Everything is done in season, and there is no time to spare.
Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852
That is a peculiar season when about the middle of August
the farmers are getting their meadow-hay.
If you sail up the river, you will see them in all meadows,
raking hay and loading it on to carts . . .
under which the oxen stand like beetles, chewing the cud,
waiting for men to put the meadow on.
Henry Thoreau
*****
Saw a haymaker
with suspenders crossed before
as well as behind.
June 30, 1856
There are so many men in the fields haying now.
I saw haymakers at work dressed simply
in a straw hat, boots, shirt, and pantaloons,
the shirt worn like a frock over their pants.
The laborer cannot endure the contact with his clothes.
The haymakers are quite busy on the Great Meadows,
. . . being remote from public view, some of them
work in their shirts or half naked.
Almost every meadow or section of a meadow
has its band of half a dozen mowers and rakers,
. . . bending to their manly work with regular and graceful motion."
I distinguish men busily haying in gangs of four or five,
revealed by their white shirts . . .
What an adventure, to get the hay from year to year
from these miles on miles of river meadow!
August 24, 1858
*****
June 10. Haying commencing in front yards. June 10, 1853
June 20. Upland haying begun, or beginning. June 20, 1854
June 21. The farmers have commenced haying. With this the summer culminates. The most extended crop of all is ready for the harvesting. June 21, 1853
July 13. This might be called the Haymaker's Moon, for I perceive that when the day has been oppressively warm the haymakers rest at noon and resume their mowing after sunset, sometimes quite into evening. July 13, 1851
July 13. Very hot weather . . . I hear before I start the distant mutterings of thunder in the northwest, though I see no cloud. The haymakers are busy raking their hay, to be ready for a shower. They would rather have their grass wet a little than not have the rain. July 13, 1857
July 15. Rained still in forenoon; now cloudy. Fields comparatively deserted to-day and yesterday. Hay stands cocked in them on all sides. Some, being shorn, are clear for the walker. It is but a short time that he has to dodge the haymakers. July 15, 1854
July 18. Now the fogs have begun, in midsummer and mid-haying time . . .The farmers have cut some meadow-hay.. July 18, 1852
July 18. Meadow haying has commenced. There is no pause between the English and meadow haying. July 18, 1853
July 21 It threatens to be a hot day, and the haymakers are whetting their scythes in the fields, where they have been out since 4 o'clock. July 21, 1851
July 21. A rainy day; half an inch of rain falls, spoiling much hay. This is so wet a season that the grass is still growing fast and most things are very fresh. July 21, 1860
July 22. Farmers have commenced their meadow-haying. July 22, 1852
July 22. On one account, at least, I enjoy walking in the fields less at this season than at any other; there are so many men in the fields haying now. July 22, 1853
July 23. Now is the haying season. July 23, 1852
July 23 How active must these men be, all the country over, that they may get through their work in season! A few spoiled windrows, all black and musty, have taught them that they must make hay while the sun shines, and get it in before it rains. July 23, 1852
June 30. Haying has commenced. I see the farmers in distant fields cocking their hay now at six o'clock. The day has been so oppressively warm that some workmen have lain by at noon, and the haymakers are mowing now in the early twilight. June 30,1851
June 30. Haying has commenced. June 30, 1852
June 30. Saw a haymaker with his suspenders crossed before as well as behind. A valuable hint, which I think I shall improve upon, June 30, 1856
July 4. Rich and luxuriant uncut grass-lands , now waving under the easterly wind. July 4, 1860
July 5. Haymakers go by in a hay-rigging. July 5, 1852
July 6. June, the month for grass and flowers, is now past. . . . Now grass is turning to hay, and flowers to fruits. July 6, 1851
June 30. Haying has commenced. June 30, 1852
June 30. Saw a haymaker with his suspenders crossed before as well as behind. A valuable hint, which I think I shall improve upon, June 30, 1856
July 4. Rich and luxuriant uncut grass-lands , now waving under the easterly wind. July 4, 1860
July 5. Haymakers go by in a hay-rigging. July 5, 1852
July 6. June, the month for grass and flowers, is now past. . . . Now grass is turning to hay, and flowers to fruits. July 6, 1851
July 11. Haying is fairly begun, and for some days I have heard the sound of the mowing-machine, and now the lark must look out for the mowers. July 11, 1857
Haying now begins
and the lark must look out for
the mowing-machine.
