The view from here this morning, is a field full of freshly baled hay. That is the scene in many fields as you drive around the area.
Our towns are so bucolic, with fields of hay, corn, sheep, and cattle. This time of year might be my favorite, allergies aside, when the wildflowers bloom on the roadsides, and the tractors can be seen in the fields mowing the tall grasses that will feed their livestock over the winter.
The occasional traffic jam up ahead on a back road might be a tractor rolling at its top speed, moving from one freshly mown field to the next one to be mowed.
Make hay while the sun shines, an old adage, seems to have originated in the mid 1500s Tudor England, with slightly different wording. Farmers back then did not have modern technology to predict the weather, so cutting the hay while the sun shone made sense. The phrase carries through to today.
With some of the torrential rains we had last month, there was a delay in cutting, waiting till everything dried out, then getting busy while the sun WAS shining! The grasses get cut one day, the tedder comes out the next day to flip the cut and help it dry, and weather permitting, it all gets baled the following day. In our case, an unexpected short evening downpour had me worried, but the next day’s sun dried everything out. We are thankful for the farmers that do such a good job on the fields.
Before moving here, I really had no idea of the process, but look forward to seeing those beautiful round bales in fields everywhere.
Better late than never, I finally got several days of some early morning time in my garden, planting herbs and a few veggies. New this year is a small patch of perennial flowers, and a mint garden around my tiny house. Four or five types of mint, plus a curry plant and some Sweet Annie thrown in, should make the little garden smell lovely. My “teeny house” is called she shed by some; I hate that term! It is a shed, special ordered from Greg Turner’s Broadway sales lot several years ago and sits overlooking the pond. A very peaceful location, and it’s still a work in progress. The interior is almost done, and sitting on the porch is something I need to do more often! Surrounded by elderberry, peonies, flowering quince, mint, roses, and next year lily of the valley, the teeny house sits on the spot where the property’s original farmhouse was. Behind it is the original vegetable garden plot, enclosed on 3 ½ sides by a windbreak of trees. I am in no way the gardener that most people are, but I have fun trying! My dream is a cottage garden, but it’s gonna take a while!
As I write this, the sun is just coming up, and I need to get outside and work in the garden and weed. Yes, even though Mr. Green Jeans says I never weed, this year I am really trying to keep up with that! I am no Master Gardener but have fun playing in the dirt!
Now that the heat of summer is upon us, and school is out, I hope you all have fun, get out in the sun, tend your gardens, and reap the rewards Nature offers us.
All is well at Mountain Meadows this fine sunny morning.
