The Last Cutting of Hay

by Donna Poole

Summer doesn’t stomp off in a fury announcing her departure like some drama queen leaving a party, high heels clicking on a hardwood floor.  Summer is a lady. In her whisper-soft ballet shoes, she glides off when no one is looking.

“Where’s Summer?” someone asks.

“I don’t know. She was here just a minute ago. Did anyone see her leave?”

“I wish I’d paid more attention to her. She was a delightful addition to the party, wasn’t she? Will someone close that window? It’s getting cold in here!”

The calendar and Kimmee, our daughter, tell us it’s the last day of summer.

We occasionally spot a rare butterfly or a hummingbird reluctant to fly south, but these sightings happen infrequently now.  No joyous bird songs greet us when we step outside. It’s so quiet I can hear the dry leaves falling from the leaves and hitting the grass. The slant of the sun is different inside the house now too. I like that; it’s lighter inside than it was.

On one of our backroad ramblings the other day we passed a field and saw the last cutting of hay. Nothing says the end of summer more clearly than that. And nothing makes me feel more nostalgic, except, perhaps, the geese practicing for their flight south, getting the V formation right, but flying in the wrong direction. When it’s time to go, they’ll know when and where. God will tell them, and they will listen.

Before they were old enough to have “real” jobs, our boys, Johnnie and Danny, hired out to farmers who needed help baling hay. They were hard workers, so they never had trouble getting jobs. When they were very young, they’d stand on the moving tractor, pull bales and stack them, or load them onto the elevator, or stand in the barn stacking the hay as it came tumbling off the elevator. When they got a little older, they learned to drive tractor and rake the hay. Haying was hot, hard, exhausting work. The boys came home covered with sweat and hay and with funny stories of equipment cobbled together that a farmer somehow stubbornly kept running, of how they had almost fallen off a wagon when a tractor had jerked, or of the amazing food they had eaten.

“Mom, we’d work for Reeds for free just to eat Mrs. Reed’s food!”

While some of their friends loved lazy, hazy summer days with nothing to do, our boys enjoyed, to quote one of their favorite radio programs, “the satisfaction of a job well done.”

The boys were about twelve when they started hiring out to hay. They were skinny kids, all legs brown and sunburned, and I desperately loved them and their determination to work like men. That’s what their dad and I heard most about them, “Your boys work like men.”

What do they think of those haying days now? Do they regret the loss of summer freedom? John Jr. says, “That tough work made me the kind of man I am today. After baling, most the jobs I’ve had felt easy.”

Danny says, “I baled hay because I love the hard work. You instilled a good work ethic in all of us kids. All these years later I still bale hay and love it (although most of the time it’s round bales). If you work hard you have a better appreciation for what you earned.”

And now when I see the last cutting of hay, I think of how fast all those growing-up summers passed by for our boys and our girls and now are for our grandchildren. Just like summer leaves us quietly, so does childhood.

Soon the “Bye Dad! Bye Mom!” isn’t because the kids are going off to hay on a hot, summer afternoon. It’s because they’ve come for an hour, or an evening, and it’s time for them to go home with their own families, with their own children whose summer of childhood will soon be gone.

It’s so quiet then we hear the dry leaves falling from trees and whispering across grass. We notice that the slant of the sunlight is different for us now than when we were younger. We hear the lonesome sound of geese honking and look up to see them in perfect V formation but flying in the wrong direction.

We laugh then, my John and I, as we wrap our arms around each other, wave goodbye to kids and grandkids, and watch the geese. They’ll get it right when the time comes. When it’s time to go, they’ll know when and where. God will tell them, and they will listen. Our kids did, and our grandkids will too. Our prayers will help them find the way.

The last cutting of hay may be nostalgic, but it brings promise too. As long as the earth endures, there will always be another first cutting of hay; there will always be another spring. Our grandchildren will grow up to be hard workers who love God, and our children’s children will too. They won’t be alone. The world will always have some good people who work hard, love God, and love each other. I hear the promise in the sound of the wild geese who are in perfect V formation and look! Now they’re flying in the right direction.