Time to Stir The Pot

The least favorite farm jobs to me would include ridin’ an open-station plow tractor in the month of March on a blustry day, cuttin’ seed potatoes, pullin’ pig weeds, thinnin’ beets with a short handled hoe, feeding ear corn into a table grinder with a spud fork, AIn’ cows, flood irrigating and unplugging the house’s sewer system.

But the all time great when it comes to gut wrenching farm jobs, from my standpoint, is putting up hay using small square bales.

It’s hard for me to believe that people would actually use this method to handle hay.

Your serve,

Allan

I remember running down the 200 pound hog that did not get cut with the litter. Dick and I would wrestle it down in the field and I had to hold it down while he WALKED back to the house to get the razor blade and iodine.

I remember marking hogs and the sows trying to tear the barn down.

I remember hand shovelling earcorn into the crib. As the corn level rose, another board was put into the door, until we were throwing at a hole a good 4 or 5 feet over our head.

I remember sneaking a nap on a rainy afternoon in the corn crib. The rain pelting on the tin roof would put me right to sleep.

I remember getting flogged by Grandpa's capon rooster, and chased by the darn geese when I went frog gigging.

AHHHH> Those were the days.....we couldn't wait to get off of the farm and now I will give everything I have to get back. Thanks for the moment gang!!

PS:Then there was the "longest walk",walkin a mile home from the far fields,to let Pop know his trusted kid had once again managed to plant a tractor belly deep in that"soft spot" he warned ya about :(

Wow! What a nightmare you have just dredged up.

I've been over on the IH board screamin' about the advantages of the rollover plow to the point that they are totally sick of me.

But, this is the exact reason. That darned field has to be "irrigation ready" before the crop is ever planted.

Yep, I know where you are coming from on this one. UGH! :>(

Allan

I've got a line on a 3 bottom Deere 2-way plow myself. Might just add it to the collection soon! John

Well, at least now you're startin' to listen to me, ya rednecked, overpaid, trasher, you. :>)

Gotta admit, I've kinda been thinkin' bout this JD 4x18" roller myself. Seems like it is in pretty good shape and I don't mind that green paint one little bit!

Whadda think it's worth? $3500?

Allan

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Been years since we put up little hay bales, so I never got in on the fun. But I"ve heard stories...

I think my all time worst farm job was cleaning out an old chicken house. The manure was about 18 inches deep and had been there for at least 5 years. The people who bought the farm with that 20 by 40 chicken house wanted it cleaned out to use for storage. A buddy and I agreed to clean it out for, I think it was $50. We worked for over a week on the job, finding that the only way to get the manure broken up small enough to shovel was to pound at it with a pickaxe. It wasn't as hard as concrete, but it was darn hard! And dusty. And stinky..... We were about half done before we figured out that it was much easier and healthier if you soaked the manure down with a hose. We finally finished the job and the owner was very pleased, but we earned way less than $1 per hour--lousy wages even in 1968. We both learned something though. Don't agree to do a job unless you really know what that job is and how long it will take.

Here's some unpleasant jobs:

1. Stacking straw from the threshing machine.
2. Poking wires on an old wire-tie baler.
3. Picking (corn) husking by hand. My Dad could always take two rows and make that corn rattle off the bang board and I had a h*ll of a time keeping up. With snow on the corn, you'd be mighty wet and cold by the end of the day.
4. Shoveling off loads of ear corn up over the crib sides.
5. Leveling and Putting the cap on the hay sileage in a stave silo on a 90+ day.
6. Up the silo to chip the frozen corn sileage off the walls in the dead of winter.
7. Shoveling out every door and bunk after a snow.
8. Mounting a 2MH picker on a Super M.
9. Cutting ice for the icehouse off the river. Cold, wet and those ice blocks were heavy as a little runt kid.
10. Cutting stove wood with a bucksaw. Had a lifetime of that by age 14.