July 13. This might be called the Haymaker's Moon, for I perceive that when the day has been oppressively warm the haymakers rest at noon and resume their mowing after sunset, sometimes quite into evening. July 13, 1851
July 13. Very hot weather . . . I hear before I start the distant mutterings of thunder in the northwest, though I see no cloud. The haymakers are busy raking their hay, to be ready for a shower. They would rather have their grass wet a little than not have the rain. July 13, 1857
July 15. Rained still in forenoon; now cloudy. Fields comparatively deserted to-day and yesterday. Hay stands cocked in them on all sides. Some, being shorn, are clear for the walker. It is but a short time that he has to dodge the haymakers. July 15, 1854
July 18. Now the fogs have begun, in midsummer and mid-haying time . . .The farmers have cut some meadow-hay.. July 18, 1852
July 18. Meadow haying has commenced. There is no pause between the English and meadow haying. July 18, 1853
July 19. Upland haying is past prime, and they are working into the low ground. None mowing on the Great Meadows yet. July 19, 1860
July 21 It threatens to be a hot day, and the haymakers are whetting their scythes in the fields, where they have been out since 4 o'clock. July 21, 1851
July 21. A rainy day; half an inch of rain falls, spoiling much hay. This is so wet a season that the grass is still growing fast and most things are very fresh. July 21, 1860
July 22. Farmers have commenced their meadow-haying. July 22, 1852
July 22. On one account, at least, I enjoy walking in the fields less at this season than at any other; there are so many men in the fields haying now. July 22, 1853
July 23. Now is the haying season. July 23, 1852
July 23 How active must these men be, all the country over, that they may get through their work in season! A few spoiled windrows, all black and musty, have taught them that they must make hay while the sun shines, and get it in before it rains. July 23, 1852
July 24, 1852 ("There is a short, fresh green on the shorn fields, the aftermath. When the first crop of grass is off, and the aftermath springs, the year has passed its culmination.");
July 24. Many a field where the grass has been cut shows now a fresh and very lit-up light green as you look toward the sun. July 24, 1860
July 25. The haymakers getting in the hay from Hubbard's meadow tell me the cock says we are going to have a long spell of dry weather or else very wet.
July 25, 1856
July 25. The haymakers getting in the hay from Hubbard's meadow tell me the cock says we are going to have a long spell of dry weather or else very wet.
"Well, there 's some difference between them," I answer; "how do you know it? "
"I just heard a cock crow at noon, and that 's a sure sign it will either be very dry or very wet."
July 25, 1856
July 28. There is a yellowish light now from a low, tufted, yellowish, broad-leaved grass, in fields that have been mown July 28, 1852
July 29. Rhexia. Probably would be earlier if not mowed down. July 29, 1856
July 30. This is a perfect dog-day. The atmosphere thick, mildewy, cloudy. It is difficult to dry anything. The sun is obscured, yet we expect no rain. Bad hay weather. The streams are raised by the showers of yesterday and day before, and I see the farmers turning their black-looking hay in the flooded meadows with a fork. July 30, 1856
July 30 Some days ago, before this weather, I saw haymakers at work dressed simply in a straw hat, boots, shirt, and pantaloons, the shirt worn like a frock over their pants. July 30, 1856
July 30 In every meadow you see far or near the lumbering hay-cart with its mountainous load and the rakers and mowers in white shirts July 30, 1853
July 30 If the meadows were untouched, I should no doubt see many more of the rare white and the beautiful smaller purple orchis there, as I now see a few along the shaded brooks and meadow's edge. July 30, 1853
July 31. Our dog-days seem to be turned to a rainy season. Mr. Derby. . .tells me that he remembers when it rained for three weeks in haying time every day but Sundays . . . . Have observed the twittering over of goldfinches for a week. July 31, 1855
July 31.The roads are strewn with meadow-hay, which the farmers teamed home last evening (Saturday). July 31, 1859
August 1. Meadow-haying begun for a week. August 1, 1854
August 1. Unfortunate those who have not got their hay. I see them wading in overflowed meadows and pitching the black and mouldy swaths about in vain that they may dry . . .v [rhexia] make a splendid show, these brilliant rose-colored patches . . Yet few ever see them in this perfection, unless the haymaker who levels them, or the birds that fly over the meadow. August 1, 1856
August 1. Meadow-haying commenced. August 1, 1860
August 2. [July]has been a month of haying, heat. August 2, 1854
August 2. Heavy, long-continued, but warm rain in the night, raising the river already eight or nine inches and disturbing the meadow haymakers. August 2, 1853
August 3.. Saw two hay carts and teams cross the shallow part of the river in front of N. Barrett's, empty, to the Great Meadows. An interesting sight. The Great Meadows alive with farmers getting their hay. I could count four or five great loads already loaded in different parts. August 3, 1852
August 3. The haymakers are quite busy on the Great Meadows, it being drier than usual. It being remote from public view, some of them work in their shirts or half naked. August 3, 1859
August 3. I see blackened haycocks on the meadows. Think what the farmer gets with his hay, — what his river-meadow hay consists of, — how much of fern and osier and sweet-gale and Polygonum hydropiperoides and rhexia (I trust the cattle love the scent of it as well as I) and lysimachia, etc., etc., and rue, and sium and cicuta. In a meadow now being mown I see that the ferns and small osiers are as thick as the grass. If modern farmers do not collect elm and other leaves for their cattle, they do thus mow and cure the willows, etc., etc., to a considerable extent, so that they come to large bushes or trees only on the edge of the meadow. August 3, 1856
