The hay is in the barn.

Source: Archives of Ontario Collection of Agricultural Images
In my pre-university world that phrase actually meant the hay was in the barn. Real hay. Real barns. With no ability to lift a 100 pound bale this is not an activity I ever participated in, so I may be a bit fuzzy on the specific details. That’s my disclaimer for any statements that follow that are not so much factual as something I made up.
Back in the stone age when I lived in rural land, lots of young guys (almost always guys) would earn a bit of money picking up bales of hay from the field and tossing them on trucks. Back at the barn they would lift the bales from the truck and stack the hay such that the bales wouldn’t spontaneously combust and burn down the farm. After a day of lifting bales the men folk would be hot, tired, sweaty, injured, and farmer-tanned (and, I would be remiss to omit, muscled). It was a stressful time – the weather needed to be just right to cut, cure, bale, and store the hay and the window of time for harvesting is only a couple of weeks. So when the hay was in the barn it was time to celebrate. Or sleep for days.
Non farming athletes have pirated adopted the phrase. Hard work, injuries, sweat, weather worries, muscles, weird tan lines, and delayed gratification are well-known to both groups. Still, I’m not sure how the farmers feel about this adage theft. I’m also not sure if people still stack hay or if robots have replaced manual farm labour the way they will one day replace runners.
For this not-a-farmer, the hay is in the barn means taper time. Allegedly, my hard work hay is in my race ready barn (the celebration comes after I cross the finish line). I’m supposed to trust in the training that I’ve done and reap the rewards (or disappointments) in Boston. Except I never trust in the work that I’ve done, usually because I’ve done so very little. I worry I won’t have enough hay to feed the cows all winter. The analogy is getting pushed too far, but what I really need is three more weeks of haying.
Title: James Taylor – Walking Man. 1973.
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