Yesterday Hay

Hay is now officially baled on all our farms: Polecat Creek, Smith Farm, the Brown Place. The weather was perfect for haying—hot and dry and sunny.

Her are some pictures I took yesterday of the bales in the front field of Smith Farm, my grandparents' place. Because the ground was so dry—no dew!—John started raking before nine yesterday morning. When I took the first two pictures below, he had only raked a row or two. The hay in the foreground is unraked:

He used his diesel tractor. Its covering provided him a bit of shade.

By late afternoon, the hay was baled.

 Notice the grassy spot to the left of the middle of the field. You can just barely see it. Looks like either a flattened bale or a place he missed, doesn't it?

Let's take a closer look. Sometimes things are not what they seem. Here's the spot—several quartz rocks go deep into the field. They're too big to dig up.  

My grandfather, I've heard tell, once tried to dynamite them. He must have gotten tired of plowing around them. Years ago, John chipped away with a sledgehammer in hopes he could flatten them enough to drive over them with the tractor. 

But the rocks won. That's why you'll always see this grassy place if you look at our field from the road.

Some things endure.

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