The "swather" cuts the hay and lays the cut hay into windrows. Hay will mold and mildew if you bale it too wet, so the hay is left out to dry in the sun. A "hay rake" is used to turn the windrows over for uniform drying. After the hay dries, the "baler" takes the loose hay in the windrows and compacts it into bales wrapped with baling twine or wire. A "hay wagon" then comes and picks up the bales and automatically stacks the bales on the wagon bed. When the wagon is full, you simply back the wagon up to where you want a stack and it will deposit a fully formed stack without a single human hand touching a single bale of hay.
......or so I've heard.
I have worked in hay fields since the time I was twelve years old. But I worked for farmers who thought it was beneath them to use the "new fangled" hay equipment. If you wanted to move hay from the field to the barn, you put on your "big-boy" pants and none of that sissy complaining about blisters, sunstroke, or not being able to move your hands because they were permanently locked into claw-shape from gripping the hay hooks or the baling twine.
No-sirree. Each and every bale was moved at least twice by hand.....if you were lucky.
The truck we loaded the hay on was an all-purpose truck that also functioned as a wheat truck. Because wheat is extremely heavy, these trucks had a great deal of suspension so that the bed of the trucks were about four feet high to begin with. Not so much a problem when loading the bottom two layers. Progressively more difficult when adding additional layers.
Three people are needed to hand-load a hay truck. The driver, a guy on the ground who walks along the truck and throws the bales onto the bed of the truck, and the stacker who stays on the truck bed and stacks the bales as they are thrown up to him.
Oh, I forgot. A three man crew was also for sissy's. I only dreamed of this so-called three man crew. Nope. I was all three - driver, thrower, stacker.
"How does that work?" you ask.
Well, let me tell you about my first day on the job.
"You ready for this?" asked Jim.
Jim was a friend of the family and was the one that offered me the job.
"Sure thing" I say, confident that I was up to the task. Idiot.
"Well, I'm going to be cutting hay in another field, so you're going to be on your own" he says.
"Huh?" I ask.
"Don't worry. It's a pretty simple process. Just drive the truck over to that field over there..."
"I'm twelve" I say.
Apparently he didn't hear me.
"...just drive up to each of the bales, jump out and grab the bale and throw it up on the truck bed..."
"I've never drove a stick shift...." I begin.
"...then jump up on the bed and stack the bales so they won't fall off..."
"What's that second brake for...." I ask looking at the clutch.
"....stack the bales about five high with a tie-off bale on top...."
"A tie-off bale?"
"Any questions?" he asks as he's walking toward the tractor.
"Yes! What if...."
"Good, then get to it" he says and drives off.
Now what?
The 200 yard drive to the hay field took me a good fifteen minutes. The clutch was really touchy, and I found myself killing the engine over and over.
Driving up to the first bail, I was overjoyed to have made the harrowing trip safely.
Jumping out, I reach down for the bale to lift it onto the truck. I weighed 150 lbs. the bale weighed 90 lbs. I can lift the bale to about my waist, but any attempt to get it higher is beyond me. I lift one end of the bale and set it against the truck, then lift the other end and wrestle it the rest of the way onto the truck. I then climb onto the back of the truck so that I can arrange the bale on the bed. One bale = five minutes.
Bale after bale I follow the same routine until the entire bottom of the truck bed is full. I now have a large dilemma. How do I get the second row onto the truck? It's way too high for me to do it the way I was.
I then learned the "bale-bucker" secret. The right knee.
Resting the bale on my right thigh, I hoist with my arms and then "knee" the bale upwards. It worked like a charm! The added momentum enabled me to get the bale onto the truck bed!
Happily I jump onto the back of the truck and begin my second row.
I drive from bale to bale, jumping out, throwing the bale onto the truck, jumping onto the back of the truck, stacking the bale, jumping down, getting into the cab, and repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat.
After about 45 minutes, I felt like I was getting the hang of it. The clutch was getting easier and easier to use as the weight of the truck increased. Looking ahead, I saw that the rest of the field was located on a hillside. I'm dumb enough to think I could handle it.
Two lessons about driving an almost full hay truck up a hill.
One: the clutch has been lulling you into a sense of well-being. It is not your friend. It secretly hates you and is just waiting....waiting. It was been waiting all day to spring it's trap on the hillside.
Two: always BACK the truck up the hill so that the bales have the cab of the truck to rest against on an incline.
I spent another hour re-stacking the entire load that had fallen off the truck when I accidentally "popped" the clutch going up hill.
As the days and weeks went by, I began to get better and better, and my confidence grew more and more -- to the point of vanity. I could single-handedly load a truck and down stack it almost as fast as some of the adults. The muscles in my arms grew.
"You know, Dave" says Jim "you can speed up the process."
"How so?" I ask.
"Instead of driving from bale to bale, you can just leave the truck in low gear and let it idle along. It will follow the tractor tracks and you can just walk beside it and throw the bales on as you pass by them. There's no need to jump in and out of the cab" he explains.
What a great idea! Why didn't I think of that?
On the very next field, I did just that. Dropping the truck into low gear I opened the door and jumped out. What Jim failed to tell me was that when you do this, you don't shut the door completely. You close it just enough so that it doesn't latch. That will become important to the story shortly.
The other critical thing that Jim didn't tell me was that there was an adjustable idle knob on those older trucks. That too will become important to the story.
Jumping out, I closed the door shut. When the truck is in low gear as you drive it, it seems deceptively slow. But when you're actually walking beside it, it is a pretty brisk walk to keep up. Had Jim remembered, he could have told me to adjust the idle down so that the truck crept along giving me plenty of time to keep up.
The first couple of bales seemed to work fine. I could grab one on the way and throw it up onto the truck. After several were loaded, I would then jump up and hastily arrange them, then jump down and grab several more.
But then the stack on the truck grew and it became increasingly difficult to hoist the bales onto the second and third level. I sometimes had to try several times to get a bale onto the truck. Pretty soon, I was getting winded. I was now running to keep up with the truck, and I was getting tired.
I decided to stop the truck and take a break. Then I could finish loading the rest of the truck my usual way.
Grabbing for a bale, I accidentally grabbed only one of the sets of wires. This caused the bale to "banana" on me. The bale now had a large bow in it and it could break if not fixed. It only took a moment to lay the bale on its' side and then I knelt on the "bow" to force it back into shape. Looking up, I could see that the truck was further along than I anticipated.
Ditching the bale, I sprinted for the cab. It took a great deal of effort to reach the cab, and I was breathing hard and seeing stars from the effort.
I reached to door and grabbed the handle. It was then that I realized that I had inadvertently locked the door on the way out. And we were nearing the end of the field. My only hope was to run around to the other side of the truck and hope that the passenger side door was unlocked.
I slowed and let the truck pass then sprinted up to the passenger door. It was unlocked! But also stuck! It took two or three frantic tugs to get it open, all the while the fence line was getting closer and closer.
Yanking the door open, I dove across the seat to the drivers' side and and slammed on the brakes just a few feet shy of the fence.
I was breathing so hard that I had tunnel vision. Fearing that I was going to pass out, I turn off the ignition. Several minutes go by before I can catch my breath.
Looking up, I see Jim sauntering towards me from the next field over. He has a grin on his face. Leaning through the drivers window, he points to the idle knob.
"I forgot to tell you that you can use this to slow the truck idle down. That information could be useful to you in the future" he says and walks off laughing, while I wonder if I can open my claw-shaped hands wide enough to reach around Jim's neck.