August 4. English-haying is long since done, only meadow-haying going on now. August 4, 1852
August 4. The grass is withered by the drought. The potatoes begin generally to flat down. The corn is tasselled out, turnips growing in its midst. The farmer with his barns and cattle and poultry and grain and grass. The smell of his hay. It is now the royal month of August. August 4, 1851
August 5. A platoon of haymakers has just attacked the meadow-grass in the Wheeler meadow . . . I find that we are now in the midst of the meadow-haying season, and almost every meadow or section of a meadow has its band of half a dozen mowers and rakers, either bending to their manly work with regular and graceful motion or resting in the shade, while the boys are turning the grass to the sun. I passed as many as sixty or a hundred men thus at work to-day. They stick up a twig with the leaves on, on the river's brink, as a guide for the mowers, that they may not exceed the owner's bounds. I hear their scythes cronching the coarse weeds by the river's brink as I row near. The horse or oxen stand near at hand in the shade on the firm land, waiting to draw home a load anon. I see a platoon of three or four mowers, one behind the other, diagonally advancing with regular sweeps across the broad meadow and ever and anon standing to whet their scythes. Or else, having made several bouts, they are resting in the shade on the edge of the firm land. In one place I see one sturdy mower stretched on the ground amid his oxen in the shade of an oak, trying to sleep; or I see one wending far inland with a jug to some well-known spring. . . . Now Lee and his men are returning to their meadow-haying after dinner, and stop at the well under the black oak in the field. I too repair to the well when they are gone, and taste the flavor of black strap on the bucket's edge. As I return down-stream, I see the haymakers now raking with hand or horse rakes into long rows or loading, one on the load placing it and treading it down, while others fork it up to him; and others are gleaning with rakes after the forkers. All farmers are anxious to get their meadow-hay as soon as possible for fear the river will rise. August 5, 1854
August 5. This forenoon there were no hayers in the meadow, but before we returned we saw many at work, for they had already cut some grass next to the upland, on the drier sides of the meadow, and we noticed where they had stuck up green bushes near the riverside to mow to. August 5, 1858
August 6. We prefer to sail to-day (Sunday) because there are no haymakers in the meadow. August 6, 1854
August 6.Meadow-haying on all hands. August 6, 1855
August 6. We pass haymakers in every meadow, who may think that we are idlers . . .While they look after the open meadows, we farm the tract between the river’s brinks and behold the shores from that side. We, too, are harvesting an annual crop with our eyes. August 6, 1858
August 12.. There are but few haymakers left in the meadows. August 12, 1854
August 13. This month thus far has been quite rainy. It has rained more or less at least half the days. You have had to consider each afternoon whether you must not take an umbrella . . .The farmers have not been able to get much of their hay. August 13, 1858
August 17. I see a goldfinch go twittering through the still, louring day, and am reminded of the peeping flocks which will soon herald the thoughtful season . . . The farmers are just finishing their meadow-haying. (To-day is Sunday.) Those who have early potatoes may be digging them, or doing any other job which the haying has obliged them to postpone. For six weeks or more this has been the farmer's work, to shave the surface of the fields and meadows clean. This is done all over the country. The razor is passed over these parts of nature's face the country over. A thirteenth labor which methinks would have broken the back of Hercules, would have given him a memorable sweat, accomplished with what sweating of scythes and early and late! I chance know one young man who has lost his life in this season's campaign, by overdoing. In haying time some men take double wages, and they are engaged long before in the spring. To shave all the fields and meadows of New England clean ! If men did this but once, and not every year, we should never hear the last of that labor; it would be more famous in each farmer's case than Buonaparte's road over the Simplon. It has no other bulletin but the truthful "Farmer's Almanac." Ask them where scythe-snaths are made and sold, and rifles too, if it is not a real labor. In its very weapons and its passes it has the semblance of war. Mexico was won with less exertion and less true valor than are required to do one season's haying in New England. The former work was done by those who played truant and ran away from the latter. Those Mexicans were mown down more easily than the summer's crop of grass in many a farmer's fields. Is there not some work in New England men? This haying is no work for marines, nor for deserters; nor for United States troops, so called, nor for West Point cadets. It would wilt them, and they would desert. Have they not deserted? and run off to West Point? Every field is a battle-field to the mower, — a pitched battle too, — and whole winrows of dead have covered it in the course of the season. Early and late the farmer has gone forth with his formidable scythe, weapon of time, Time's weapon, and fought the ground inch by inch. It is the summer's enterprise. And if we were a more poetic people, horns would be blown to celebrate its completion. There might be a Hay makers' Day. New England's peaceful battles. At Bunker Hill there were some who stood at the rail- fence and behind the winrows of new-mown hay. They have not yet quitted the field. They stand there still; they alone have not retreated . . .
