Summer days and saving hay: times that never really go away

Country Living with Francis Farragher

I shouldn’t really complain about any physical exploits in a period of fine weather, as we had for most of last week, but as sinews and muscles were stretched to the limit in forking square bales of hay onto a trailer, I kind of thought in a moment of near heresy, that there are easier things to be at.

For most country lads – and girls too – hay, along with turf, is almost ingrained into our genes and while the physical exertions in the bog are pretty much unavoidable, a lot of the intense labour has gone out of the hayfields with the relatively recent introduction of ‘the wrap’ (for the townies, essentially a big ball of grass wrapped in plastic), all controlled from the tractor cockpit.

The introduction of various versions of the mechanical haybob for shaking out the grass was also a major step forward in reducing the labour input as compared to the days of the timber toothed hand rakes which were guaranteed to leave sizeable blisters in that vulnerable V patch of skin between thumb and forefinger.

To complicate matters even further with the passing of the hay season, teeth would inevitably be lost from the rake which greatly impaired its ability to fully flick over the sward (we always pronounced it ‘swart’).

Rakes though could be fixed and hay fork handles replaced but the great imponderable was – and still is – the weather, as without a good week of drying, requiring a combination of wind and sun, saving the hay would be a doomed mission.

Much and all as we complain about the weather – and especially the forecasters – that science is still a lot more advanced than it was 40 or 50 years ago, when the almost exclusive source of information was in the twice daily predictions from Met Éireann on Radio One.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App

Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.

Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.

Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite  HERE.

Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.