Making Hay

A few things come to mind:
Cutting it.
Summer of ’02.
Dornach, Switzerland.
The onerous task of running in front of the bailer.
Raking the stray blades into clean rows.
Blazing sun beating down on me in farm clothing.
Running behind the bailer straightening the bails.
Taking refuge under shady cherry trees.
Thinking of lunch.
Sneezing.

A few years later, I ventured into Santa Maria Novella’s Soho boutique and sampled their eau de cologne, Fieno (Hay), hoping to rekindle fond memories of simpler times. I can’t say it embodied what I thought it would. Rather, its clean, powdery and slightly green character captured an aspect of hay as, say, I’d imagine a hay-scented soap to smell. There was even a sweetness to it. Why does hay automatically get associated with a dry-ish summer barnyard? Come to think of it, there were many days – this being Switzerland and all – when the sun wouldn’t come out and there I’d be with these marvelous respiring dairy cows (Holsteins for the most part), watching them eat as I threw the beautiful green blades into their manger. Something in Fieno (as I wear it today in the triple extract concentrate) brings back that moment, the cooling breeze coming in through an open barn door and wafting over the freshly cut hay. Its sweet herbaceous character, accented by myrtle, is the essence of such days and the respite they gave from the sun’s rays. A summer must-have, for sure. I wish it came in soap and shower gel, too.