Hauling Hay

(Somewhere in the void between my cell phone and my email, there are a few photos that will later go with this blog.)


The same My Fella who two weeks ago had me helping move his sister's four bedroom house, this day had me helping haul hay. Lawd, lawd, but I have fallen in love with a country boy, to his core.

So I said to his dad this morning:
"Somebody drove a tractor and has cut the hay."
"You go along behind them with another something that picks it up and puts it into those square bales."
"Then these folks come along, following a truck with a trailer, pick all the squares up?"
He said, "Yep."
I said, "For a city slicker, I got this figured out." He said, "You might can talk this shit . . . . ."

So his brother, who is a country character in himself, good as gold and with enough ex's and children to make any woman wonder if he's swinging gold, has the big ol' diesel F250 truck with the trailer on back, and shows up with 3 kids/step kids, all of whom have their own horse so they have to help with hauling hay to feed their respective animal through the winter. His brother asked me what I wanted to do and I said quite honestly, "Since I'm not kin to yaw and don't own any livestock, I'd just as soon drive the truck." He says to me to drive it between the rows of bales, so people can gather on both sides. He's standing in the trailer stacking it, and if he yells "Whoa!" then to put on the brakes gently, not quick. That was really all the instruction I needed, I mean, it's driving a truck slow and listening for a "whoa!" So I did. We were out there from 3pm til probably after 6pm, with My Fella's daddy and cousin. When we got back with one trailer full to the brother's house, I helped some to pitch the bales down into the barn for stacking. I'm gonna tell ya, that stuff is heavy. Real heavy.

It ain't really something I'd wanna do, the hauling part. The truck driving part is easy. But picking up hay bales and tossing 'em, that gets real heavy real fast.