugar water for food and then we both left for work.

We were still short a number of items that would allow us to set up a new hive: namely new frames to hold the hive. Cindy stopped after work at the farmer’s co-op for the supplies needed. We spent a couple of hours assembling the frames. Once they were complete back on went the bee suits and out we went. I picked up the box of bees and moved it to the new location. Using the smoker to quiet them I then took off the screen. Cindy began to move the frames into place.

Imagine a box that seems to be 50% full of bees. Now imagine squeezing ten frames in that box so that they sit side by side into that swarming mass. Can’t be done, right? Actually it went smoothly. As Cindy eased the frames into place the bees either moved out of the way or got to work building a new home on each frame. By the time the tenth frame was slid in the box the bees were home. A number of bees were still outside the new hive and were bunched up against the wall. They gradually began entering through the front door.

One day after the swarm we now had a third hive with free bees. We plan on keeping a spare hive body and frames for future swarms.

Eleven baby chicks are already hatched and under the brooder. One moves with more energy and peeps with enthusiasm. Waking from a brief sleep, I come downstairs to find it stretched out oddly, unmoving, beneath the heat lamp—the measure between life and death recorded in a 30-minute Sunday afternoon nap.

The eye still swivels as the chick peeps loudly from its confines, answered by four others in shells slightly cracked. Eleven empty shells in pieces mock their pipping sounds and efforts. Experience has given us knowledge that a chick aided in shedding its shell almost always dies. Nature provides this last hurdle to birth: Batter your way out of your fragile shell and you get a chance at life. Fail and the sounds fade away, and die out.

Forty-eight hours of fighting the confining shell, the peeping is still strong but growing less frequent.

Monday morning, six o’clock, I grab a plastic Kroger bag. Removing the cover to the incubator, I place the cracked eggs inside. Some emit peeps at the change. Swiftly I walk through the morning dew to the pond. How do you kill baby chicks that have not hatched, and won’t?
Not dwelling on the task, I reach in and toss them one at a time into the pond. They bob, fill with water and sink beneath the surface.

Later that day, the peeping of baby starlings breaks my focus at work. Later that night, a bird’s chirping turns out to be a bathroom fan in need of oil. I recite under my breath, “I admit the deed, tear up the planks. Here is the beating of that hideous heart.”

Rounding the corner of one of our fields I came upon a member of our foraging party standing under a large oak looking for all like the proverbial drowned rat. We had been hunting mushrooms in the forest for an hour and half in the pouring rain and no let-up was in sight. I told her to head to the house. She trooped of with half a dozen other soaked to the skin foragers. A few of us soldiered on for another hour before returning to the farmhouse.

Cindy meanwhile had many of the returnees clothed in various combinations of our work clothes, hair dryers were going, clothes spinning in the dryer, hot tea in each hand and a bottle of stouter stuff passed among the group. Lunch was laid out on the table and everyone dug in while we identified our meager finds:

One mushroom we found throughout the woods with the somewhat gelatinous shaft and the round cap was probably one of the Calostoma members. My reference “A Field Guide to Southern Mushrooms” indicates it is “of no interest as an edible”. The other common mushroom we found: salmon colored cap, white gills meeting the stalk meets most of the criteria of the Hygrophorus family. Many of these are edible. But none of my sources raved about their culinary properties.

We also found a lot of turkey tails which one of our foragers had experience with their use. Apparently this genus is prized in Asian markets as a medicinal herb used to reduce inflammation and tumors. That was kind of cool.

Anyway, our wet and bedraggled crew dried out and all claimed they had a terrific time. This claim includes the woman who jabbed a paring knife to the hilt in her upper thigh. As everyone drove off the skies had cleared to a brilliant blue spring day.

I’d head off as a kid to the Barbe Property, a wild wood and swamp at the end of Holly Hill Rd., with my machete, and hack my way through the undergrowth. Since my machete was a wooden stick I really just sort of mashed my way through the undergrowth. Only to emerge out on the bayou staring at petrochemical plants across the ship channel. But, as a kid, I was never disappointed. There was mystery here, layers of history and days to explore.

Those woods were rich with romance and history. Contraband Bayou, where Jean Lafitte roamed and reportedly buried his treasure, served as a border to the east and north. One summer we discovered a rotting hulk of a shrimp boat and whiled away a week or two navigating it over the Spanish Main in pursuit of loot and captives.

The ability to create play and not have it manufactured and its loss must have an impact on our culture. Perhaps it is to the good, shove a game-boy in their hands, teach them to find entertainment only in what you provide and you produce a new generation of compliant consumer citizens. But, I digress.

Mr. Kyle and I stood in the remains of an old canebrake off of Johnson Valley (around the corner from Possum Trot). It measured thirty yards across wedged up against a creek. As we cut beanpoles for our gardens a history of sorts was in the air. Here, my English friend Phil and his wife, Malley had helped me cut beanpoles three years ago during their visit. Cindy and I had joined Mr. Kyle six years ago cutting poles in this stand that continually replenished itself. Mr. Kyle had cut beanpoles here for 60 plus years and residents of the valley had been cutting from this patch for the past two hundred years.

We had driven down Johnson Valley and turned into a drive. Asking the permission of the owner before driving down an access lane along the creek bottom. Mr. Kyle had lived in the house on the property with his family from 1941-47. He named off the dozen or so families that had owned that small farm over the years as we bumped along the lane.
We cut down our poles tied them together, left my images of pioneers and pirates there among the cane, and headed back to the farm.

Today the Barbe Property has been cleared and turned into a super Wal-Mart or a Target, a housing development, and a casino. And, I have to wonder, do kid’s still see Lafitte’s lanterns swing in the fog as his treasure is buried? I hope so.

As the winter continues its unusually warm path I keep finding myself in the garden looking at the spaces and beginning to layout, in my mind, the coming year’s garden. Books get pulled down, stacks of which topple every evening onto the floor next to our bed. Wisdom of the ages is to be found if you know where to look.

My favorite find: Sir Thomas Elyot, in his popular book on health and life, had this warning about turnips in 1539: “it augmenteth the seed of man and provoketh carnal lust”.

This is a warning? Where did I put that pound of turnip seed?