Haymaking at Home Farm. If you're thinking, "I wouldn't want to drive a tractor with a baler and wagon hitched behind it on that hill!" you are RIGHT, it is very nerve-wracking. Neighbor J made some square bales and some round.
I had to drive on a similar hill as a teen, with my father and brother in the wagon catching the bales and stacking them. When I got to the last (steepest) circuit, the wagon tipped over sideways, despite the fact that I was creeping at a very slow pace and took the turn as carefully as I could. I can remember looking back in horror as it toppled sideways, bales and family members going helter-skelter. The tractor chose that moment to short-circuit the horn? Somehow? So it started blaring endlessly.
It was like a slow-motion scene from the Hulk. My father, who had been completely buried in hay, rose up out of it ROARING with rage. He stomped up to the tractor and smacked something on it Very Hard. The horn stopped instantly. I had the serene calm one feels when death is at hand.
Then he quelled himself somehow, and told me that it wasn't my fault; the slope was simply too steep for the top-heavy wagon. There was nothing I could have done differently. My brother, who would have been around 10 at the time, emerged from the hay somewhat less dramatically. I wanted to faint, but couldn't quite manage it.
Making hay. It's an experience. Have literally NO IDEA how that man lived to be 83 years old. He did stuff like that all the time.
Ooh, I have another good story about haying this field in particular. See in the first photo how the slope is gentle, then it gets steeper? Well. This woman:
- belonged to our neighbors, but decided she preferred to live in our field and
- the combined efforts of both dads were unable to keep her from just crashing through the fence and going wherever she damned well wanted and
- both moms got together and decided to call a halt to the carnage and just let her be our Honored Guest
- Plus she was the prettiest, sweetest pet ever (as long as she got her way all the time) and a good milk cow
Being the only milk cow in a herd of beef cattle meant that she got Privileges (she assumed they were entitlements) and also got milked by hand instead of a machine. One day my father was making round bales in that field. She watched for a while, and then decided to have some fun. She approached one of the 1000-pound (455 kilo) bales and started 'shadow boxing' it. Lowered her head, brandished imaginary horns and went after it like a rodeo bull. It rocked a bit, then rolled a few feet, then
woooOOOOOAAAAAAGH down over the slope it went, picking up speed all the way. She watched, entranced. Best. Toy. Ever!! and started on a second one. About the time she got the second one rocking and rolling, the tractor's trajectory came around so that my father could see what she was doing.
Roaringwithrage.mp4
He had to confine the bovine. Then fix the fence at the bottom of the hill that had been flattened Looney-Tunes style. The rest of us were snickering for months. I mean.
Ah. Making hay looks so much more fun when I'm wearing layers of sweaters and trying to cope with temps way below freezing outside.