Last night Joe asked me if I would help him restack his haystack by hand because it was falling down (meaning I had to get up early in the morning while it was still cool.). I said I would try, although I know I shouldn't lift much any more. I felt really bad for him to have to do this the way he feels too. The problem is with the bale wagon. By making the bales light enough for us to lift them easier in our old age, it doesn't get filled tightly and solid, so when it stacks them they are loose in the stack. Then it just falls down. So we got up and had some breakfast and loaded up the elevator in the bed of the Chevy along with the gasoline engine and some gas.
After a couple of trips back to the shop for things he forgot – like the belt – we got started. It wasn't too warm when we started but got uncomfortable later. I poured water on my shirt and head to cool off. It was a clear still day, but as we worked it clouded up and a breeze came up fortunately, so it wasn't so hot. I took the bales from the old stack and put them on the elevator which took them a distance away (that way we didn't need to carry them) and he made the new stack.
After we stopped to rest about half way through the job, Joe told me to start the engine. I swear I hardly pulled the string, but it didn't catch and you know how those reel starters can just not recoil back in…..it did that. Can you believe it. I broke the thing and hardly touched it. I think it really broke on his last pull and I got caught.
Well he fussed with it there, had his tool box in the truck, and couldn't get it together and said the spring was broken. We went back to the house and he worked on it in the shop and didn't have a new spring so after lunch we went back down and he got the engine started just by winding the string by hand and pulling it. However it must need that cowling on for proper cooling and it got so hot and smoking we thought it was going to catch on fire and would burn up the whole stack. So we quit for the day. He wants to build the stack as high as original, and I keep saying it doesn't have to be that high, just go five bales high. It's too hard for him to do this work by hand now, for gosh sakes he's pushing 80.
In the afternoon I washed down the bathroom walls and ceiling. It was cool and we got a rain shower toward evening. There was a beautiful rainbow and I got some pictures. Am seeing usually only three cats any more.
Photo Essay
View of the stackyard and part of the horse shed. When I see it like this its kind of a shock because the stack looks so puny compared to what we used to do before the drought and when we still had 15 or 20 horses to feed. Now only haying half the field and selling half of that, here's what's left. You can see the stack is leaning to the left. I said it would probably stand there like that for the next 10 years, but he's got it in his head it will fall and that he needs to restack it by hand. There are 280 bales in the stack about 7 tons or three bale wagon loads plus.
Unloading the elevator and engine. This is the way we used to stack all the hay in the olden days and then he would get about 60 tons. We made a beautiful stack. We each lifted every bale twice or more each, and picked them all up by hand too. He just got the bale wagon about 10 years ago which picks them up now.
The Help.
Getting Set Up – See How the Stack is Trying to Fall.
Bringing Down the Bales
Building the New Stack – I Put The Bales On The Elevator On This End. As Joe Works the Elevator would be lifted higher.
The New Stack Being Started
Resting.
MechanicKing
It Won't Work
Stackyard Chipmunk -
