The definition of mowing has come to us from past centuries. In general, it has two meanings, but both resemble each other in meaning. Mowing is both the time of haymaking and the place of mowing (meadow, field).
The best time for mowing is considered mid-July. Grasses are gaining strength, matinees are still warm. It's time to harvest hay for livestock.
Freshly green grass on the mowing
In the old days, mowing was a special, significant business for peasants. To him in advance and carefully prepared. They washed white shirts, dresses, scarves. We got up at dawn, when the grass is still covered with dense dew and the fog swirls over the fields. In the morning, the grass is softer, and it’s easier to work until the sun burns mercilessly.
Several men stood up one after another and walked rhythmically waving braids. Everyone tried to keep the grip bigger so that the swath turned out wider. Arranged a kind of competition. Women rake grass to dry faster. By evening or before the rain, the grass was raked and piled up. The next day, the heap was destroyed, and the hay was again scattered for drying.
If the field was far from home, they stayed there for the night so as not to waste time on the round-trip. Huts were made in the shade of trees, but they did not sleep there, but kept supplies. We dined all together. The food was necessarily satisfying, because this work is physically very hard.
Mowing was not only work, but also a holiday, fun. While working, young boys and girls sang songs and showed off in front of each other. And in the evening, while the parents were resting: they picked berries, bathed in the river, took dances.
Adults sometimes went home - old people and small children remained in the village. Young people did not leave the mowing even on Sundays.
Mowing in our time
Today, hay is also mowed. But now, mowing is not a joint work and holiday, but simply necessary work, which is carried out by means of a gas trimmer or a lawn mower. And only a few are able to mow with a manual scythe, and even more so correctly recapture and sharpen it.
Years and centuries pass, old traditions and rituals disappear, new ones appear. But sometimes it becomes a pity that, together with our ancestors, that direct relationship to ordinary life that warmed the souls went away.