The hayer's work is done, but I hear no boasting, no firing of guns nor ringing of bells. He celebrates it by going about the work he had postponed "till after haying"! If all this steadiness and valor were spent upon some still worthier enterprise!! August 17, 1851
August 22. The immediate edge of the river is for the most part respected by the mowers, and many wild plants there escape from year to year, being too coarse for hay. August 22, 1853
July 29. About these times some hundreds of men with freshly sharpened scythes make an irruption into my garden when in its rankest condition, and clip my herbs all as close as they can. July 29, 1853
July 30. This is a perfect dog-day. The atmosphere thick, mildewy, cloudy. It is difficult to dry anything. The sun is obscured, yet we expect no rain. Bad hay weather. The streams are raised by the showers of yesterday and day before, and I see the farmers turning their black-looking hay in the flooded meadows with a fork. July 30, 1856
July 30 Some days ago, before this weather, I saw haymakers at work dressed simply in a straw hat, boots, shirt, and pantaloons, the shirt worn like a frock over their pants. July 30, 1856
July 30 In every meadow you see far or near the lumbering hay-cart with its mountainous load and the rakers and mowers in white shirts July 30, 1853
July 30 If the meadows were untouched, I should no doubt see many more of the rare white and the beautiful smaller purple orchis there, as I now see a few along the shaded brooks and meadow's edge. July 30, 1853
July 31. Our dog-days seem to be turned to a rainy season. Mr. Derby. . .tells me that he remembers when it rained for three weeks in haying time every day but Sundays . . . . Have observed the twittering over of goldfinches for a week. July 31, 1855
July 31.The roads are strewn with meadow-hay, which the farmers teamed home last evening (Saturday). July 31, 1859
August 1. Meadow-haying begun for a week. August 1, 1854
August 1. Unfortunate those who have not got their hay. I see them wading in overflowed meadows and pitching the black and mouldy swaths about in vain that they may dry . . .v [rhexia] make a splendid show, these brilliant rose-colored patches . . Yet few ever see them in this perfection, unless the haymaker who levels them, or the birds that fly over the meadow. August 1, 1856
August 1. Meadow-haying commenced. August 1, 1860
August 2. [July]has been a month of haying, heat. August 2, 1854
August 2. Heavy, long-continued, but warm rain in the night, raising the river already eight or nine inches and disturbing the meadow haymakers. August 2, 1853
August 3.. Saw two hay carts and teams cross the shallow part of the river in front of N. Barrett's, empty, to the Great Meadows. An interesting sight. The Great Meadows alive with farmers getting their hay. I could count four or five great loads already loaded in different parts. August 3, 1852
August 3. The haymakers are quite busy on the Great Meadows, it being drier than usual. It being remote from public view, some of them work in their shirts or half naked. August 3, 1859
August 3. I see blackened haycocks on the meadows. Think what the farmer gets with his hay, — what his river-meadow hay consists of, — how much of fern and osier and sweet-gale and Polygonum hydropiperoides and rhexia (I trust the cattle love the scent of it as well as I) and lysimachia, etc., etc., and rue, and sium and cicuta. In a meadow now being mown I see that the ferns and small osiers are as thick as the grass. If modern farmers do not collect elm and other leaves for their cattle, they do thus mow and cure the willows, etc., etc., to a considerable extent, so that they come to large bushes or trees only on the edge of the meadow. August 3, 1856
August 4. English-haying is long since done, only meadow-haying going on now. August 4, 1852
August 4. The grass is withered by the drought. The potatoes begin generally to flat down. The corn is tasselled out, turnips growing in its midst. The farmer with his barns and cattle and poultry and grain and grass. The smell of his hay. It is now the royal month of August. August 4, 1851
August 4. The low fields which have been mown now look very green again in consequence of the rain, as if it were a second spring. August 4, 1853
August 5. Perfect dog-days. To-day is sultry, i. e. hot and cloudy, the air full of mist and here and there misty clouds. . . Farmers complain that they cannot make hay this weather. August 5, 1853
