Hay season ended today and it was grueling: a harvest of 11,000 bales over about three weeks. For about a decade, I've worked with the Compton family of Floyd in their massive hay harvest. A day's work ranged from 400 to 1,300 bales. It was grueling not just for the volume, but the heat and humidity were brutal most days. And the old body gets older each year.

At the end of the final day, the Compton family had a supper for the workers, and afterward we sat and talked for over an hour. Putting up square bales of hay is mid-20th century technology, stoop labor, but I still like to do it because you Do What Needs to Be Done, and there is an affinity with previous generations.