Dakota Gardener: Make hay while the sun shines

This phrase baffled me when I was young.

What did it really mean? My friend Kevin, who grew up on a farm and taught me about baling hay, told me that it has two meanings.

The first, literally, was to cut and bale hay when it would be sunny for a few days in a row. He didn't want the fresh-mown hay to get rained on, for fear it would get moldy. Also, sunlight was critical to drying out the grasses...