P. L. Gaus’s Ohio Amish Journal

That phrase probably means something different to the Amish than it does to you and me. Whereas we might think of it in terms only of a metaphor, Amish people think of it as literal, too, because you do need to make your hay when the sun shines. Take it up in the rain, and you’ve got a real problem

We’ve had an ideal growing season in Ohio this year, with plenty of rain interspersed with periods of bright sunshine. The corn in Holmes County is over fifteen feet high, and it is only the end of July. There was an abundant wheat crop, and fields of hay have been cycled through the sequence many times since spring. First you cut it at just the right time. It lays in rows, then, and looks green. Then, after it has dried a while, you rake it to turn it over, and let it dry some more. Now it starts to brown up. Amish farmers know just how it should look at this stage. They have to, because if you don’t have enough sunlight, and you take up your hay when it’s still too wet, it’ll decompose slowly and exothermically in the barn, ignite spontaneously, and burn the barn down. So nobody wants to put up wet hay. Thus, you have to make hay while the sun shines. You need it to dry out on both sides before you can bale it.

I got this picture as an Amish lady was working her team of horses through a field of cut and raked hay. She used a gasoline baler on her wagon, and you can see that the bales are nice and brown. The children came through later and helped the family load the bales onto a cart with iron wheels, and then it all went into the barn. It took the whole family to do it. There had been warm sunshine for several days after it was cut, and the hay was not too wet when they took it up.

So, you have to “make hay while the sun shines.” We think it means to take the opportunities that present themselves. The Amish know better. Or at least they know more.

Tags: Amish

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 at 4:37 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.