By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com
We all get busy. So much to do, so little time. I don’t know about you, but I can’t stand around talking all day; I have a lot to get done and I’m losing daylight. Career commitments, family obligations, cooking, cleaning, shopping, mowing lawn, gardening, appointments, meetings, volunteering, reading, studying, writing, or working out; the clock is always ticking; the deadlines constantly looming.
Therefore, we must: Make hay while the sun shines.
But what does this mean exactly? It means nightfall is coming; the darkness lurking. But why the hurry? What’s the rush? After all, haste makes waste and all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Right? Personally, I been waiting for the end of the world since 2013, yet somehow, it’s always the same, year after year. I’m starting to get impatient. In fact, if the bombs don’t fall soon, I’m going to get my gun and start shooting people. Just KIDDING.
But seriously, since the election of Donald Trump, most all of the reported economic indicators are up: GDP, Employment, Consumer Confidence; and what about those stock markets, huh? Wow! They defy gravity, with the S & P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow Industrials all reaching record highs last month. Of course, not one for modesty, the Donald is all too willing to take the credit. On July 31, 2017 he tweeted:
Highest Stock Market EVER, best economic numbers in years, unemployment lowest in 17 years, wages raising, border secure, S.C.: No WH chaos!
Indeed, President Donald J. Trump now completely owns the economy. What do you want to bet that by the mid-term elections in 2018, or before the presidential election in 2020 for sure, the Dark Powers That Be, via the Federal Reserve, will sink the stock markets faster than Debbie Wasserman Schultz on an ocean cruise with the Clintons. Either way, a financial implosion will turn Donald Trump into Herbert Hoover Part Deux quicker than John McCain switches his stated positions on Obamacare.
What happens then, in the next great depression?
As for man, his days are like grass; As a flower of the field, so he flourishes. When the wind has passed over it, it is no more, and its place acknowledges it no longer…
Psalm 103
Got food? If you don’t have a plan, you might want to: Make hay while the sun shines.
But it’s just a cliché, right? And cliché’s don’t put food on the table. Or do they? I think about clichés so often they have become a part of who I am. Here are some similar time-worn proverbs that essentially mean the same:
- Carpe Diem / Seize the day
- A stitch in time saves nine.
- As you sow so shall you reap
- Strike while the iron’s hot
- Never put off tomorrow what you can do today
- Time and tide waits for no man
- Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
- There is no time like the present
The good times, they won’t last forever. Perhaps it’s better to be a few years early than a minute too late. What happens when the trains and trucks stop rolling? When the store shelves are emptied?
He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, And vegetation for the labor of man, So that he may bring forth food from the earth.
Psalm 104
Make hay while the sun shines.
To me, it means being flexible, humble, and willing. Although it sounds dirty, in my area it is quite often expected for a John Deere man to occasionally change the oil and lube the neighbor-lady’s Snapper.
But that’s okay, because that just life in the fast lane…
When we’re all busy as bees…
and it’s just the way we’re wired…
Even when we get tired and run out of gas.
Night is coming, when no one can work…
John 9:4
Summer is almost gone; but not yet. Will you make hay while the sun shines? Tomorrow is a new day.
We are actually making hay today while the Sun shines and it does in fact put food on the table.
I suspect some don’t know the why of this saying. Some who come here have never seen a bale of hay.
Hay needs to be cut and left to dry before bailing. If it rains after you cut and before you bail, the hay is ruined. You can’t bale wet hay (it will get moldy) and if it dries after a rain, the food value of it is lost. I used to walk behind a bailer and throw the bales on the truck. Hard work, even for a young buck, but it made me immune to many grass pollens and gave me an understanding of the part in Genisis about “the sweat of your brow”.
Robert (QSLV)
Never seen a bale of hay?
Wow. I’ve read about people like that but didn’t think they really existed….
If you hadn’t set the record straight I would have. Your description was perfect. And like you I have seen the business end of baler, thrown the bales onto the truck, stacked the truck, threw the bales off to the conveyor taking the bales into the loft, or maybe I was in the loft restacking what had been stacked on the truck an hour before.
Do that kind of work a few summers and you know that job is on less job to consider as a career unless you own a farm. (Another summer job on a sod farm convinced me that dirt down to the cuticles of my fingernails was another career path to avoid).
The “make hay” cliche also applies to wheat and corn farmers who have their eyes to the sky and their ears to the forecast to get their crops in before the thunderstorms on the plains roll through.
Amen, brother.
Me 2 for $1 an hour in the 60’s.
Today’s headlines,
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-01/trump-tweets-dow-22000-today-embraces-big-fat-ugly-bubble
Will Debbie Wasserman-Schultz Will Be The Next Seth Rich
http://allnewspipeline.com/Muslim_Brotherhood_Trojans_Obama.php
Well Uncola,
Having some sealed containers of wheat, etc, and some bins
of this and that, may be seen as the work of a paranoid nut-
case. So be it. Necessary none-the-less. Thanks for the reminder.
Suzanna
The “Trump bragging” commenters:
No, and no-way, does Trump “own” the economy by bragging
about “market” highs. However, it will be spun that way.
We are witnessing his weakness for the big brag, or maybe
we are witnessing his firm links to the looters. Don’t know.
We also can’t really relate to the thinking process of the
multi-billionaires. Are they fully insulated and clueless?
Make hay when the sun shines means Build The Wall as soon as you can.
I’m retired and old. I don’t even make cliches anymore.
Make hay while the sun shines. I always referred to it when it is not raining.
Great article. Harkins back to the times before the 1950s
One of my favorites. .
L’audace, l’audace, toujours, l’audace
BREATHE
Breathe, breathe in the air.
