Sunscreen, Humidity, and Hay.

I am at my parent's farm in Perth, Ontario. They have a hobby farm, technically, but it really is anything but since they have 30 cows (down from 60 last month).

My parents are at the age where I am beginning to worry about them. They are not in the best of health, but really they are far from what you would call "dependants". Still, I do wonder about them and I hope that they are alright in, I suppose, much the same way that a parent wonders about their 29 year old son. Are they happy? Are they safe? Is there anything that I can do to help?

So here I am helping them on the farm. They take hay off 137 acres, and the job depends upon nice weather. My arrival, of course, saw the first rain in weeks. So rather than getting into the fields to cut hay, I picked up the bales that had already been made. I emptied 6 fields and built two and a half stacks (6 bales x 12 rows). It is by no means a difficult job but it is tiring and my knee is a little sore from pumping the clutch all day.

There is one field on the ground (cut) and five fields still to cut. Early Sunday afternoon, I will rake the field on the ground (turning it over so the wet part on the ground is on the top and can dry), and then late Sunday afternoon I will bale it. Then on Monday morning, I will pick the bales up and stack them. Hopefully tomorrow will see the rest of the farm cut (or a few fields at least), but they are predicting a 40% chance of rain on Saturday and Sunday so that might not happen.

Hay is not a difficult job either, but it is time consuming. Everything depends on getting enough sunny days in a row with no rain so that everything can dry. If the hay is dried and gets rained on it is ruined and is of little nutritional value (that and the cows won't eat it because it tastes bad to their finely tuned tastebuds). Another big factor in getting this job done is avoiding breakdowns. When equipment breaks down, it is usually possible to fix, but that delays the whole process and since farm machinery is so poorly designed, it usually also means a lot of smashed hands, lost bolts, and cursing.

I am hoping that this job goes quickly. I have some ridiculous sunburn spots from missed application: the top of my left hand across my knuckles, an ovular spot below my left knee (on the side), and a band along my collarbone (this one also has clear finger marks too). I am covered in sunscreen all day, it is unbelievably hot and humid here (not to mention the added heat from the machinery), and I am covered in dirt and grease. I don't know if this is appealing, but this is about as macho as I get. It is actually kind of nice spending a week outside doing lots of physical labour. The sore muscles are a good thing, right?