Letter to my children: Making Hay While the Sun Shines

We pulled into the road. Three large metal contraptions faced us. Equipment I would have not been able to identify 10 years ago. Next to the tractor with the forklift front was a round baler and a rake.

The field was marked with the pattern from a mower. Thick threads of dark green wove between the stubbed brown of shorn stalks.

And rain fell onto the windshield.

Last year we spent an afternoon watching the tractor drive the baler machine over the threads of dried grass, gobbling it up until the machine was stuffed. We watched, fascinated, as the tractor stopped, the baler clacking and turning, stuttering to itself.

“When is it going to pop out?”

“I don’t know, keep watching!”

“Momma, how about now?”

“Almost!”

“Momma! Look!!”

Riveted, we watched the back metal door lift up disgorging the rotund heavy bale onto the grass, bouncing until it found its place.

“Can we watch another one?”

“Of course.”

The warm summer evening sun, the smell of the freshly mown field, the machine clacking along in regular plodding certainty to its next pause and regurgitation of hay. One day indelibly affixed to our summer memories.

As such, it was nice to see the machines on our road heralding another haying day. The long grass was cut. And then it rained.

Storing wet hay can breed mold, bacteria, and can even start barn fires.

So we waited with the machines for the hay to dry.

and we waited.

Finally the rain stayed away long enough for the machines to jump into action. Once again, plodding across fields to store summer bounty for hungry winter bellies.

The disgorging was as fun to watch this year as last year.

Children, it might feel like a stretch to make haying into a metaphor for life - but it really works.

Make hay while the sun shines.

Don’t delay.

Now is the time and the time is now.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

All of these ‘trite’ statements point to the same sense of urgency for our time on this planet as you.

The sun is shining now onto your idea, your excitement, your desire, your want. Grab that idea, that fire, that nudge and run with it - you never know what life will send you.

Jump into your passion now.