The Top Ten Things - Haying Edition

Farming in general has a lot of specific seasonal tasks - planting time, lambing time, getting in firewood, shearing time and lots more.  One of the busiest and most taxing is hay season.  For a variety of reasons we use small square bales, not the big round ones.  I've never worked with the big rounds so I can't say for certain but I don't think putting them up requires the same amount of human grunt work that the small squares do.  For everyone who's never been pressed into service baling hay, here's the Top Ten observations about it.

You know it's haying season when:

10.  You're too tired and it's too late to go to the store anyway so supper is Spam sandwiches, heated up leftover mashed potatoes and a bowl of ice cream.

9.  As you unload a wagon it dawns on you that the thump and squeal of the elevator mirrors a Justin Bieber song - "Ba-bee, ba-bee, baby, OHHhhh........ Ba-bee, ba-bee, baby, OHHHhhhhh."  Great.  Now that earworm is stuck in your head every time you unload.

8. You lose track of the days.  Thursday?  It was just Monday.  How'd that happen?

7. After sweating and grunting and working for three weeks you shed a few pounds of flab which is great until you realize this is probably the best you're going to look all year.  Meh.

6.  You wear through the legs of your jeans handling bales are hear yourself sound like the cliche 'old people' - "They don't make clothes like they used to!  This denim is like tissue paper!  It's this $#%&$ stuff from overseas!  When I was a kid you got hand me downs from when your father was a kid and they never wore out....."

5.  You develop a farmer's tan so stark that it precludes you attending weddings, graduation parties, picnics or other public functions in anything other than a short sleeve top with a round neck.

4.  You watch the bale count climb with more breathless anticipation than any presidential candidate gathering delegates.

3.  You drink more iced tea in a few weeks than you do the entire rest of the year.

2.  Checking the Weather Bug app on the phone six times a day and comparing it to both the newspaper's and radio's forecast doesn't seem excessive.

and the Number One way you know hay season has arrived........

1.  You drop your drawers in the bathroom and chaff flutters down like confetti.  Wheee!  Looks like I'm a winner!

We're at 2,920 - just over half way there!