Last week, the weatherman kept on saying 20 to 30 percent chances of rain all week. Because of this, the Man of the House put off cutting our hay. You see, to have the best quality hay, it must be completely dry, so you need about three days of dry warm weather to cure it.
However, despite the weatherman’s predictions, there wasn’t a drop at our house. The weekend came up, and the rain predictions were much the same. The Man decided that he’d waited long enough. He just had to get some hay cut. He and his farm friends cut 75 acres of hay every year, and it was past time to get started.
Of course, Saturday, three or four hours after they got started, we finally got a quick little rain shower. The Man says that if our area needs rain and it’s been dry for weeks, all he has to do is start cutting hay. Then we will get buckets of rain.
Anyway, the rain didn’t last long on Saturday, and if freshly cut hay gets a little rain it’s not that big of a deal. After the shower passed by, the team got back to work and cut the remaining hay. A total of about 30 acres of hay was cut on Saturday and we hoped that it would stay dry so it could be rolled on Monday.
Sunday morning, our family went to church. The Man had to smile a bit when a church member put in a request with the Lord for some rain. It has been a dry spring. The Man would love to have some rain too, he just hoped that it would hold off until the hay was rolled up. It’s kind of funny to have people praying for rain and praying for dry weather all in the same church building.
Apparently, the fellow who prayed for rain got his request. On the way home from church, ominous, dark clouds began piling up in the sky. Before we made it home, rain was pouring down. By the end of the day, our hay had been rained on three separate times.
Rats.
Each time hay gets rained on, it reduces the quality of the hay.
Monday night, my husband will tedder the hay, flipping it around so that it can dry out. It won’t be very good. However, we do have quite a bit of alfalfa in the barn and several other fields still to cut hopefully, we’ll have dry weather for that cutting.
That’s the way it goes sometimes.
At least my garden got a good drink of water. There’s no great loss without some small gain.
I read a great quote the other day that seems quite appropriate to the situation. Patrick Young said, “The trouble with weather forecasting is that it’s right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it.”
So, so true!
