Hay ≠ straw. When you go into the farm-and-home store to buy stuff to cover the grass seed you’ve strewn across the lifeless stretches of your so-called lawn, you should ask for “straw,” not “hay.” Hay is grass. Straw is stalks.
[From the New Oxford American Dictionary.]
I think that most hayrides are in fact strawrides.
A related post
The dowdy world goes to a party (includes a hayride)
[I sure hope the grass grows.]
Friday, September 7, 2012
It’s called lifelong learning
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I discovered the difference the hard way, when I bought hay to insulate our strawberry bed for the winter the first time. The next spring, much of the hayseed germinated and made a mess of the bed. Last fall, I properly bought straw instead.
Luckily, we had to ask where the hay was and thus got schooled.
So that must be why a country person who moves to the city used to be called a hayseed!
The person who sold us the straw told us that the difference between hay and straw was that hay was grass and straw was wheat, and then she said something about how her sheep eat straw (indicating their level of intelligence, I guess).
Those monster farming machines manage to remove all the grain from the wheat stalks, so I imagine we will be left with just grass popping up between the pieces of straw and the (now flourishing) weeds.
Yes--important difference if you are buying bales for feed! Further, the hay comes off the bale in 'flakes,' as in 'Give the mare two flakes with the sweet feed.'
The straw I used had plenty of seedheads with it, but since the lawn was getting mowed once it was sprouted, not a problem.
Elaine F.: Notice that she held back from saying anything about the intelligence of humans who confuse hay and straw.
Elaine in Arkansas: If we get amber waves of grain in our front yard, I will share a photograph.
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