The oats got yesterday to dry, and today they were mowed by string-trimmer.  They will dry on the ground overnight, then tomorrow we will rake them by hand, turn the windrow, and dry another day, or two, if the weather grants it, but then they will have to be ricked on hay-drying racks in the truck lane through the garden, to dry more slowly out of contact with the ground and all the molds that will begin the process of making our oat hay into humus if we aren’t careful.  We will probably use saw horses and stock panels to create something between the Polish hay ladders, hay tripods, and the hay fences of Caledonia; the object is simply to keep air circulating through the slow-curing hay until time and weather give up and let us put it in the barn.