I don’t know who coined the phrase, “You’ve got to make hay when the sun shines,” but they were absolutely a genius.
When I was younger, and how shall we say this… not really eager to help out every single day in the field… I didn’t really understand the point of that saying. I mean, I had things to do, you know, like sleeping, partying with friends, and of course more sleeping. So when good ‘ol Dad would trot out the phrase, I would often cover my head with a pillow and pretend it really wasn’t sunny. As you can imagine, that didn’t go over so well. So off to the field I would go.
As is inevitable with the weather, we’d soon endure days of rain or bad weather, and the work started to pile up. It was then I’d get a glimpse of why my Dad was always so eager to “make hay when the sun shines.” Because he knew through wisdom and experience, if we didn’t take advantage of the good weather, we’d pay dearly for missing the opportunity when the bad weather came.