This is
one of my favorite scenes of summer -- when a neighbor cuts his field and
bales hay. It reminds me of growing up on a farm. Our bales were not nearly
as big as these. Ours were smaller and rectangular and tied with rope. I
remember my brothers working hard in sweltering heat to load each bale by hand
onto a trailer.
On the day I took this picture, I watched (in sweltering heat) as
these huge bales were swiftly loaded by two guys. One drove a truck with a
flatbed trailer and the other drove a piece of fancy equipment that fork-lifted
the bales. Both workers were in air-conditioned comfort behind roll-ed up windows. This is known as progress; innovation; but those guys didn’t even
come close to getting the physical workout my brothers did. And they weren't bantering back and forth either.
My brothers might
not have enjoyed it then, but I imagine they are grateful now for slinging
bales of hay way back when.
