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Hay Day; or, Dodging Cops at the BlinkerSeptember 24, 2005 A year's worth of good grass hay arrived this morning from upstate New York, and I headed up to the barn around nine to help unload. Pleasant surprise: Steve the hay guy and his two helpers were doing all the hard work, carrying bales to the conveyor that rattled them into the loft then stacking them in neat, tight rows from the outside wall inward. Ginny was sitting on a bale, "supervising." Neither of us likes to sit around for long, so we found other things to do. I took a heavy straight-tined rake out to the new ring and started raking debris -- roots, chunks of wood, and lots of rocks -- out of the dirt strip along the long side of the ring. The plan is to plant it in grass, which will help drainage and also look pretty spiffy, green grass next to off-white sand. After a while I was relieved of that by Steve's two helpers, who were looking for more work to do. So I took Steve the hay guy, his wife Laurie, and their daughter Cassidy up to see Elaine, who wanted to talk hay. The fastest way to Elaine's place is on horseback through Chicama Vineyards, but there weren't enough horses so we took Uhura Mazda (who was feeling a little dwarfed by Steve's 24-footer in the barnyard). Laurie took Rhodry's seat -- Rhodry stayed at the barn -- and Steve and Cassidy rode in the bed, which is illegal in this state, but the drive from Ginny's to Elaine's involves barely a mile of paved road; all the rest is dirt. I figured we could make it that far without encountering da fuzz. Elaine was in the barn when we arrived. She and Steve talked hay -- including the logistics of getting a midsize semi under low-hanging branches and around some pretty tight turns -- while I introduced Laurie and Cassidy (a six-year-old pistol -- watch out, world, when she gets a little older!) to the horses. The two mama-baby pairs, Caroline and Reike, Janka and Steffan, had just come in from the pasture. They're all going off to the Friesian keuring (inspection) next weekend. Registered Friesians only come in black, but Friesian black bleaches out in the sun just like every other breed's black, and these guys have been out in the rainless, pretty much cloudless pasture all summer; Steffan's foal coat looks decidedly brown, with the black reasserting itself in patches. So for the duration they're indoors during the day, to give black a chance. The boys -- Osage the Quarter Horse, Howie the Thoroughbred, and Manoog, Steffan's yearling full-brother, whose coat is also closer to chocolate than licorice -- were all outside. We visited them, then, at Cassidy's request, toured the house. Tillo and Bear, the resident German Shepherds, appeared, each with Jolly Ball in mouth. Cassidy went off to play with them, and the adults talked hay, horses, and other stuff. A pretty good way to spend a picture-perfect early fall morning (a front came through last night and took the humidity away with it) if I do say so myself. Heading back, I was surprised to see the blinker-light intersection jammed as if it were still August. What was going on? Quite a few bicyclists were clustered on one corner, waiting to cross: bike-a-thon? Not one but two state cops were directing traffic -- and Steve and Cassidy were riding in the pickup bed. Oh, shit. Not only am I going to get busted for trafficking in illegal human cargo, but part of the cargo is a minor child. Probably that would double or triple the fine, if it didn't get me arrested. I said as much to Laurie, in cleaned-up language; she said hopefully that the state troopers were probably too busy directing traffic to worry about us. I crossed my fingers. Of course it took forever to get through the intersection, and when one trooper signaled me to stop at the head of the left-turn line, my heart started thumping. But we got through without incident and were soon rolling down Head of the Pond Road toward Malabar Farm. Whew. Not till we were recounting our adventures to Ginny did I learn that Steve, veteran trucker that he is, had spotted the cops and he and Cassidy ducked down out of sight. Turned out that the drawbridge on the Beach Road had been stuck most of the day, so all traffic between Vineyard Haven and Oak Bluffs was being routed through the blinker, a 10-mile detour, hence the heavy traffic and the two state troopers.
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