Don’t be afraid to care.
Leave but don’t leave me.
Look around and choose your own ground.
Long you live and high you fly
And smiles you’ll give and tears you’ll cry
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be.
Run, rabbit run.
Dig that hole, forget the sun,
And when at last the work is done
Don’t sit down it’s time to dig another one.
For long you live and high you fly
But only if you ride the tide
And balanced on the biggest wave
You race towards an early grave.
TIME
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.
Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I’d something more to say.
Best Floyd ever.
My “make hay” has been determined by the fact that I need to get my hands on more and soon. So in that spirit I am canning a whole lot of young chevon. Can’t wait till they are 6-8 months old like I normally do. (saving the very best pieces for roasts of course) It’s been a long week from start to almost finished. All ribbing gets thrown in to the large pot for a lovely herbal and spice bath and added to the rest of the larder. Constant canning. That would be me.
I’ve been doing this now since 2009 and yeah, my storage is running out of room. (ran out of room is more like it) Still chugging along though, sore back, feet etc be damned. Plus now…a heat wave in the Pacific Northwest is making it difficult to slog through the day. We now have heat AND humidity together, ugh. Keep in mind, we melt if it gets up to 75 degrees. Onshore flow, please come back soon.
Praying (not really, mostly hoping hard) that the rains stay away so my blackberries (one hundred gallons when the summer is kind) will be nice and ready to go as well. Apples. Applesauce, butters and filling right afterward. Work does not end around here til about …. Thanksgiving. At which point I’m usually so bushed I dread the thought of more standing, running and so on to make the meal. I’m sort of kidding.
Time off is usually only about 2 months, then the whole thing starts all over again. I’m feeling my age more now. With that, I’m off to milk some critters.
[quote]lube the neighbor-lady’s Snapper[\quote]
Giggle 🙂
Preparation ain’t so easy for a lot of folk living paycheck to paycheck. And those in the city, while having more employment opportunities, have few migration ops.
But I appreciate the sentiment of the post. A day late is a dollar short 🙂
@ Attila – I was going to say “older Snapper” but I thought it a bit much.
Regarding the preps, I was trying to think of a cliche incorporating the term “baby steps” but, instead, maybe I could do one on “a little goes a long way” or similar.
Even with Venezuelan-style Fundsarelow Disease, there are still measures that can be taken. Like having a barter plan in place (i.e. old-world skills, canned goods, junk silver, inexpensive garage sale items that could be in demand during times of scarcity, etc).
I was thinking, in the New World, I wouldn’t mind becoming a cobbler. Right now, while the power is still on, I could download and print everything I ever wanted to learn about the topic, prior to acquiring the necessary tools, so I could access and sell my services later if necessary. This way I could also make sure that no one around me would ever feel defeeted.
Bison prepper just published 2 articles for people who are in tough straights, perhaps like yourself.
http://bisonprepper.blogspot.com/2017/07/paycheck-prepper-1-of-2.html
http://bisonprepper.blogspot.com/2017/07/paycheck-prepper-2-of-2.html
Good luck! Seriously!! That you know that you need to prepare is the most important step. There are millions of people with the means to prepare who do not have a clue. If you suggested to them that they do prepare, you would suddenly be on their personal “do not call” list.
We got in 600 bales on Sunday.Picture perfect day. We cheated as we had that hay delivered and stacked in the barn. We will probably get 400 or so bales off this property. Not enough to support all the critters that depend on it. We hope to keep
improving the land to get the hay harvest up to what it should be. We are a few hours south of hard srabble Farmer. It has been a bear to get hay in this year. I think that is true throughout the Northeast. I hear the same from New York state farmers. I wonder how hard scrabble is making out. The garden is growing though. Already too many beans and cukes. The freezers are full. Does anyone need any grass fed, pasture raised, beef lamb, chicken or pork? We are doing what we can, trying to sell some at the local farmers market.
My Aunt had an expresion; “The time to catch bears is when they are out”. We will keep on keeping on.
I was almost wishing I had a neighbor lady whose snapper needed lubed, but then I’m kinda partial to the self lubing snappers. I do enjoy poking around in them.
Don’t forget to wipe your dipstick before reinsertion and screw it in tightly.
I used to haul and stack hay bales. Best conditioning program I ever had. I posted this on SLL tonight. Keep up the good work Uncola.
TYVM Robert
No one here watches Game of Thrones? “Winter is coming.”
Actually I have to wonder, if that series is perfectly timed for what is going on with this country/world, in respect to the fourth turning. (I want to say the first book was published about the same time as Strauss & Howe’s)
Good tongue-in-cheek article…I almost wrote “Still water runs deep”…but that would be shallow.
Thanks, so much, Doug, for your kind words to me on part 1.
My “glass half full” attitude went right down the toilet last night and I ranted on part 2 of the Zman post at 2:30am. I am never up at 2:30 these days and if someone keeps me up because they are totally rude bikers from the “National Biker Roundup 2017” well, it took all I had to keep me from “blowing a gasket”. It was probably not too coherent but it kept my mind off of all the noise for a while. Apparently, they could not wait until morning to unload their bikes. Had to start the party at midnight! My panties were in so many knots I had to throw them away.
Anyways, it caused us to leave a few days early from the temporary spot we had at the RV park. We moved to our country property where we will hang through whatever storms will be coming. Should have been on this sooner rather than later but God has his own timing. “Better late than never”, right?
It’s so much quieter here. I am hoping I will “sleep like a baby”.
Including the multitudinously entangled undergarment line, I counted five cliches in that comment. Pretty good Mary. Looks like I have some competition. ?