August 5. A platoon of haymakers has just attacked the meadow-grass in the Wheeler meadow . . . I find that we are now in the midst of the meadow-haying season, and almost every meadow or section of a meadow has its band of half a dozen mowers and rakers, either bending to their manly work with regular and graceful motion or resting in the shade, while the boys are turning the grass to the sun. I passed as many as sixty or a hundred men thus at work to-day. They stick up a twig with the leaves on, on the river's brink, as a guide for the mowers, that they may not exceed the owner's bounds. I hear their scythes cronching the coarse weeds by the river's brink as I row near. The horse or oxen stand near at hand in the shade on the firm land, waiting to draw home a load anon. I see a platoon of three or four mowers, one behind the other, diagonally advancing with regular sweeps across the broad meadow and ever and anon standing to whet their scythes. Or else, having made several bouts, they are resting in the shade on the edge of the firm land. In one place I see one sturdy mower stretched on the ground amid his oxen in the shade of an oak, trying to sleep; or I see one wending far inland with a jug to some well-known spring. . . . Now Lee and his men are returning to their meadow-haying after dinner, and stop at the well under the black oak in the field. I too repair to the well when they are gone, and taste the flavor of black strap on the bucket's edge. As I return down-stream, I see the haymakers now raking with hand or horse rakes into long rows or loading, one on the load placing it and treading it down, while others fork it up to him; and others are gleaning with rakes after the forkers. All farmers are anxious to get their meadow-hay as soon as possible for fear the river will rise. August 5, 1854
August 5. This forenoon there were no hayers in the meadow, but before we returned we saw many at work, for they had already cut some grass next to the upland, on the drier sides of the meadow, and we noticed where they had stuck up green bushes near the riverside to mow to. August 5, 1858
August 6. We prefer to sail to-day (Sunday) because there are no haymakers in the meadow. August 6, 1854
August 6.Meadow-haying on all hands. August 6, 1855
August 6. We pass haymakers in every meadow, who may think that we are idlers . . .While they look after the open meadows, we farm the tract between the river’s brinks and behold the shores from that side. We, too, are harvesting an annual crop with our eyes. August 6, 1858
August 7. At this season we have gentle rain-storms, making the aftermath green . . . as if it were a second spring August 7, 1852
August 7. From Peter’s I look over the Great Meadows. There are sixty or more men in sight on them, in squads of half a dozen far and near, revealed by their white shirts. They are alternately lost and reappear from behind a distant clump of trees. A great part of the farmers of Concord are now in the meadows, and toward night great loads of hay are seen rolling slowly along the river’s bank, – on the firmer ground there – and perhaps fording the stream itself, toward the distant barn, followed by a troop of tired haymakers. August 7, 1854
August 10. As I go along the railroad, I observe the darker green of early-mown fields. August 10, 1854
August 12.. There are but few haymakers left in the meadows. August 12, 1854
August 13. This month thus far has been quite rainy. It has rained more or less at least half the days. You have had to consider each afternoon whether you must not take an umbrella . . .The farmers have not been able to get much of their hay. August 13, 1858
August 15. The river meadows, where no mowing, have a yellowish and autumnal look. August 15, 1854
August 17. I see a goldfinch go twittering through the still, louring day, and am reminded of the peeping flocks which will soon herald the thoughtful season . . . The farmers are just finishing their meadow-haying. (To-day is Sunday.) Those who have early potatoes may be digging them, or doing any other job which the haying has obliged them to postpone. For six weeks or more this has been the farmer's work, to shave the surface of the fields and meadows clean. This is done all over the country. The razor is passed over these parts of nature's face the country over. A thirteenth labor which methinks would have broken the back of Hercules, would have given him a memorable sweat, accomplished with what sweating of scythes and early and late! I chance know one young man who has lost his life in this season's campaign, by overdoing. In haying time some men take double wages, and they are engaged long before in the spring. To shave all the fields and meadows of New England clean ! If men did this but once, and not every year, we should never hear the last of that labor; it would be more famous in each farmer's case than Buonaparte's road over the Simplon. It has no other bulletin but the truthful "Farmer's Almanac." Ask them where scythe-snaths are made and sold, and rifles too, if it is not a real labor. In its very weapons and its passes it has the semblance of war. Mexico was won with less exertion and less true valor than are required to do one season's haying in New England. The former work was done by those who played