Hauling Hay

[stxrus]

Tossing bales onto the moving truck. Tossing them off at the barn. Stacking them in the barn.

I remember one funny situation. Billy Coleman was deathly afraid of snakes. They all were venomous and were out to get him. Just after lunch one day there was a blood curdling scream followed by a lonnnng profanity. Everybody looked up to see Billy running away and the bale hadn’t hit the ground yet.
Turns out a small snake (I think a blue runner) got caught up in the baler. As Billy was hoisting the bale to his forearms to toss it on the truck the dead snake’s head poked out of the bale a few inches from Billy’s face. He split like a Roadrunner cartoon

The episode was so funny (well Billy didn’t think so) and the laughter so great it took several minutes to get back on track. Billy got ribbed about that incident for many years

Overall I hated throwing hay but Mrs Dow was a sweet old lady and the 6-8 of us that went out to help made $8.00 a day, got great sandwiches for lunch, and gallons of homemade, fresh squeezed lemonade. Definitely worth every bit of of itchy skin, black snot, aching muscles, and dirt that filled every pore on your body.

 

[Toto'sDad]

I helped my friend's dad with his tobacco when I lived in Kentucky. I regretted offering to help, I helped him through 2 years and I was done. Not fun.

So, you just up and quit tobacco.

 

[boris bubbanov]

This is what trucks are actually for.

A minute ago, I was behind a Toyota pickup with a liner, and he had some left over hay hanging onto the open tailgate. I smiled. Someone who bought a truck with more than just the intentions of using it.

I've never hauled hay, but I have mucked a lot of horse stalls, and then moved the material to where my compost bins were located. Obviously a breeze, next to some of this heavy work ya'll have done. Respect.

 

[Engine Swap]

Worst job I ever had was putting up hay in a barn. Nothing else comes close.

Apparently, you’ve never harvested pumpkins…

 

[Telekat 100]

Spent the evening carrying big round bales from the field to the hay lot yesterday. Later on I happened to notice my activity on my life 360 app.

Crazy.

View attachment 1411417

Numerous large round bales. You must have a lot of rabbits.

 

[Stringbanger]

Here in PA Dutch Country, they misplace their prepositional phrases. A common jovial example would be:

Throw the cow, over the fence, some hay.

 

[telleutelleme]

Do you pre-plan your routes using software or just by experience?

 

[Lou Tencodpees]

Later on I happened to notice my activity on my life 360 app

That would be a pretty typical depiction of me looking for my car at Walmart.

 

[archetype]

It ranks pretty highly on the list of things I do not want to do again.

Throwing bales up on the truck in the blistering sun and then throwing them up into a loft and having to stack them. The itch from the hay was about as bad as the fatigue and the sun burn. I can recall that sometimes we took a first shower outside with a water hose to get clean enough to go inside and use the plumbing to a take a second shower.

I much prefer the modern way of using a tractor with a cab and A/C and various implements attached, trucks with A/C, and maybe even using portable construction lights to do it at night when it is cooler.

I do not enjoy getting that sweaty and filthy. When I think I am tired of spending so much time indoors working in an office with A/C, I can think back to such things and power through it.

Did it once in the 1980s. Once was sufficient for my lifetime.

 

[archetype]

Spent the evening carrying big round bales from the field to the hay lot yesterday. Later on I happened to notice my activity on my life 360 app.

Crazy.

View attachment 1411417

A squirrel makes the same pattern, exactly.

 

[d barham]

Do you pre-plan your routes using software or just by experience?

I just go two at a time until they’re gone.

 

[OneHorseBlue]

Worst job I ever had was putting up hay in a barn. Nothing else comes close.

Agreed.

 

[Guitarzan]

Snake encounters did occasionally happen, but they were non-venomous rat snakes and black racers. I have seen them in bales and hanging out under bales that had sat a while and provided a shady spot to hide.

All fields of grass and hay bales are not the same, some are much heavier than others. We made some contests of it to break the monotony and misery such as trying to pick them up one handed and throw them on the truck or trailer or trying to throw them off into the barn with one hand, or seeing who could throw one the farthest. Then one would bust and we'd catch hell, but a little humor feeds resilience.

As far as tobacco work goes, exposure to nicotine in green tobacco is a potential problem. OSHA actually references it as a potential workplace injury under "Green Tobacco Sickness".

https://www.osha.gov/green-tobacco-sickness

 

[P-Nutz]

That’s itchy bidniss!

 

[Rstewart8706]

Worst job I ever had was putting up hay in a barn. Nothing else comes close.

My very first job at 13, $3 per hr. I thought I was rich after my first paycheck, $150.

 

[BigPapa-53]

I worked for a fellow during the summer when I was an early teen. He decided he was going to bail the “growth” in the creek bottom that hadn’t been cut in a couple years. We had to chain the break-away on the mower and kept splintering pitman arms on the bailer. After buying every pitman arm in the county, we ended up hauling it loose on a flat wagon and stacking it around a pole with pitchforks.

 

[Dukex]

I stacked thousands of alfalfa bales, lots of oat bales (lighter than alfalfa but itchy), shoveled tons of alfalfa cubes, and carried/loaded 30,000-40,000 bags of feed--all in the Nevada desert heat (at least in the summertime), between the ages of 13-18 eighteen.

Thanks, Dad!

...but not while in my sixties. Good work, my man.