Monday, June 12, 2006

Hay in the Ozarks

 
The farmers are putting up hay. This is a field near my home. The hay is put up in hugh round bails now.
When I was young the hay was in small square bails.
One summer dad bailed his hay and then hauled it to the barn and stacked it in the hall way of the barn.
He brought it to the barn on a wagon pulled by the team of horses.
It was in July and hot, Richard and me were in the barn and daddy would lift the bails to us on the stack, Our job was to drag the bails to the back of the stack and lift the bails, which weighted about 100 pound each.
I hated the job, it was so hot up next to the tin roof, the hay made me itch and the ever present red wasp were in the barn. I had a mighty fear of wasp.
At last daddy got all the hay in and were we free of the task. I never was so tired as I was that night. We tried to wash the hay from our bodies and fell into bed at last to sleep.
At midnight daddy woke me and said the hay was heating up in the barn and we had to go to the barn and drag all the bails out into the lot. When hay is stacked into a barn while it is still green it heats up and will burn. The hay as well as the barn would have burned if we had not scattered the bails in the lot.
I was mad at daddy and I told him so in no uncertain terms.We had worked so hard to get the hay in and now we would have to do the job over all because daddy had been in a hurry and made a 2 day job into one.
I think I was the only child daddy had who would tell him what I thought and I told him off good as we drug the hay into the lot.
I don't remember having to put the hay back into the barn perhaps dad did it by himself because he didn't want me gripping at him any more. Posted by Picasa

6 comments:

Galla Creek said...

If you had not removed the hay
very likely the barn would have
burned.

I bet you slept good that night. I have trouble sleeping like Daddy did. I long for a good nights sleep.

Can you remember growing the tomatoes he sold to the cannery?

Annie said...

Patsy, what a great story. You were a real helper to your dad that day (and probably lots of other days) and that might be one of the reasons he let you "mouth off" to him.

patsy said...

i remember them working the tomato patch at carrollton. i don't have trouble sleeping.annie daddy knew i was right and when he knew you were right he had no problem with you stating the facts.

Galla Creek said...

Daddy taught us to stand up and have our say. He loved a good
argument more than anything. He
love for the Jev. Witness folks to
come to our door so he could have
a good "fuss" with them.

Patsy you get that wanting to argue your point from him...and I do believe you enjoy it like he did.

patsy said...

yes that is true and he could really agrue! never had so much fun one time we agrued about some fact for 2 days i finally boxed him in a corner and he knew i was right, he said i always hated for someone to agrue with me when i knew i was right. i said when did you ever agrue when you thought you were wrong daddy?

Unknown said...

It sounds an idyllic life on a farm that you all had.

In the fields around us the big farms have those rolls of hay, and the smaller ones still have the oblong stacks. But it is way to early yet for harvesting.