Doug

Allan

Hired men aren't 'working out'. They have just come on in. Hired men are nothing less than equal family in my book.

Allan

Don't get me started on that. We'll deal with that subject tomorrow or in 10 years. :>)

But, come to think of it, how come the weight and the volume doubles anyhow? :>)

Allan

My father always says that the two coldest places in the world to be are either on a horse or an open cab tractor in winter. Well there is another, try roading a jammer down the flightline in the middle of winter. I don't think you can put enough on to keep you warm.

later days mate,
Jim

OK....On the "job I can't stand" One word...Holstiens. Kroger has all the milk I'll ever need.Why milk a cow. The happiest day in my life was whendad said he was "getting out of the dairy business" There was only ONE part of the entire issue that I liked....Filling the silo. Other than that..... .Bleeeee eeecch!

On "idiot cubes" (small squares) It wasn't fun, but it wasn't the worst thing ever....Now I have a round baler for 2/3rds of the hay I sell, and a bale accumulator for the other 1/3rd, and all the straw. Once again, there's worse things to be doing. (Like my 2004 taxes. Once again Bleeeee eecch!)

In the last couple years, small squares have made a few nickels for us.

My wifes father grew a BIG tobacco crop every year. He tried to get me interested in it.....Never did stick. Too many strange looking bugs on that stuff...

Nothing about farming is easy, but the "office" you go to everyday makes it all worthwhile. John

Aw heck; wasn't trying to spill any blood. Just wanted to get a topic going to try to heat up the day. It got clear up to -1 out here on poverty hill today. :>)

One time when I was a wee lad of about 12 or so, my dad had an 11-acre hay field that laid just out west of the corrals.

For some darned reason, and I still don't know why to this day, but he let the neighbor come in there with his brand new IH square baler and warp it all up nice and pretty.

Neighbor was so darned proud of himself 'cause he walked thru that field in no time at all and then he and his shiny new baler went home. Heck, all we had left to do was simply move the bales down to the end of the field and stack 'em next to the feed bunks. Dad even bought us three brand new red handled hooks for the occasion. :>)

Dad did the buckin', Mom drove the rack and my brother and I stacked.

By the second load, my brother got to cussin’ dad. First, I started cussin' my brother because he was cussin' dad; then after some reflection, decided that maybe he was right on topic and then I also got to cussin' dad. ‘Fore long, mom got to cussin' us boys 'cause we were cussin' dad. Another load later and dad was sweatin', he was tired of throwin' those cussed 90lb bales, and then he too started cussin' the neighbor and his darned baler!

That was 50 some years ago and there has never been another square bale on the place since.

Those darned brand new, $3, red handled hay hooks are still hangin' on a nail down there on the farm in the garage to this day.

The whole family at supper that night pretty much was in agreement that puttin’ up hay using a small square baler bordered somewhere between total lunacy and a complete ancestral inbreeding disorder. :>)

Allan

A Deere baler--Dad, who was a dyed-in-the-wool Farmall man, always called it a "bundler" if it was green--would make a bunch of 50-60 lb bales, and then give you the occasional 90-pounder when you least expected it [or least needed it].

The fountain might stay warm enough to not freeze but you would be frozen solid by the time you got back to the barn.

Miss the farm though.

Isn't that the darndest thing? I'd give all I own to be back in that misery along about 1949 or so. :>)

Allan

I sure never mined the rotary hoe or the cultivator, kind of liked it, in fact.

We never allowed the use of hoes during weeding 'cause sure as heck, some weeds would get cut off above ground and the darned things would then come back with a vengeance with those horizontal stringers. Always had to pull the weeds by hand and make sure ya get that darned root!

I forgot about the wet and damp crop from the dew too; now, I'm depressed all over again. :>)

Hated the shockin' of the oats too. My ankles are still sore and raw from that stubble; couldn’t afford boots back then.

