On Revolutions and Rabbit Holes

July 21, 2023

One of my favorite things about being alive is the never ending supply of “rabbit holes” to explore. I’m endlessly curious about certain things and once I’m on the trail of something, I’m quite content to see where it goes. Often, one thing leads to another, which leads to another, and on – and on.

Having decided we wanted to make hay at Hill-Stead but didn’t want to spend $30,000 on a bigger tractor and all the equipment we’d need to bale hay, we started exploring other options. Which of course led to other options, and questions, and so on. We settled on cutting “loose hay” (not baled) and storing it in the barn where our sheep stay during the winter. To cut the hay, we needed a sickle bar. To make the “windrows”, so the hay would dry, we needed a hay rake for our tractor. After that, we’d need a way to collect the dry hay and a way to store it in the barn.

We tried to borrow a sickle bar from all the farmers we know but the answer was always the same. “No. Sorry, we haven’t had one of those since the 1940’s”
We tried to rent a sickle bar but the nearest place that rented them was in Indiana.
We tried to buy a used one, but the only ones we found on eBay were either too big for our tractor, in questionable repair, in obvious disrepair, or in the Midwest (or all the above).
Next, we went to the only used agricultural equipment dealer in CT and the owner said, “You’re about 40 years too late - but at least you aren’t looking for the horse to go with it.”

So, we started a GoFundMe account and raised enough money to buy the hay rake but not the sickle bar. (It’s gorgeous, Thank You!)

Meanwhile, since the “first cutting” of hay is traditionally done at the beginning of June, we were already running a month behind. The grass was growing taller, tougher, and less nutritious by the day and we had no way to cut it, so we decided to give another thought a try.

We have an industrial strength rotary mower for clearing brush called a “brush hog”. The beauty of a brush hog is that it cuts up brush into very small pieces which break down quickly. But because it breaks up everything into mulch size bits, you can’t use it for hay. So, I asked one of my haying gurus, “what if I cut off the side, and the back, and alter the cutting angle on my brush hog so it spits out the long pieces of hay instead of grinding it up into mulch?” The somewhat tepid response was “Huh, that might work.” So, this week we assembled the hay rake, altered the brush hog and tested it out. It worked just fine!

We still need to rebuild a section of the first floor of the barn so we can safely store the hay all winter. (No doubt that will be a whole new rabbit hole for us to explore, as we figure out how to raise the money, mill the wood and build the storage area for the hay.)

Even though we don’t have any way to store the hay right now, the hay we cut this week hardly went to waste. We built a haystack for Hill-Stead in honor of the two “Haystack” paintings by Claude Monet that the Museum has in its collection. Hill-Stead is beyond ecstatic and is planning on using it in all sorts of programming - and we are ridiculously proud of our very first haystack.

So, thank you to all the donors, supporters, friends, and volunteers for making it happen. We definitely couldn’t have gotten this far without you. In fact, we’ve had so many volunteers offer to help stack the hay, I keep having to order extra pitchforks. I’m probably on some government watch list because why would anyone buy so many pitchforks, unless they were planning a revolution?

In a way I guess we are, albeit a totally harmless one. If you consider cutting loose hay and building a haystack in 2023 a kind of historic, artistic, aesthetic, athletic, agricultural revolution, then yes, we really are “guilty as charged!”