Under these conditions, hay-making is one of the most perfect of all jobs. Or so I think, but Mr. Pick would not agree with me about this.
I love the clatter of the cutter, and the swish of the grass as it falls down across the knives. I love to see the sun beating down on the swathes of grass, and in spite of the blisters I enjoy turning the hay with a hand-rake.
Of course, conditions are not always so good by any means. But my first hay-time was perfect. We had days and days of hot sun and blue skies, and just enough breeze to help us dry the grass. It dries beautifully, and my face and arms turned an even more golden brown.
Very soon the hay was ready to be put into pikes, and I had to learn the art of building them so that the rain ran off and the wind did not blow them apart. A satisfying job. To see the field of hay gradually turn into a field of pikes, safe from all ordinary weather, gave the feeling of really having achieved something useful.
Finally there came the day when Mr. Pick pronounced the hay dry, and the weather right for leading. We yoked up the horses, and off we went to the field.
I found that building a cart-load of this fresh, loose hay was more difficult than building one of the square, even blocks of hay which Mr. Pick cut from last year's stack up the field. Once again I was up on the cart, and my foothold grew more and more precarious as the load grew. I wished heartily for something to hold on to every time we jogged further up the field. For the first half-hour it took all my powers of balance to prevent myself falling backward when we set off, and forward when we stopped again. But by the end of the morning I felt I had been doing the job all my life.
Finally Mr. Pick harnessed Prince into the horse-rake, and raked the field, gathering up all the stray bits and pieces.
And perhaps the best part of all was the ride home in the dusk on top of the last load, across the now empty field, and down the track to the stackyard, where the almost completed stack was silhouetted against the evening sky.
The knowledge of a long day's work, well finished, a crop safely harvested, and the certainty of a good meal awaiting us gave a contentment which easily outweighed aching arms and blistered hands.
Yes, haytime came up to all my expectations. There were times in other years when the hay lay on the ground getting wetter and wetter until it was held to the ground by the shoots of grass growing through it, and looked past all hope. Yet, somehow, it was always harvested in the end. And in spite of times like this, haytime for me is still synonymous with sunshine.
When the fields were cleared, Mr. Pick took the cutter out to the road-sides, and we harvested the hay from there.
A lovely time of the year was this. The early mornings and the evenings were perfect, and our day usually ended with a meal that included as many home-grown strawberries (and fresh cream) as we could eat!