Baling Hay

How many of you have baled hay in the summer? When I was twelve, my cousin and I took a job baling hay for someone who was related to me in some way, although I'm not sure just what the relationship was.

First of all, hay season comes in the hottest part of the summer, it's itchy work, and the bales are heavy. He drove the tractor, which towed a baler, and then the wagon behind, very much like that which is pictured here, except that the bales were a lot tighter than the ones in the picture appear to be, and the wagon was a whole lot bigger. These lazy bastards have a light load, three of them to do it, and they're older than twelve.

As the rectangular bale came out of the baler, one of us would catch the bale and pass it back to the other, who would stack it. That wasn't so hard until the stack got to be five or six levels up, or more.

The guy doing the stacking would, at first, just have to pass the bale to the stacker, who would put it in place. As the stack got higher, he'd have to catch the bale and pass it up to the stacker, who would put it into place, just in time for the next one.

The tractor didn't slow down when the pile got higher. We had to work harder because if no one was there to catch one bale before the next one came along, it would jam, and then we'd both get yelled at.

That was two weeks of hard work because he baled a few 40s of hay. There was always a big dinner, but that was the only break we got from dawn to dusk, except for the ride to the barn once a load was full, unless something went wrong with the tractor or the baler.

Then, when we were all done, he said thank you, and that was it. He didn't pay us. My. cousin eventually got paid because his dad interceded for him, but my dad just told me I should have worked the wages out before I agreed to do the job.

 

I know that would happen with grain silos every now and then, and people would also be suffocated sometimes in silos. I hadn't heard of spontaneous combustion being a particular problem with hay barns but I can see that if the hay were to get wet, that could occur as it composted.

My dad had a barn that included a hay mow, with an area large enough for the tractor in between two hay lofts. My uncle would cut whatever 40s my dad grew in hay each summer, filling both hay lofts and the area between the hay lofts up nearly to the ceiling, and then sell the rest of the hay that he cut. He wasn't the same guy I worked for, without pay, above. I helped him cut hay quite a few times but not as a job. His son, my cousin Jerry, was about my age, so another cousin and I would help get the hay in sometimes so that Jerry could get off early, if we had something planned. I didn't mind working for my uncle for nothing because he was easy to get along with, and usually wasn't in the field with us anyhow, as he trusted us to drive the tractor, so we could switch off on jobs. He'd give us a few dollars but we didn't consider it to be a job.

In the winter, after my dad's supply of hay was depleted to the point where it didn't reach to the ceiling, we'd re-stack it to build tunnels and rooms in the hay when I was younger, and sometimes sleep in there in the winter. Dad had a bunch of horses, so he went through a lot of hay in the winter. Otherwise, they ate mostly pasture grass and drank from the river. We did have to walk about a quarter mile through the field every morning before school, in the winter, to break a hole in the ice for them, and that was a pain in the butt when it snowed during the night because we'd have to break a trail through the snow. We didn't have to shovel a path because the horses could break through the snow but they wouldn't usually do that until after we had broke the trail. There was a water trough but it was usually frozen solid all winter.

 

No.