Heinäkuu - The Hay Moon

Strawberries = Summer.  Early in the morning Sam and I headed out to the  Rautio Farm a couple of miles down the road. and picked 4 of these trays full of berries.  I was surprised to see that there were still so many berries this late in the season - mid-July.

Strawberries still warm off the field and ice cream!

Next we headed a half mile down the road to the Juntikka farm to pick up a load of hay bales.  It was a luxury to pick up a hay wagon full of bales that had been parked in a barn overnight.  In the past we have had to haul hay with pickup trucks from a long distance.  This was so much easier.

Ready to roll.  I followed behind in my truck with the lights flashing.  These old hay wagons aren't meant for high speed.

Almost to the hayshed.

I used the tractor to back it up next to the hayshed.  It takes a while to get the hang of backing up one of these rigs; you have to  turn the front wheels of the wagon by backing up the tractor in one direction and then cutting your steering wheel sharply in the other way to straighten out the trailer tongue before it jackknifes too far.  It took many tries, but we finally got it where we wanted it.

King of the Mountain.

Tossing down the bales.

I hauled them into the hayshed.

Haymaking was, and still remains, a very important part of the year in agrarian cultures, as it was in Finland was for most of its history.  The hay that was put up in summer was critical to feed cows and sheep over the winter.  The month of July is called the Hay Moon - Heinäkuu.  The hay was cut by hand with a scythe,  raked and stacked to dry on wooden posts that were set throughout the field.  Once dry the loose hay was forked onto horse drawn wagons and piled in haysheds made of  logs.  The work required many hands and sunny dry weather.  Needless to say it could be a very stressful, hectic time.  Nowadays most of the work is done by machines, but it still involves long hours for the farmer on his tractor, and for us, handling 50 pound bales is still hard work, particularly on a hot day.

Stacking the bales in the hayshed.

We put up two loads, a total of over 200 bales.  I  need to feed the sheep hay from mid-October to mid-May, generally a bale a day.

Good green hay.  The sheep will enjoy it next winter.