“Hey, how’s everybody this morning?” Molly Whiteside said the other morning as she delivered the menus to the table at Mabel’s Grill.
    “Don’t remind me,” George Mackenzie said sourly as he flipped open the menu.
    “Don’t remind you of what?” Molly wondered.
    “I have to go home and knock down my hay when I leave here!” George grouched.
    “I cut my hay yesterday,” Cliff Murray said.
    “I’d have thought you guys would like cutting hay,” Molly said. “Summer’s here and the weather’s generally good and the hay smells kinda sweet. I like going for a drive out in the country this time of year.”
    “It isn’t as much fun when you’re the one who has to cut the hay,” George grumbled. “And then bale it  and bring it in and wrap it .”
    “This is one of those times when I’m happy to raise pigs,” Dave Winston chuckled. “The corn’s planted and the beans are in and now I just have the pigs to look after until the wheat’s ready to harvest.”
    “Yeah, rub it in!” George mumbled.
    “When I was young on my grandfather’s farm I remember haying season used to be a lot later,” Cliff said. “He didn’t start cutting hay until the middle of June.”
    “I remember that,” said Dave. “Back then it seemed like everybody had some cattle so everybody harvested hay.”
    “And then there was baling season and everybody harvested small bales and there was a whole lot of sweating in haying season,” recalled Dave.
    “I remember that sweating when I was a kid,” said George, “which is why I don’t have pleasant memories of haying.”
    “My grandfather used to go back to the days of loose hay when they harvested hay with a hay-loader and stored it in the hay mow and the kids would jump into it from the high beams in the barn,” said Dave.
    “Yeah, well before I get buried in hay, can I get your orders?” Molly asked as the guys made their selections and she took the orders back to Mabel in the kitchen.
    “All this talk about haying reminds me that the Farm Show is coming back to the Blyth Festival later this month,” said Cliff. “My dad remembered when it toured the auction barns and town halls back when I was a tiny kid.” 
    “Yeah, my Dad remembers the scene where the city actor was helping put bales in the barn in the heat,” George remembered. “That was funny.”
    “My father had a copy of the movie they made of that,” Dave remembered. “Maybe I should dig that out.”
    “What I can’t figure out is how its going to make sense to the audience today,” George said. “We don’t do any of that on today’s farms.”
    “I read that the director is supposed to be rewriting some of that stuff,” Cliff said. 
    “Not the good stuff, I hope,” said George. “I mean I could like seeing them sweating in the barn. It’d make me appreciate haying in my air conditioned tractor cab these days.”
    “Speaking of heat,” said Dave, “what do you think about this war in Palestine these days?” Dave asked.
    “What a complete mess!”, Cliff said. “Thousands of people dead. I read it will take them 40 years to rebuild  all the buildings they’ve destroyed.”
    “And all for what?”
George wondered. “My wife was watching TV and said ‘They’re fighting over this? Every scene I’ve watched seems like they’re fighting over desert on both sides of the border. Why do they care so much?’”
    “All that death and destruction. Kinda makes you lose your appetite,” Cliff said.
    About the same time Molly returned balancing their plates. “Bacon and eggs for George, pancakes for Dave and ham and home fries for Cliff.”
    And despite their talk, they set right in.◊