Life (as i know it)

Work

Dad hammered on my door at 7 o’ clock this morning. He walked in while I was still dead asleep and started listing off instructions.

“Make sure you let Stinker in because he isn’t doing good. . .get a roundbale from the pasture two miles down to feed the cows. . .don’t forget to turn the thermostat up three degrees in the afternoon. . .”

I muttered some uh-huhs until he left and I fell back asleep.

If you would like to know what I did that morning from 9 until 11:30 you can read the next chapter. (It took longer to detail than I cared to post on this chapter.)

I left the house a little after lunch and skipped eating since I still was not especially hungry.

Dad has always called it “the hay trailer” and if it has an actual manufactured name, I don’t know it. The base is vaguely triangle shaped. The top of the triangle goes on the pickup hitch and the other two points are attached to the tires. On the bar that connects the two tired are to forks. The are long, pointed, and made of solid steel. The forks meet a rectangle at a 90 degree angle. The rectangle has a single half foot long pole welded to the top and the pole is attached to a cable. The cable runs back to the top of the triangle where there is a handle and a wheel. The handle cranks the forks up and down.

The trailer’s sole purpose is to transport roundbales, which are bales of hay that are shaped like a squat soup can, only they’re about six feet tall and five feet wide.

We feed the roundbales to our cattle every other day. Or, more accurately, I do. I was given this job during the break so that Dad doesn’t have to leave an hour earlier in the morning to get it done.

He had given me a bunch of instructions while I was still half asleep that morning, but I had got most of it. My family ordered a truck to bring in a new shipment of roundbales a week or so ago since our supply was running low.

Only the funny thing about it is that cows don’t like eating the new fresh hay bales. I don’t really know why. But they don’t. So Dad sent me a couple miles down to the road to some other, much older, hay bales that the cattle will find more appealing.

I went outside, hooked up the little hay trailer, and made my way down the road. The hay bale I picked was so old that it was almost completely grey. Rain, wind, and sun had bleached the stalks and the twine that keeps the bales in a round shape was frayed and breaking. I chose the first bale in the row, back the trailer up to it, realigned because I was crooked, and back up again until the forks slid under the bale. I then got out and cranked the handle until the whole cable was wound around the wheel and the rectangle and the forks were making one big V with the bale sitting in the sharpest point of the V.

I then drove down the highway, passing my house, passed a plowed field, and opened the wire gate to our pasture.

I couldn’t see the cattle yet, but that was ok because if they came too soon they would attack my trailer and pickup while I was still unloading and that meant I wouldn’t be able to unroll the bale which further meant that many of the cows wouldn’t get a chance to eat. And that wouldn’t do.

I was driving along, looking at the flat horizon to see if I could make out any bovine shapes when I hit a bump.

This has never happened to me before, but my trailer bounced and the bale flew off the trailer. The twine that was supposed to hold it together broke and it tumbled, chunks of flattened hay bale flying.

It wasn’t all bad. It had dropped almost exactly where I had wanted it to, only I didn’t have to unwind the cable to let it back down. It just flew off instead. I stopped the vehicle and let all of this run through my head before I stepped on the gas again did what is my very favorite part of this job.

I don’t think other farmers do this. It’s kind of. . .unorthodox. You see, cattle are dumb. Really, really dumb. And selfish. So think of this round bale that I’ve been talking about. It’s plenty large enough to feed our herd of forty or so cattle. However, forty cattle cannot eat on it all at once. Only ten might be get enough room to eat. And they will. Ten cattle will eat the entire bale and leave nothing for the rest.

This is bad because it is vastly unhealthy for a cow to gorge herself out of a sense of competition and it is vastly unhealthy for a cow to not eat at all. Both can cause death, as you might imagine.

So, in my family at least, we fix this problem by unrolling the bale. However, they are too heavy and large simply to push with your hands, so we run into them. With the pickup. Think of a blanket or a tortilla. Unrolling it will cause it to become flat and therefore cover more area. Same concept. Unrolling the bale allows all of the cows a fair chance to eat.

I smashed into the bale and dried stalks and leaves spewed and flew into the air as the bale unrolled, getting smaller and smaller until I got to the end. I jumped out of the pickup and kicked away piles of hay to find the pieces of twine. I gathered them up and tossed them in the bed.

Next I went to find the actual cattle. It wasn’t hard.

I honked the horn a few times when I got close enough for them to hear me and let them follow me back to the mutilated bale.

I made sure they found their dinner before I left.

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I wrote this in hopes of making something that is boring to me sound interesting to everybody else. I did this job everyday for all of Christmas break so it got really monotonous before I decided to try and write it down. 

If this is boring, tell me. I really do want to know. 

Thanks! -FO97