One Helluva Bad Day

Canada Free Press ^ | 03/31/17 | Jimmy Reed

[Sean_Anthony]

Shaking his head and staring down at me, Jaybird said, “I almost feel sorry for yo’ brother. For him, it’s sho’ been one helluva bad day.”

It was a torrid July day in the summer of 1961. On my father’s Mississippi Delta farm, a huge field was covered with 80-pound hay bales that had to be loaded by hand onto trailers and hauled to the barn.

At five o’clock, Dad opened the bedroom door. “Hay time, boys, git up. Jaybird is waiting outside for y’all.”

[humblegunner]

One Helluva Bad Day

Hit count plunging at Canada Free Blog?

[marktwain]

Did a fair amount of haying when I was that age. Hot, sweaty, itchy, dangerous, hard physicallabor.

Mostly mechanized now.

[chris37]

It's funny how you link to the same website all day, every day, and you never say anything to anyone.

Things that make you go hmmm...

[katana]

Your description is apt. Hardest labor I ever did. Partly because the people in charge insisted that the bales be stacked neatly, like puzzle blocks, on the wagon before heading to the barn for storage in the mow. I would afterward see trucks loaded at other farms helter skelter and think to myself I picked to wrong farm.

[Bob434]

did some myself- Stackin bales aint for the weak- and liek you say- it’s done right at the hottest most humid times of year to boot- but it was good honest work- You knew you’d done a day’s work when you were done (and after all your chores were done at end of the day)

[Bob434]

[[I would afterward see trucks loaded at other farms helter skelter and think to myself I picked to wrong farm.]]

Lol- yup- We had an ‘automated picker upperer’ (can’t remember the name of it now, but were pretty stocked when we finally got one) that would shoot the bales about 20 feet to the hay trailer- and we’d have to basically catch them/direct them to the right spot- and they would come at us pretty quick too- Got knocked off my feet a few times- aint easy directing 70+ lbs shot at ya from a hay canon lol-

[alexander_busek]

Bucked bails (rarely straw bales - usually hay bales... often even pea-hay, which is especially dense) every summer of my life from age twelve to 22 in SW Washington. Usually without a grain elevator hitched to the side of a big truck with high side walls, travelling up and down the field at 2-3 mph. My little brother (at first only ten years old) would drive, my father stood in the bed and stacked, while I walked alongside the truck and used hay hooks to drag the bales to the back of the truck and heave them up and onto the bed. (Later, when the truck was nearly full, had to push them up the sides.) We would average 175 bales per truckload, and four or so truckloads per day (including unloading the bales and stacking them in the barn).

Unfortunately, my father also dealt in bales, so we would buck far more than we needed for our own livestock (Polled Herefords).

Dirty, back-breaking, dangerous work: Ever get a hay hook in the back by mistake - or your fingers caught in the chain drive of a hay elevator - or fall off a pile stacked 20 bales high - or breathe in the dust while crawling around in the black crawlspace at the top of a stack reaching almost to the rafters of a barn?

Modern health and safety laws would prohibit an adult worker from doing those things - and we were pre-teens.

Regards,

[katana]

But if you survived it did build character (and a healthy respect for working folks long before Mike Rowe made it official).

[Bob434]

Thankfully I grew up without cell phones, without ipads, without computers- Grew up workin- and playing outdoors- loved it- wouldn’t trade it for anything-

[IronJack]

We raised horses (among other livestock) and fed them a lot of hay. Alfalfa mostly. I tossed my share of bales onto the flatbed and from the flatbed into the barn. The heat ... the dust ... the sweat. Vivid!

You couldn’t go shirtless or wear shorts unless you wanted to shed a few layers of skin, so you sweltered in long-sleeve/long-pants attire. Brutal, soul-shaping work.

[Twinkie]

I chopped cotton for two weeks when I was 14. That was hard
work; but I’m thankful I didn’t have a lifestyle that
called for that kind of manual labor all my life.

I used to have to toss down small haybales to the animals
below from the loft of the barn.

[SgtHooper]

With wire as well. The “insisting” is not to be organized, but to minimize the labor needed to handle them. Farmers are not stupid, contrary to what Hollyweird sells. Randomly piled bales on the trailer are harder to deal with when unloading than stacked bales. Especially since elevators are typically used to move the bales to heights used for large stacks inside/outside the barn. When I was about 10, I think, my neighbor devised a bale thrower, that received a shortened bale (about half size of the 80-lbr) and propelled it up onto the trailer/wagon, now built with high sides and now randomly piled. Handling became much easier, as no human trailer stackers were needed, and unloading was simply a fork for dragging onto the elevator, where the trailer could be raised. Also, no stacking was needed in the barn, and the hay dried out much quicker, rather than possibly starting barn fires using the old wire bales that were heavily compressed.

[katana]

Oh, I knew that and appreciated why they insisted. Frankly, I’m just as insistent now as they were then on doing it “the right way”. But Jesus, God, it was hard work. :)

[Scrambler Bob]

Did a fair amount of haying when I was that age
= = =

In the fall, back at High School after summer , some of the farmer’s kids had been bucking bales. Some 80 lbs, and I think some 100 lbs.

These young men were Fit!

[philled]

Throwing bales was good work as a high school kid in the early 80s. However, it was horrible on days that we also had one or two-a day football practice. Haven’t smelled it for years but the scent of alfalfa is still vivid to me.

[WhirlwindAttack]

So Graeber and Yoder, 2 fine Amish fellas had a 13 ft load of hay on der waggin.

Und de came upon a 12 ft covered bridge.

Yoder tells Graeber to go for it there weren’t no cops around.

Und dats how the waggin got stuck Pa.

Still got a trip to the woodshed though.

[WhirlwindAttack]

Between haying, de-tasseling corn and taking care of the stock, farm life kept us busy.

I actually rode a horse to H.S. FFA had a barn on site. I restored a Studebaker wagon in shop class. Junior year I got a Mustang of the Ford type. Still took the wagon and team to a few “Road Parties”. You could drink a ton and the horses knew the way home. Woke up in the barn more than once after a hay ride.

[Scrambler Bob]

I didn’t buck bales, but did apple orchard work.

I would suck down 1-2 quarts of water at one big gulp a few times each afternoon.

Then in the fall at football practice, coach would say, don’t drink a lot of water.

The lazy town boys would drink and puke.

Football practice was tamer than orchard work.