Bambi's Mother Does Not Die.

I was going to write a headline about hay fever, maybe include a reference to Peggy Lee, but I was looking at the word “fever” and I realized there is something not right about it. I don’t like it when words I had no beef with suddenly decide to look suspiciously spelled. f e v e r ? With the ver following the fe all casual like that? Not in my title.

And now for your regularly scheduled programming.
It’s hay time. Time for mowing. And tedding. And raking. And baling. And picking up bales. Oh, and cultivating the corn. Almost every machine has broken at least once. For instance: today the tire fell off the tedder and then the front wheel on the little tractor tried it’s damndest to wobble off and then the second of seven chains along the bottom of the round baler chewed it self up. To say anything more about these inconveniences would be boring, they don’t really matter. It’s just how it is.
Haley was driving the wobble-wheeled tractor when the tedder wheel came off. These things happen. Not her fault. This time. But, one of the great things about working with and for only yourself is that things only break in your presence, or when you notice them. When other people are there things will invariably keep on breaking, but it comes off completely different. Not only am I dealing with my problems, but with also with her incurred problems. I am not a team player. I hate teamwork. When carrying heavy furniture out of the house, I would rather lug something by myself then try to work with someone to get it out. Leave me alone. I’ll get it done. Remember group projects in high school? Yeah, I was that guy. On the day I was to start baling hay for the first time, my mom offered to call a neighbor friend to have his farm-smart and mechanically talented kids come help . I said hell no. There isn’t enough time in the day for me to do everything with the hay. So I have help. Brad comes back in a couple weeks. It’ll be nice to have the help, but he’s unintentionally going to be another creator of problems. And I have enough of my own to keep me content.

Mowing hay is satisfying. There are basically three machines for mowing hay (yeah, four if you count bush hogs). The newest, best designed way is to have a row of “turtles,” basically beefed-up lawn mower blades in a row. Mechanically simple. The next mower type has a long thin strip of toothed blades that move just a couple of inches back and forth real fast. These are sickle mowers. Our mower is the older, mostly ignored design for mowing. The flail. The cutditioner. The rotary scythe. No matter how you say it, it sounds badass. The PTO shaft spins a belt that spins a nine foot cylinder that is covered with swinging blades. It’s mostly unstoppable, but takes much more horsepower than the other two.
Now for the sad part, cover your inner child’s ears. There are too many deer in our county. Most of the natural predators have been driven off. The number of avid hunters is dwindling, as are the available spaces to hunt (see, for example, my dad). It’s an infestation. And around now, all the does drop their little Bambis. And, not to argue with the man, but this might be the cutest infestation ever. The little baby deers like to hide in the hay fields. I watched a couple do their little wobbly sprint away from the methodical advance of the scythe. And then I watched one not wobble away in time. It bogged down the mower for a couple of seconds.