When I was a child, I hayed as a child. Motivated by a mix of obligation and avarice (I still remember the first crisp $20 note I received), I liked riding on the wagon and driving the tractors. I resented long, chaff-covered days tossing bales in a muggy mow.

When I was an adult, I put away those resentments. Something about baling your own hay (and not your parents’ or grandparents’) makes the task more appealing. In my mid-30s I could jog alongside the wagon and fling bales onto it. I took the worst jobs in the haymow, and then went across the road to help my neighbour.

Now, pushing into my mid-50s, not only is my grasp weakening (literally, thanks to arthritic knuckles) by my reach recedes, too. An early July birthday has much to recommend it, but haying season serves as a forceful reminder that you really are ageing — and in some ways, your own life follows the fevered, dusty arc of the bales you throw.

I’ve been in and out of hayfields at least since I was six or seven. Back then, I was dragging bales and wishing I was strong like the older men around me. For a while in my early teens, I relished the challenge and hated the job pretty much at the same time. Now, as the work becomes harder every year, I realize how much I love this time in the field. I love the urgency and the struggle against weather and time. I love the sense of accomplishment as the mow fills with square bales and round bales stud the fields. I love evenings alone on the tractor with the mower, watching the grass fall behind the machine while I listen to a baseball game on the radio. (Go Jays!) I especially love the sensations — not just the sweat and heat, but the way the sun sets and the twilight mist settles, cooling us as we put the last few bales in.

All flesh is grass, as the Old Testament says. I’ve been fortunate to live a life intimately connected with grass and the changing seasons, and I hope for another 20 years of hayfield urgency. But one day the task will slip from my hands, and I’ll remember haying the way an old athlete recalls his or her playing days.  During quiet moments, when the job is going well, I must savour this hayfield life.

-30-