While the sun shines.
This was in my recommended videos when I checked YouTube just a few minutes ago. I had already seen it, because a few months back I got on a jag of watching all sorts of hay cutting/baling videos. It's a little odd that they'd recommend it because I got my fill of the videos and hadn't watched one since. I've also seen there's a new module for videos on my feed, a "watch again?" list. There's a few videos I've watched a number of times, but the hay baling ones are in the "No thanks, don't care to watch again." group.
I watched a lot of them because it brought back some old memories of when I used to haul hay with my brother-in-law. It wasn't the hardest work I've done in my life, but it sure was the hardest I'd done up until that point in time. I didn't do it full time, but came home on weekends during college and put in a couple of days. If we didn't have to haul the loads too far and everything worked OK and the weather cooperated, we could haul between 800-1000 bales a day, sometimes a little more. I made two and a half cents/bale for that work, not much more than minimum wage, all things considered.
We didn't haul it like the guys in the video, either; my BIL's daddy would bale it up and then we'd come along with a flatbed truck and pick it up. There was only one of us on the back of the truck, too and used a similar loader, but one more upright, called a pop-up loader, much like the one in this video.
I had a coach back in school who was riding us hard on a hot August afternoon and we all were dragging ass, not performing to his expectations. He told us we'd remember those days, that we might or might not remember the good times, but we'd always remember the bad days. I thought he was full of crap then, but he was right.
I remember one day hauling hay; I didn't feel well and was sunburned, dehydrated and probably suffering from minor heat stroke. We were working down on the Canadian River in a lovely meadow surrounded by beautiful cottonwood trees...but it was 105 in the shade and there were swarms of mosquitoes, gnats and biting flies and the ground was bumpy, making a poorly stacked load apt to fall off. On top of everything else, one of the first bales I handled coming off the loader had a live rattlesnake baled with twine, caught by the tail, just enough to where it couldn't make the warning sound. I remembered what the coach said and it hit me that he was right about the bad days. I remember now what else I thought back then, that if I died and went to Hell, it would probably be an eternity right there in that spot.
Please God, no.
I watched a lot of them because it brought back some old memories of when I used to haul hay with my brother-in-law. It wasn't the hardest work I've done in my life, but it sure was the hardest I'd done up until that point in time. I didn't do it full time, but came home on weekends during college and put in a couple of days. If we didn't have to haul the loads too far and everything worked OK and the weather cooperated, we could haul between 800-1000 bales a day, sometimes a little more. I made two and a half cents/bale for that work, not much more than minimum wage, all things considered.
We didn't haul it like the guys in the video, either; my BIL's daddy would bale it up and then we'd come along with a flatbed truck and pick it up. There was only one of us on the back of the truck, too and used a similar loader, but one more upright, called a pop-up loader, much like the one in this video.
I had a coach back in school who was riding us hard on a hot August afternoon and we all were dragging ass, not performing to his expectations. He told us we'd remember those days, that we might or might not remember the good times, but we'd always remember the bad days. I thought he was full of crap then, but he was right.
I remember one day hauling hay; I didn't feel well and was sunburned, dehydrated and probably suffering from minor heat stroke. We were working down on the Canadian River in a lovely meadow surrounded by beautiful cottonwood trees...but it was 105 in the shade and there were swarms of mosquitoes, gnats and biting flies and the ground was bumpy, making a poorly stacked load apt to fall off. On top of everything else, one of the first bales I handled coming off the loader had a live rattlesnake baled with twine, caught by the tail, just enough to where it couldn't make the warning sound. I remembered what the coach said and it hit me that he was right about the bad days. I remember now what else I thought back then, that if I died and went to Hell, it would probably be an eternity right there in that spot.
Please God, no.
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