Of hay and hospitality...

We are making hay while the sun shines this week on the farm. Around eight hundred square bales, five hundred and fifty of them ours, now are stacked under the protective tin roofs of hay barns. Plagued by early summer rains that kept us from cutting until the grass was high, and fell upon the first cutting, this last cutting is rain free. Hay is a gambler’s crop and your yield and quality are determined not by you alone but by the weather gods. Traditionally the second cutting in the mountains is the best quality hay, the opposite of the hay country where I grew up in South Georgia.
When the call goes out, all normal life ceases for awhile. Gary mows the hay then he and Michael rake it into tidy rows after it is dry. Cutting, raking and baling on our hills takes no small amount of skill and nerve. Gary runs our fifty year old baler, held together with love and prayers and good welding, up and down the rows as we follow to pick them up. Occasionally a part will break off and we all gather to look for it in the grass, hoping to find it or have a spare so the work can continue.
Hay baling the old fashioned way is not a solitary activity. We need a crew to help pick up the hay and put it in the barn. The day before we bale, we call friends, neighbors, teen aged boys, young men and women who need work saying we will be baling the next day, trying to gather four or five folks at a time. Upper body strength, enough to lift hay bales and swing them over into the trailer, is the only job requirement. A driver, two stackers and three or four to pick up in the field is a good number. Newbies take a lot of teasing as they are introduced to the hot physical labor in the field. There is a lot of laughter and joshing as we work and the pleasure of the company makes the work lighter. Riding back to the barn atop a full trailer load of hay is sweet with cool breezes and the grassy perfume easing your breathing. Cold water on the back of your neck and wrists cools you down quickly, water and lemonade to drink freely help cool you inside and out.
Hay work is hot, hard, dusty work that is also full of community and fun. We laugh at Gary’s dirt blackened face, giggle as a hay bale flies over the trailer when a young buck throws too hard, cuss when the baler breaks down for the second time, and I give thanks for those who have come to help. On hay days, I provide an evening meal when the work runs late or lunch if we work during the day. I keep the water coolers full of ice, water, Gatorade, lemonade and energy bars. I hand out sun screen and gloves and hats and long sleeved shirts for those who need or want them. Hay work is hospitality in action... the gift of hospitality given to us by friends and neighbors who come to do this hard work not for money but for love, and the gift of hospitality we extend as we include all who come in our farm family group.
Strangers become friends and friends become family as we each share what we have with one another. My need is met by your generosity knowing that tomorrow I may be meeting your need. That is hospitality at its finest... offering ourselves in ways that make us all the better for it... a two way street of sharing. So tonight I go to church to teach Vacation Bible School because my children were taught long ago by those who loved children and showed up. Saturday our group will have a HUGE yard sale and part of the money will go to a charity of our choosing. What I do not need will help someone who needs much. Saturday night our church has a fund raising dinner and I will help with the corn. These new family members in the family of God are becoming dear to me and I will help because we need to finish working on our fellowship hall.
In Romans 12:13 I read, “Contribute to the needs of the saints, practice hospitality.” And in 1Peter 4:9 I read, “Practice hospitality ungrudgingly to one another.” This weekend I will be practicing ungrudging hospitality because so many have extended the same kind of open hospitality to me. How can I do less?