Hauling Hay

Photo by TF Studios

Hauling hay bales was never my favorite thing to do when it started to get cold out and winter was rolling in. But I had to do it anyways because the cows were counting on me to make sure that they were fed and happy. So I'd put my big jacket on, start up the backhoe, and put the hay forks on the bucket. Then I’d drive the whole rig over to a giant hay bales like the one in this photo and I’d stab it.

I would always have troubles while putting out hay, and one of them was that the backhoe we had didn’t have good breaks. You always had to plan ahead and slow down before you stopped to open a gate or if a cow wandered in front of you. (Disclaimer: no cows were ever injured while putting out hay)

I never ran over any cows, but they always tried to get as close to the backhoe as they could. They trying to escape out the gate I just drove through. (There were many times that I had to round up cows by myself on foot because they got away from me) After going through the gate, I would drive over to the hay feeder and put the bales in. Then I would cut off the netting and it never failed to be that a cow would come over and try to eat the netting. He would be staring at me and munching on the netting happily, and I would have to play tug-a-war with him until he let go, making me fall back and land on my butt in the dirt.

Then I would get back on the backhoe and navigate through all the cows to get to the gate and leave the pen. After getting out of the pen, it was a race to go park the backhoe and get inside before I froze to death.

Have you had any hard jobs where it was freezing outside, but you still had to do them? Tell me in the comments below!