Hay Fever

I got it!  My green light, my go ahead, all suited up for the game, and I got the nod, I was going in!  I climbed up (seriously, there is like a ladder) into ‘my’ tractor, a big John Deere and set off to work as a baler in Our Friend the Farmer’s field.  I’d been waiting and hoping for the chance to be out and be part of the action….and a tad nervous that I would screw it up.

 I pull a baler affectionately named “Grandma” and, yes, it is older than I am.  Rules for baling… never turn left and do not back up!  Be good at swiveling your head, because you drive slowly down the ‘windrow’ (farming name for the row of hay) watching where you are going and looking back at your baler or in my case “Grandma” to make sure the hay is going in the right way and that the bales are coming out properly.  Slow and steady the balers work the field a bit like ants.  My tractor has air conditioning and a radio, which almost always seems to pick up country music.  I could not help but think about my other job, profession, work, which I left in California.  A bit different… a Realtor selling million dollar (not all but plenty) homes to now…and loving it!

From the cab of the tractor are some of the members of the little baling team, an almost perfectly diverse crew.  Two gals, two guys.  One teenager, one young father, me and the chief baler whose age is somewhat over 70.  Our Friend the Farmer’s teen granddaughter and I bonded yesterday as after 5 hours of baling we were grateful to be within walking distance of Glory Farm’s bathrooms.  We parked our tractors up (that is how you say it here in the country, a tractor is parked ‘up’, not just ‘parked’) and took off on a brisk walk down the trail, through the gates and across the yard.

I felt a little badly that I might be ‘cheating’ on Jubal, but I quickly got over it.  We worked on many different fields so there were trips down the road, waving to our girls out sunning themselves, across the highway and over the rail road tracks.  I loved going down the road!  A big old tractor taking up a lot of the street, just like the tractor sign…except the tractor was bigger and the signs don’t have boobs.

The tractors run on diesel, the balers need grease, string and hydraulics fluid.  The drivers run on Mountain Dew delivered in the afternoon by Our Friend the Farmer when he fills up the baler with string.

Watching the rows of hay turn into a field of tightly bound bales is part of the farm magic.  I wanted to do a really, really good job, because that is who I am, but also because I wanted Our Friend the Farmer to be as glad to have me baling as I was to be baling.

Does this mean I’ve ceased my obsession with cows?  No.  It is just a different season.  We live where there are seasons now and it is the hay season…the hay harvest.

Last year My Loving Spouse baled and bartered for hay for our herd…I wonder how long it would take to bale for a heifer?

After this post was written one of my clever readers made me a present,

that I must share with you…hope you enjoy it as much as we did!