25 Comments
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Shire Jansen's avatar

After only reading this I need a Motrin 800, an oatmeal/Epsom salt bath and a cold beer! Farmers, ranchers and their laborers deserve so much more respect and credit for their contributions to our well-being and our global economy. I am truly in awe and grateful.

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Oli's avatar

Beautiful! The work, the excitement, the satisfaction - love this.

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Kim K Gray's avatar

I can smell the hay from my Aunt and Uncle’s barn reading this. And remember the hot days I helped hay in the field.

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Holly Huitt's avatar

Best smell. 💛

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Dana OHara Smith's avatar

Love this! Thanks for painting such a beautiful picture, with colors and smells and all of it!

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Gerten Basom's avatar

We used to help stack hay for our neighbour who farmed all of his life. He was small and wiry and 84 yrs old. He unloaded and we stacked in the loft off the conveyor. Took 2 of us in our 40's to keep up with him unloading by hand.

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Holly Huitt's avatar

Yes! My brother, who is a personal trainer, will sometimes (but not often) show up to unload a hay delivery with extremely buff friends who can't keep up with my 120lb, 30-year-old sister who has been doing it since she was 10. Some combination of mental toughness/highly specialized muscles/skill perhaps?

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Gerten Basom's avatar

Repetitive daily physical work. They eat tanks! Most farmers in my area are small and sinewy and highly energetic. More like long distance runners.

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Kathyrn Merrithew's avatar

You aren’t shy about working hard, and what a reward!

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Nan Heldenbrand Morrissette's avatar

Perfectly lovely. Thank you.

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Rebecca C.'s avatar

Brought back memories of my own childhood hay days...

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Shirlé Hale's avatar

Beautifully written

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Corli's WRITE's avatar

Just lovely!

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Ashley C. Shannon's avatar

This was a delightful read!! I could feel the relief at the end!

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Sherri's avatar

You’ve taken me on a time travel...back to my youth, in the late 1970s haying season, following the trailer, hefting the bales up onto the trailer, then to the barn where my dad, my sister, and I unloaded the bales onto the conveyer. I am 5’1” and my sister an inch or so taller. I was oftentimes the one in the hayloft stacking bales...and have the capped bottom front tooth where one day walking across the stacked bale staircase I forgot to duck and hit my forehead smack on a barn beam.You describe the lifting stacking dance perfectly! I was so proud that my sister and I could lift and stack and were stronger at the end of each summer than our peers. Our 4 ponies munched those bales all winter. Thanks for taking me back in time. 🐴❤️

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Holly Huitt's avatar

The things we do for ponies. ❤️

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Maura Rogers's avatar

I helped briefly build a straw house here in Minneapolis. The smell and the scratchiness of my arms, yup! It was interesting cutting these blocks and sizing them. The scale of the building blocks made it child like... it was exhausting and filled with joys:) https://uptownstrawhouse.weebly.com

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Holly Huitt's avatar

This is next level, Maura! So cool.

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Liz Reiser's avatar

That looks amazing!

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James Freeman's avatar

Well, you wore me out but the picture that you painted with words was marvelous. I never stacked hay. My great grandfather had a farm in West Virginia that my great uncle Robert worked. That sweet organic smell is one that I will never forget. You brought that back ever so briefly. Thank you.

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Katie Riegel's avatar

Absolutely gorgeous. I was too little to lift bales when my family lived on a horse farm, but my older sister--5'3"--was stronger and better at throwing and stacking than my brothers were. You brought that time back to me. Thank you.

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Carmen Radley's avatar

Stunning.

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