About this Talk
Often in my childhood when driving with my mother, she would point to a truckload of hay and say “Make a wish! Whenever you see a hay truck you should make a wish!” Wishing is the secular counterpart to praying, and my mom, born and raised a short distance from where I now write this essay, was shaped by a frugal, agrarian culture in which a full load of quality hay was regarded as a blessing or gift.
And so it is. My wife and I made our own square-bale hay for years in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, where we usually put up between 6-9,000 bales each year with the help of our young children and a few beer-fed farmhands. Now I gather hay from various farmers (at $4-$7/per bale, rather than the $2-$3 we received two decades ago). This is an enterprise I wish to share.
