#SOL18 Day 29: A Writing Lesson for the Farm

“What do you notice about how this text is organized?”


A go-to question for any writing teacher.


I should have known it had the power to extend beyond writing. . .


This week I’ve been horse-sitting for my brother, as I’ve done several times before. To say that I’m not a natural at the cowboy life would be the understatement of the year. I maintain a fairly healthy fear/terror of horses, but I’m a team player and a big believer in doing things outside my comfort zone.


When I help feed at my parents’ house--where they have also become (sub)urban cowboys--they work from small bales of hay. This is hay grown in their pasture and then used throughout the year to feed their two horses. These small bales of hay are the size most people would picture from a lifetime of experience with pumpkin patches and corn mazes--14” x 18” x 35”, and about 50-60 pounds. These small bales are tied with two strings along the long side, and when you cut the string, you break off “flakes” or slices of hay that are 14” x 18” x 4”-ish. This makes it easy to pick up a couple of flakes at a time to toss into a feeding trough.


At my brother’s place (out in the actual country), where they’re feeding six horses, a donkey, and a goat, it’s a whole different operation. A tractor is required to place a monster bale of hay into this giant wooden box, where it is pitchforked into a huge cart at feeding time. (It probably goes without saying to specify that the tractor work is not in my current skill set. Maybe someday.) The cart transfers the hay out into the corral, where it is again pitchforked into a round, metal feeding trough.


My pitchforking skills have steadily improved over the past year, but this week I figured something out that I wish I would have noticed much earlier.


The wooden box that houses whichever giant hay bale is currently in progress measures easily 6’ x 10’ and is almost as tall as my shoulders. One giant bale basically completely fills this box, weighing in at almost 1500 pounds of densely packed hay.


To get enough hay out to fill the cart, I’ve been standing on tiptoes, reaching over the edge with the pitchfork, and either wrestling hay off the top of the bale or trying to chip away at the side of it. This is not easy to do, since the hay is so tightly packed. Picture me sliding the pitchfork into the hay then trying to use the handle of the tool as a lever against the rim of the box--hoping I don’t snap the pitchfork in two.


It takes me a long time to fill that wheelbarrow. . .


But I’m persistent and have no intention of being bested by a bale of hay, so I make it work.


Two days ago: total revelation. As I looked at the half finished bale, I noticed something. Across the top I saw what appeared to be relatively evenly spaced horizontal indentations. They were much further apart than the lines indicating flakes on a small bale of hay--probably eight to ten inches in width--but it was clearly flakes, about five feet square. And when I stuck my pitchfork in the oh-so-subtle depression between them, an entire “slice” of hay broke off from the bale into the box. So easy! I could then reach in and break up/scoop out pieces of this flake--no need for all the fighting and wrangling I had been doing!


Totally upped my pitchfork game. (I’m ready for my spurs now!)


This morning over coffee it occurred to me: all I needed to do was step back and notice how the big bale was organized. I had a mentor for this work in the small bale. Instead of using what I already knew about the small bale to help me, I had assumed the large bale would be an entirely different animal. But like the writer overwhelmed with a new project, I didn’t have a vision for what I was trying to do. I was mired in the parts without an appreciation for the whole. I needed to figure out how this hay “worked” before I could find an efficient and effective way to unpack it and make it my own.