Hay in Farmstead World — crop in the game, and what it is on a real farm.
Hay is grass or a legume such as alfalfa, mown and dried so it keeps for months as feed for cattle, sheep and horses.
Timing is the whole art: cut too early and the crop stays wet, cut too late and the leaves shatter and the best of the feed is lost.
Farm facts about hay
Hay is grass or legumes cut and dried for animal feed; straw is the bare stalks left after grain is threshed. Hay is dinner, straw is mostly bedding. (en.wikipedia.org)
Baled too wet, hay rots and molds, so cut grass must cure in the field for days first - and rain can wash the nutrients right out of it. (en.wikipedia.org)
Grass hits peak hay quality for only about two weeks per cutting - miss the window and the crop either loses nutrients or turns coarse. (en.wikipedia.org)
The idiom 'make hay while the sun shines' is literal farm advice: any break in the weather sends mowing, tedding, and baling to the top of the to-do list. (en.wikipedia.org)
Haymaking runs in steps: cut the grass, cure it in the sun, rake it into long rows called windrows, then gather and store it before the next rain. (en.wikipedia.org)
Tedding is the haymaking step where a machine called a tedder fluffs and spreads cut grass across the field so it dries faster. (en.wikipedia.org)