Wintry Hay Day

On Friday, I found an all-black woolly worm lounging by the barn door.

As the story goes, a woolly worm (or banded woolly bear, as it’s sometimes called) forecasts the weather with its stripes. Brown stripes denote a mild winter. Black stripes show a cold, hard winter.

Seeing an all-black woolly worm can feel foreboding. But also this year, I’ve seen woolly worms with black bands on both ends framing a brown band in the middle: cold weather, then mild weather, then cold weather.

No matter what the weather forecast is, whether we seek it through woolly worms or the WeatherBug app, we need hay in the barn.

So, we made plans to pick up hay from our neighbors during Thanksgiving weekend. Yesterday morning, I hooked one of our hay wagons to our truck and took it to a barn down the road. Jeff brought the tractor. We would stack second-cutting bales* on one of our neighbor’s wagons and first-cutting bales on ours.

Our neighbor’s wagon was already parked beneath the mow door. I climbed up to the loft, a shelter from the fierce wind. I brought the second-cutting bales to the edge of the mow door and threw them onto the wagon. Sometimes, I’d have several bales stacked, waiting to be thrown down. I’d wait, eyes on the hand-hewn beam running from the concrete floor to the trusses. Marks that looked like they were cut by an ax ran down the wood, a sign of a building at least a century old.

Once the wagon filled with second cutting, I climbed back down to ground level.

Jeff moved the second-cutting wagon out of the way with the tractor, and our neighbor hooked onto our wagon with his small tractor to move it forward. Mia supervised this process.

This time, I stayed on the ground, counting first-cutting bales as they were thrown from the loft. The wind cut right through me.

Since Jeff had brought the tractor over to the neighbors, blasted by gusts across the driveway, I took a turn and hauled the second-cutting wagon to the family barn. Slowly, I trundled over puddles of ice. Our neighbor brought the second wagon down.

We transferred second-cutting bales over to a hay wagon we parked semi-permanently in the barn, nice storage to keep the hay off the ground, then parked the first-cutting wagon in the barn’s alley.

It was one of those things that can be tough when doing it, but in the end, it feels really good to have done it. It was so satisfying to return to the farm after lunch and see the hay ready to go.

Now, we don’t have to be bothered by what the woolly worms (or WeatherBug) say.

*There can be two or three cuttings of hay each summer, and the second cutting can be higher in nutrition than the other two. I like feeding second cutting when the ewes are in late gestation and early lactation, and I feed first cutting bales at the beginning of the winter season.

Thanks for Reading!

Happy December! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you feel refreshed and rejuvenated for the week ahead with this moment preserved in picture and prose. Consider:

• What do you enjoy about winter?

Share your answer and this newsletter with someone who likes snow.

If Sylvan Sundays was forwarded to you, welcome! To learn more about our farmers, check out “A New Year’s Introduction,” and to learn more about our name, visit “Being Sylvan.” Also, make sure to check out “This Week on the Farm” and “Farm Shop” below!

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This Week on the Farm

Snow fell nearly all day Friday, beginning slowly with a few flakes flecked against our front deck. By the time we reached the farm for chores, the snow flew at a steep angle.

That afternoon, we moved sheep around, separating the rams from the ewes and bringing the Shropshires in with the Shetlands, goats, and llamas. Here, the Shetlands and goats run along to their paddock, llamas trotting at the back:

The snow brought in refreshing, crisp air and cold temperatures that reminded us of the boundaries we need to set in the winter: not outside for too long, wear plenty of layers, and drink tea upon returning inside.

As we headed home Friday night, the sun broke through in beautiful rays as we threaded through corn fields and woods:

The low temperatures are forecast to continue through the week, so we’re happy to have accomplished what we did this weekend.

Farm Shop

This pygmy buck has done a great job with our weeds, and he’s ready for a new pasture. He’s easygoing and fun to have around. If you have a pasture that could use a goat, reply to this email for more information!