Allan

Unfortunately with a lack of help & my wife's rotating shifts, I had to get a round baler 2 years ago, only do about 1/2 the hay & straw with small squares any more.

--->Paul

Same problem here. I cut 15 acres into 4 different cuttings. open half the field, wife and I bale that up and unload it. then cut the rest of the half, that basically fits on the racks. That's all that will work after she gets home. Over the weekend can then get it in the barn. Half hour is all it takes for me to get to your place. Can easily swap labor back and forth.

AS far as staying with the small squares.... when one has all the equipment in good working order, why spend the 3-5K for a different baler so it goes up easier and then do all the work hand feeding off the rounds in the winter. Drop a few down from the mow and feed. No starting a tractor when it's -16 with wind like this morning. Just the savings on the tractor in cold weather is enough to justify doing the work in the summer.

Then of course I got that bale basket a couple years ago, so no rack stacking any more - just all barn work! Oy. What we farmers go through. :)

--->Paul

How's that for stir the pot?

Their's very little I don't like, But plowing in April on open station is damm rite cold. Don't care much for small bales, didn't bother me much in my teens and twenties,but now at sixty I enjoy the big rounds the only work is the four gates to open and close. Cutting bakka and barning it is slave work( I spent 3 years with Ben Brown in W. Ky.of this site}

One other crappy job was loading hay out on semis in the winter. We loaded small squares onto cattle trailers that had dropped their loads off at IBP. The **** would still be frozen to the floor (or worse, wet & slick) and the bales had to carried the lenght of the trailer while bent over so's to not hit your head. To cold to strip off coveralls so you sweated in your heavy clothes. It also seemed like it was always Sunday morning so's I was usually nursing a pounding head at the same time.

I'm gonna come right out and say it. It is awfully hard to hold a conversation with you because you simply use too darned much logic.

How fair is that anyway? :>)

Nice turn of the phrase, ol' Bud,

Allan

Not another one of those "character building" jobs! Whenever I hear that term, I run for cover. :>)

Had a friend while I was in the Navy who was from Springview, TN and he was always talkin' about the "bakker". Heck of a stand-tall guy, he was.

Allan

casey

Aren't you the guy with that ugly black stripe 766?

LOL!

Allan

Now if I had to vote for the job I hate the most on my farm it would be fencing in the lake each spring. The ice takes the fences out every year and they need to be put back in. Its slow, hard work and you have to do it again every year.

Allen, your post a whike back about rebuilding the family farm sure struck a nerve in me. If you are interested my e-mail is open and I will tell you my story.

John

Hey! Can ya tell that I'm bored on a cold January day? :>)

Allan

Thanks Walter. Thought I was gonna be 'shuned' there for a minute. LOL!

Naw, I don't deal with the horsey people. I think they are totally nuts (by the way, my wife is part of this crowd too). :>)

So, if I'm to understand you, just because all these wannabe cowboys 'taint got sense enough to come in outta the rain, a guy should go thru all that agony puttin' up hay in square bales? Naw. :>)

Allan

Yeah, I kinda like 'em too, but I sure don't want 'em to know it. :>)

But, I'll never understand why they wanna pour all that money down those ol' hayburners. :>)

Allan

Only supposed to get up to 8 above for a HIGH here in SE Nebr. Fri!
Double Burrrrr rrrrr.

Rockin' Farmer

I'm clear at the opposite corner from you and it is the same way here.

Local propane lass called and wanted to make sure everyone out in this area had enough heating fuel for the next few days. Hmmmmm , must be January again. :>)

Allan

Only worked small sqs one summer. 1956. Did mowing and raking and stacked bales. I didnt have to run the baler. The last 10 years on the farm I traded work with a neighbor so I could use his swather. He did the round bales at about 1100#. Small baled 4th cutting and sold that in the field.

steveormary

Done that and always at the furthest end of the farm. But,if you plant them deeper they will grow bigger.

steveormary