Sowing Oats, Sugán Ropes, and Learning to Straw Boy

We gathered by the barn on Tommy Earleys farm where the fields roll down the hill to the glittering lake. “I have done nothing complicated. Nothing that hasn’t been done before.” Edwina said. From the truck she hauled bags of oat seed. Large buckets. Armfuls of straw. “It is a simple thing that I have done.”

Simplicity when many hands pitch in runs away with itself and becomes an idea.

And the simplest things complicate beautifully when people happily gather to do them. They become a way. Then a tradition. Then a ritual. And then a thing that is part of who and what you are. The work of it shaping you as you shape it. Then, eventually, it becomes a thing that shapes an idea of “we”. This is not far beneath the skin for many people. The people gathered by Tommy’s barn hungered in part for that old and connected sense of “we” I think. “We who do the work of land” made “we” by our common graft of sowing and harvest. By our common celebration. By the traditions we mark it and ourselves with.

We gathered to sow a field of oats. So again we can gather to harvest it. Then make take the straw and learn to make straw boy costumes. And sing and dance and parade. Have a join – a party together – to celebrate our harvest. It is the Sowing the Seed Project by Edwina Guckian. Simplicity and beauty as old as the work of land itself. People all over the country sowing seed, harvesting oats, and learning to strawboy. You can do it too.

We broke the ice by delving our hands into the buckets of grains and with the swirl of hands the work began as people dipped in tandem into the seed to mix it. The rough seeds polish the skin as you mix. “My skin is so smooth” my daughter yelled. Others dipped and delved and found so too.

We loaded the buckets and walked down through the land to where we would meet the truck and the work of the day. We had seeds to plant. Oats to grow. On another day then straw to harvest. Costumes to make. Music to hear. Parades to dance. Parties to have. From this work and the tradition of it people for centuries made the common sense of who they were that they shared with each other. Forging themselves and their communities as they did the work of farms and food together. In a time when a farm was the work of a village. Some small scent of that was in the air and we caught it in the wildflower fields as we walked the land to the bare earth of the oat plot.

Under the sun we walked the tilled earth of Tommy’s plot. Black earth moist, crumbling to the touch, like a glove of earth if you sank your hand into it. Adults and children gathered their skirts or doffed their caps and filled them with seed which arced across the plot from the palms of many hands. It is a simple thing. As she said. But as the seed was scattered the poetry of it unravelled. Hung in the air. And spread itself through our group. Smiles rippled across our faces as we met each others glance with bright eyes. Scratch the surface of the land and the people who work it and you won’t scratch far before you find their ancient paganess. And so it was with us. You cannot sow seeds without becoming something of a small god. It is a whole world you create. And it sucks you into itself so you are part of something bigger. You, the sun, the seasons and the soil not so far from one another as you maybe had been before.

Some of us are conscientious sowers. Some carefree. Children gather up skirts and dip happy hands into folds filled with oat seed. Others scan the field with careful handfuls looking for gaps. Others still ply a careful line of flax seed at the seedbed edge. All are happy. All, eyes – carefree or consientious – are bright with the common work.

We are not those people. Who gathered year by year and invested the work of their subsistence and necessity with meaning. We are not those people. We do not have their engine of meaning. Tied to the seasons marked with common ritual. Many miss that engine sorely. For many people land is that engine and the work of it still. The common work of growing food a connection to each other and the greater half wild world we depend on, are of. Will return to.

In the work of sowing seeds we till the surface of one another and find something a little lost perhaps. And share it with each other with quick smiles and a spark of recognition. This is how it was. This is what we did. We did it for long enough together that it was what we were. We no longer do it. But it is not far beneath the surface.

To finish we went to the barn and Edwina showed us the making of Súgán ropes. Ropes spun from twisted straw that two people worked the length of. Singing to keep their rhythm. Used to tie up hay ricks and tow them from the fields, for horse collars, chair seats. Used to tie ricks of hay in stormy fields. Hands became deft at work not done before. Smiles became easier still. As ropes were spun still more meaning was made and it hung in the air like a loop of straw rope. Thrown hand to working hand.

The Sowing the Seed Project is Open to anyone to sow oats, learn to make straw boy costumes, and reconnect with a tradition that lives still beneath our skins. Find it here.

It’s organised by Edwina Guckian, whose website with all things Irish, traditional and dance related is here.

Tommy Earley, a gentleman and a kind soul, works Mountallen farm. He can be found here. And his winderful farming for nature talk about ponds, dragonflies, and caring for the natural world is here. Well worth three listens (it’s podcast 18).