Lessons I Learned in the Haymow

Today is back to school day in Canada, unless you live in British Columbia where the teachers are on strike. It has been many years since I sent a child off to school. Mind you, this week I am sending Daughter #1 off to a month long course in a faraway country. I no longer need to visit Staples and fill my shopping cart to the brim. Ahh, the wonders of paper and school supplies. The first ink to garnish the first page of the new notebook. The fears of a new classroom and will I find another type B kindred spirit to befriend. Down the trusted hall to the orchestra pit with my Uncle Billy's violin, where I feel confident and accepted in my first violin's chair near Mr. Freeborns's baton. Just to let you know, I was no violin playing prodigy; that year, I was the only one who knew how to play until he taught the basics to the others.

Something triggered me yesterday, but my computer time is limited this week so I'm saving it. But as I laid upon my pillow last night, I had some memories that came from that trigger. They won't take long to write, unless one thing leads to another.

I learned many lessons on the farm. For you who don't know me, I had two sets of grandparents who lived to ripe old ages. Blessed am I. One lived close by - my city grandparents, and one lived about an hour away - my farm grandparents. I spent many weekends and some summer weeks on the farm.

I learned a lesson in the haymow. The haymow was a completely innocent place where I could play with my cousins and sibs and the neighbors when the weather wasn't so good. It could be dangerous. Nowadays, I don't suppose a child could play in there with parental guidance and supervision. We survived. Back to my lesson. It was Ivan or David, who lived down the road, who said, "Don't pee on the hay." "What?" "Don't pee on the hay." Actually, the thought of peeing on the hay had never entered my head. There was, after all, a two seater just a zip over the boards in the paddock, through the milkroom and across the yard. It sat right next to the old Baptist church turned into a woodshed. No need to pee in the hay, whatsoever. But now, curious I was. "Why not?" "It will make the hay catch on fire." "You're kidding me, right?" No, it will cause spontaneous combustion." "What?" "Spontaneous combustion." The barn never burned down. I guess none of my sibs or cousins peed in the hay. I know I didn't. I did later learn about spontaneous combustion in science class, and I recall a grain elevator in Halifax blowing up and burning while Daughter #1 was there in university. I went to that great authority, Wikipedia, this morning, and looked up spontaneous combustion. Here it is, and, Ivan or David was probably right.

Hay

Hay is one of the more studied materials in spontaneous combustion. As hay varies by the type of grass and location grown utilized in its preparation, it is very hard to establish a unified theory of what occurs in hay self heating. It is anticipated that dangerous heating will occur in hay that contains more than 25% moisture content. The largest number of fires occurs within 2 to 6 weeks of storage, with the majority occurring at 4 to 5 weeks.

The process may begin with microbiological activity (bacteria or mold), but at some point, the process has to become chemical. Microbiological activity will also limit the amount of oxygen available in the hay. Moisture appears to be quite important, no matter what process. At 100^o C, wet hay absorbed twice the amount of oxygen of dry hay. There has been conjecture that the complex carbohydrates present in hay break down to simpler sugars, which are more readily oxidized.

My grandfather Holmes taught me another science lesson. This lesson took place in the paddock. There were three tubs, side by side, for the cattle and horses to drink from after a hard day's work or graze and cud-chewing. There was one hose that only reached the first tub. "How do you get the water into the other two tubs, Grampie?" Grampie showed me. From tub one to tub two, and from tub two to tub three, he ran short sections of hose. When tub one filled up to the level of the hose, water in tub one made its way through the hose to tub two and then to tub three. A simple procedure, I know now, but to my child mind, Grampie was a pretty smart feller. My first physics lesson.

Cousin Mike learned a lesson in the haymow, he told me in 2003. Check the floor before you jump. That's right, we used to jump from the haymow in the loft to the barn floor, which was covered in remnants of hay and chaff, covering the upturned pitchfork that nearly met his eye. As I recall, in a fuzzy way, there might have been a rope from one loft to the other, for children's swinging purposes of course, as well.

I think we had to quit jumping after my sister, who was too young to be jumping from haymows, started to climb down and got scared. She hung there from the big beam. I ran as fast as my chubby little legs could run, across the boards in the paddock, through the milk room, and across the yard to the kitchen, where the hired man saw my face, quick as a wink retraced my steps, and caught her. Strong fingers, little Pat.

Those were some of my good old days. We children had free range of Hillgrove, from the church down the road to the top of the hill where the Waldow barn now sits. We could go to the brook and the swimming hole by ourselves, as my mother and her cousins and sibs did a generation before us. The biggest danger we faced was the threats of my cousins to put blood suckers on us. No, they never did. There was one forbidden place - the ruins of Leonard's house. I was a good girl and I always walked around it. Can anyone tell me what was in Leonard's old house? We'd scoot on our tummies through the abandoned, rusty old thrashing machine. Nope, no lockjaw, fortunately. We'd jump from the second floor of the granary into the horses' oats stored below, the granary that burned (not from spontaneous combustion, but from the smoldering ashes my Gramp disposed of in there).

I now know that I had a wonderful childhood. I was a shy kid, type B personality, but at the farm I was in my element. So many wonderful memories - waking up to the crow of the rooster, eating oatmeal porridge, macaroni and tomatoes, and homemade bread cooked on and in the woodstove, sleeping in the kitchen chamber on the feather tick, wearing dressup clothes that hadn't yet made it into the rag rugs or quilt top, playing with cousins, sibs and friends, and with kittens and calves, playing in Charlie's barn.

Stay tuned; one of these days I'll tell you about the pink house.

The top photo is of the barn, in the process of being dismantled. The second photo is the outhouse next to the church turned woodshed. The last photo is of a couple of my cousins "driving" Gramp's tractor. The pigpen is behind the wood pile, and the granary is in the background. The first two photos were taken by my Dad; I'm not sure about the last one.