Hay Round Two
I'm just as surprised as you are, honestly
My day did not, strictly speaking, go according to plan:
The lesson here is that Presently Miserable Amy cannot be trusted to make Future Decisions? I woke up at 5:55 this morning and texted my father-in-law at 6:10: “I won’t make it out today after all. Sorry.”
When I wrote my post around 8:30 I was feeling a bit better but sticking to my guns: I would not spend a second night in a row tossing and turning because I couldn’t breathe through my nose and wondering if I was getting wheezy or if I was imagining things.
Driving home from my 9:45 doctor’s appointment, I passed by a couple fields being baled. Maybe it was because a cardiologist just told me I was really quite healthy, but my respiratory system felt great. My eyes and nose were clear. And I thought to myself, isn’t this a beautiful day? What are the odds there is another day this summer when it is 70* and breezy — actual perfect tractoring weather?
So at 11:30 I pulled up to the farm and at 12:25 I started raking hay.
I wore my dust mask from the beginning this time (super rookie mistake yesterday) and it also turns out that raking hay is inherently less dusty than tedding. This makes sense in retrospect, since the whole idea of tedding is to throw the hay in the air everywhere all at once, and the idea of raking is to gather it in neat, tidy rows.
I raked for 3.5 hours straight and I never once got bored and never once lost the ability to breathe through my nose.
Today I also asked the proper questions: How fast should I be going? Besides, you know, the equipment beating itself up and losing teeth, what should I look out for? (If too much hay hits the rakes at once, it can clog up and drag.) Luckily I didn’t have any problems except for at the very end where I raked myself into a corner. I called E’s uncle and asked what I should do, and the answer was to leave her where she sat and the (very small) rest would get dealt with after the rest was baled.
I’m at home writing this just before I go get the kiddo. I feel miles and miles better than I did yesterday. Thankfully E’s dad is doing the baling on this field (as I left, they were troubleshooting a new round baler).
Tomorrow they are calling for rain so I should have no excuses tomorrow to get down to business with my rubber stamp, quilting, and database projects.
Today I:
Wrote pages and yesterday’s post and did some light prep for my rubber stamping project
Went to a doctor’s appointment1
Hit a bucket of balls at the driving range on the way home because my inner artist child looked over and said, “That looks fun can we do that pleeeeaase?” and it’s not like I have a good excuse not to. Actually, inner artist child wanted to play a round of putt-putt but adult me had been wanting to try out the driving range for a while and we compromised and had a great time. I think mini golf by myself would have been lonely.
Ate lunch and scooted over to the farm
Raked a field of hay and learned to drive a second tractor
Tomorrow:
Rubber stamping!
Quilting!
Friendship databasing!
If you must know, I’m fine. I had heart palpitations in the winter and I went to get them checked out. Since learning that they are harmless and probably stress related, I have had almost none. Go figure.