A Beautiful hay field, is an EMPTY hay field.

So yeah, we just finished loading all 220 hay bales from our small alfalfa field... aside from the time a couple years back when it was late July and we had 350 bales, this was the hardest. Not only were the bales not all alfalfa (weeds, cheat grass, other grasses etc), but they weren't tight like most of ours are. The strings should be tight so it keeps the whole bale together. Some were somewhat snug, while others... were what we called "Slags" or "Droopers". They sat about 3" lower then the other bales and about half a foot longer, and were as squishy as heck. TERRIBLE to work with if your are stacking in a small area.

Also, it was just me, my Dad and a guy named Mike. Dad and I took turns driving the tractor (It had a custom pallet on it that was 11 feet long, around 5 feet deep so we could stack hay bales on the forks of the tractor) around the field. Man, this Mike guy wasn't an outdoor worker. Though he tried hard and put lots of effort in, at times you as "What were you thinking?". Not outloud, mind you. But stuff like, when the pallet was empty, and when he and I were loading, he grabbed a bale just before I did and started loading. But as he got onto the pallet, he stepped out on the end, causing it to go down and my end to go up. I was holding a hay bale and didn't see it, so I hit my shin on it and drop my bale. Which results in me tripping and faceplanting on the bale which hurt my sore teeth (new braces wire yesterday) and lightly ripped up my inner lip (braces, obviously).

Though that may go down as an accident, he did a similar thing later. But this time, we were 20 feet off the ground. Somehow me managed to catch hold of the side of the haystack and save himself, but oh man was he close to totaling it. And just other stuff that most people would catch on, or learn quickly, or at least remember after being told 4 times.

Yeah, so I'm done with hay bales so far. What stinks is that we have 2 more cuttings coming this year. >.<

-S