truant and ran away from the latter. Those Mexicans were mown down more easily than the summer's crop of grass in many a farmer's fields. Is there not some work in New England men? This haying is no work for marines, nor for deserters; nor for United States troops, so called, nor for West Point cadets. It would wilt them, and they would desert. Have they not deserted? and run off to West Point? Every field is a battle-field to the mower, — a pitched battle too, — and whole winrows of dead have covered it in the course of the season. Early and late the farmer has gone forth with his formidable scythe, weapon of time, Time's weapon, and fought the ground inch by inch. It is the summer's enterprise. And if we were a more poetic people, horns would be blown to celebrate its completion. There might be a Hay makers' Day. New England's peaceful battles. At Bunker Hill there were some who stood at the rail- fence and behind the winrows of new-mown hay. They have not yet quitted the field. They stand there still; they alone have not retreated . . .
The hayer's work is done, but I hear no boasting, no firing of guns nor ringing of bells. He celebrates it by going about the work he had postponed "till after haying"! If all this steadiness and valor were spent upon some still worthier enterprise!! August 17, 1851
August 17. The aftermath on early mown fields is a very beautiful green.August 17, 1858
August 21 Mowing to some extent improves the landscape to the eye of the walker. The aftermath, so fresh and green, begins now to recall the spring to my mind. August 21, 1851
August 22. There are three or four haymakers still at work in the Great Meadows, though but very few acres are left uncut. August 22, 1854
August 23. Perchance the copious rain of last night will trouble those who had not been so provident as to get their hay from the Great Meadows, where it is often lost. August 23, 1851
August 24. They are haying still in the Great Meadows; indeed, not half the grass is cut, I think. I am flattered because my stub sail frightens a haymakers’ horse tied under a maple while his masters are loading. His nostrils dilate; he snorts and tries to break loose. He eyes with terror this white wind steed. No wonder he is alarmed at my introducing such a competitor into the river meadows. Yet, large as my sail is, it being low I can scud down for miles through the very meadows in which dozens of haymakers are at work, and they may not detect me . . . Looking up and down the river this sunny, breezy afternoon, I distinguish men busily haying in gangs of four or five, revealed by their white shirts, some two miles below, toward Carlisle Bridge, and others still, further up the stream. They are up to their shoulders in the grassy sea, almost lost in it. I can just discern a few white specks in the shiny grass, where the most distant are at work.
What an adventure, to get the hay from year to year from these miles on miles of river meadow! You see some carrying out the hay on poles, where it is too soft for cattle, and loaded carts are leaving the meadows for distant barns in the various towns that border on them. August 24, 1858
August 23. Perchance the copious rain of last night will trouble those who had not been so provident as to get their hay from the Great Meadows, where it is often lost. August 23, 1851
August 24. They are haying still in the Great Meadows; indeed, not half the grass is cut, I think. I am flattered because my stub sail frightens a haymakers’ horse tied under a maple while his masters are loading. His nostrils dilate; he snorts and tries to break loose. He eyes with terror this white wind steed. No wonder he is alarmed at my introducing such a competitor into the river meadows. Yet, large as my sail is, it being low I can scud down for miles through the very meadows in which dozens of haymakers are at work, and they may not detect me . . . Looking up and down the river this sunny, breezy afternoon, I distinguish men busily haying in gangs of four or five, revealed by their white shirts, some two miles below, toward Carlisle Bridge, and others still, further up the stream. They are up to their shoulders in the grassy sea, almost lost in it. I can just discern a few white specks in the shiny grass, where the most distant are at work.
What an adventure, to get the hay from year to year from these miles on miles of river meadow! You see some carrying out the hay on poles, where it is too soft for cattle, and loaded carts are leaving the meadows for distant barns in the various towns that border on them. August 24, 1858
August 26. Meadow-haying is over. August 26, 1859
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Haymaking
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau
"A book, each page written in its own season,
out-of-doors, in its own locality.”
~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2022
