Hauling Hay

[d barham]

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.

 

[hungahunga]

What do you "carry" them with?

 

[dented]

Atta boy.

 

[getbent]

one of my favorite poems...

Hay for the Horses​

He had driven half the night
From far down San Joaquin
Through Mariposa, up the
Dangerous Mountain roads,
And pulled in at eight a.m.
With his big truckload of hay
behind the barn.
With winch and ropes and hooks
We stacked the bales up clean
To splintery redwood rafters
High in the dark, flecks of alfalfa
Whirling through shingle-cracks of light,
Itch of haydust in the
sweaty shirt and shoes.
At lunchtime under Black oak
Out in the hot corral,
---The old mare nosing lunchpails,
Grasshoppers crackling in the weeds---
"I'm sixty-eight" he said,
"I first bucked hay when I was seventeen.
I thought, that day I started,
I sure would hate to do this all my life.
And dammit, that's just what
I've gone and done."

 

[d barham]

What do you "carry" them with?

With this, two bales at a time.

 

[fjblair]

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

 

[imwjl]

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

I recall the lack of muscle when I was little, but for ag still say turkey farming and assigned to help the vet with autopsies when there were some dead birds or a whole kill was the worst. Same for trash hauling between food businesses and landfills in hot summer after heavy rains.

At first I thought being assigned to help the vet would be interesting - watch the science of what was killing the young turkeys. Near 100% of it was cleaning up the mess and shoveling the birds into an incinerator.

All the rotten and first part of my life jobs still had benefits later. In addition to the respect and understanding for who I supervised, there were many times when some were surprised by the stuff I knew how to do.

@d barham your area looks a little dry in the drought map. I hope you have a good season and work safely. You also got me looking at Hominy Creek. I like small watersheds and for retirement purposely got a solo canoe to hit them when the levels are right.

Current Map | U.S. Drought Monitor

droughtmonitor.unl.edu

 

[memorex]

Haulin Hayes & the Flatbeds, good band name.

 

[Guitarzan]

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

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.

 

[d barham]

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.

Yes trucks and equipment (and air conditioning) make all the difference. Corrina even offered to ride along. I suspect it had something to do with the air conditioner.

 

[Gnometowner]

Our football coach had cattle and the team put up bales for summer conditioning. Throwing 80lb bales of alfalfa & prairie grass all summer and mung bean hay in the fall.

 

[Toto'sDad]

Here in California, road siding alfalfa hay, hauling hay and putting it up in a barn has to be among the hardest jobs people ever had to do. If the guy baling hay got lazy, and let the baler out, they might weigh upwards of 140lbs apiece. If the baler was good, they still went 120 plus or minus a few pounds.

 

[BigPapa-53]

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

Try housing tobacco. Got to be part monkey.

 

[Telekat 100]

A barn full of hay is worth more than just money come winter.

 

[schmee]

I hauled hay the old way. Loose hay, into the barn loft!
After the hay was dry it would be collected up onto the old Dodge flatbed truck with a mechanical hayloader pulled behind the truck. The hayloader is like an elevator powered by the wheels turning that lifts the loose hay up and over onto the truck bed. This was the old school method of putting away loose hay, not bales. The barn, like most old barns, had a big door up at the roof on one end. You opened this door and there was a metal track in the very top of the inside ridge of the barn. On this track was a wheeled trolley beam and big pulley. You park the truck under that big door outside and you pull the pulley on the track out over the truck. The rope had a big hay grapple on it. You lowered it down into the hay on the truck, you could open the two forks and push them into the hay. It would lock closed. You then used a tractor powered winch or a vehicle to pull the rope up so the big bundle of hay would rise to the large open barn door. You pulled a release and the whole bundle could be rolled back on the overhead track to the back of the barn. One more jerk and the hay forks would release and the hay bundle would fall on the floor of the hay loft. It was pretty cool really… and not as much physical work as lifting a bunch of bales.
(Online pictures of the process)

 

[getbent]

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

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.

 

[telekaster1999]

Picked up a many a square bale out of the field. And bagged feed out of a mixer. Hard work for sure.

 

[soul-o]

Oh man, that is hard work. My cousin and I, 12 & 13 years old, up in that 104 degrees hay loft in long sleeve shirts with hay bales coming at us faster than we could move them is a bonding formative experience. Old Russian dairy farmers down below seemed determined to make us quit. They used to give us hot coffee on our breaks between wagons. They said anything cold would be a shock to our system. L

 

[Preacher]

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

Years ago my grandpa had a decent sized cattle operation so hay was a necessity.

A typical summer amounted to putting 1500 bales into the barn for winter feed.

One summer when I turned 14 my grandpa gave me a choice. He said I was old enough to bring in the hay by myself and he would pay me to do it. I could either use one of his hired hands to help (they mostly just drove the truck. We had a bale picker so two people could make pretty good time with one driving and one loading) and he would pay me a Nickle a bale ($75) or I could get my own help (he still let us use the truck and picker) and he would pay me .15 cents a bale.

Well of course I wanted the larger amount. I called a buddy of mine from school and we hauled 1478 (I still remember the count to this day LOL) bales from the field to the barn over two days.

My buddy and I split $220 and thought we were wealthy men!

Now that I think about it, it would take ten times that amount for me to haul hay again.

 

[P Thought]

Our football coach had cattle and the team put up bales for summer conditioning. Throwing 80lb bales of alfalfa & prairie grass all summer and mung bean hay in the fall.

At one of the three high schools I attended, we played Wheatland (CA) in football. Those hay-stacking farm boys were strong