The lightning flashes and the thunder rolls as a downpour of rain splashes heavily on the overhead sky-light just beyond my head where I am poised at my computer. Strange as it may seem to many, I love electrical storms.
Thunder and lightning are just Mother Nature’s way of putting on her fireworks display celebrating the rains that came.
The big hand on the ancient clock that hangs shoulder height on the wall beside me hovers exactly on the twelve – and its shorter partner points in the direction of the ten. Darkness had descended quickly. My computer calendar tells me it is Wednesday, June 22. It has not long been dark, as the heavy cloud cover came in briskly just as the sun sank in the western sky. I, too, have reason to celebrate the timing of this rain. It was perfect.
Here on the farm front, last Saturday we laid down two fields of hay. A lovely crop, tall and thick. On Sunday, though it was Father’s Day, we tossed the hay with a New Holland tedder. Monday morning, as there was no dew, well before noon it was turned once again. By sundown the first field was bailed, loaded, drawn in, and stacked. Thanks to the help of volunteer neighbours.
Tuesday, though it lightly rained during the night, less than a mile north of us, and down-poured two miles east, there wasn’t even a single dew drop at our place. The hay was dry and bailing started not long after breakfast. By mid afternoon, thanks again to well-muscled, willing volunteer neighbours, the last bail was perched high up top of the well-loaded hay wagon pulled by the John Deere tractor as it quietly puttered in the direction of the barn.
In the meantime, in the in-between time, a friendly local bee keeper has placed a colony of 30 hives of honey bees in a previously prepared protected place. It is nestled in a hollow beside a row of wild apple trees on what we affectionately refer to as the back 40 of our 50-acre spread.
Just as a point of information, it is well away from our newly renovated pond, in which I fully intend to go skinny dipping when the weather gets hot and sticky.
Are there any volunteers out there waiting to join me?
You might have to share the space with a mallard duck and her young, and a pair of Canada geese, I am sure, have nested somewhere close by.
It might be a good idea if you bring along some ice cream, as I have strawberries soon to be ready for picking in our newly-planted patch. If you can’t find me frolicking, birthday suited, by the back 40 pond, I could be catching my noonday snooze, comfortably sprawled, enjoying the fresh smell of new hay, in the loft.
Take care, ‘cause we care.
barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105
