We were turning the hay last Thursday at high noon, no panic and no rain, until Friday at least - it never came Friday, nor Saturday either, just a squib on Sunday.

Last week and the week before were glorious. I know one old saying runs, ‘A wet and windy May fills the barns with hay’, and older generations of farmers would frown and shake their wise old heads at the very thought of cutting hay in the sacred month of May.

Then again, we were always told ‘make hay while the sun shines’ so we chanced it and it worked out fine.

We cut the Bottom Bog and half the Top Bog the previous Thursday evening so the new-mown grass got a great opportunity to undergo substantial transformation.

The grass was green, very green, with a delicious mixture of flowers and herbs and a variety of different grass types.

It was back about 60 years ago that Mam availed of a land Reclamation Grant to reclaim the two bogs. Before that they were covered with furze, briars, willow, and thorn trees. The soil was wet with a bluey-grey clay that would grip and pull anything or anyone that stood in it. It was very rough grazing.

Occasionally, in the summer the cows would be left up there. Bringing them down from the bogs was an adventure in itself! They’d be scattered here and there over the ten acres – some behind trees and bushes, playing a bovine version of hide-and-seek!

We were warned to take care and not get stuck in the bog-holes, but a child is not always wise. At least twice I plunged a leg into a sticky, gluey, gooey mucky hole. You’d think something or someone was pulling you down deep under the surface of the bog. Nothing for it, only to pull up the leg and leave the wellington disappear down into the murky underworld.

In a thousand years, maybe an archaeologist or a forensic nuclear-powered scientist will be........

© Evening Echo