[AT] Baling - Still

[Paul Waugh]

Laughed so hard tears came to my eyes .... just brings back similar memories

Thanks for a great chuckle, Paul- IN
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Don Bowen" <don.bowen at earthlink.net>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2009 11:15 AM
Subject: Re: [AT] Baling - Still


> All this talk about baling reminds me of my farm based youth.  As a 
> teenager (later fifties, early sixties) I bucked many bales at a nickel 
> a bale.  Up on a farm wagon behind a variety of tractors, Farmall SMTA, 
> Farmall H, Ferguson 30, and others.
> 
> About the only baler I remember is an AC round baler.  My father would 
> bale the last cutting with the round bales and leave them in the field 
> where the cattle could get to them.  He claimed the round bales shed 
> water and did not rot as quickly.  We rarely picked up round bales but I 
> remember one that had a hollow center where some bees had taken up 
> residence.  I picked bales up by setting the hook to lift one end, put a 
> fist in the center, set the hook at the other end then lift the bale on 
> the wagon.  Soft centers were always a problem but those bees 
> significantly changed the sequence.
> 
> A neighbor built a single axle trailer from a truck bed and some bomber 
> tires.  The low deck would allow two more layers of bales.  I have put 
> many bales on that trailer and also stacked many bales from that 
> trailer.  The low deck made it easy to load but made stacking harder, 
> especially the last load of the day.  No front end loaders then.
> 
> My mother says that I was put on the tractor at age seven pulling the 
> bale wagon.  My father would jump on at the end of the row to turn 
> around until I got the hang of it.  That may have been the John Deere A 
> we started farming with.
> 
> I bucked bales with a couple of friends.  We spent many nights asleep on 
> the stack after working from can to can't.  We were  young then, more 
> than once coming in from a night of running around just in time to 
> change clothes to go back at it.  I was working with a neighbors nephew 
> from the big city of Des Moines one time.  We were in a far field and 
> had to drive past the home of a girl in my grade.  She chose that day to 
> wash the car in her bathing suit.  I suppose it had nothing to do with 
> two young boys driving back and forth on the road.  He was watching her 
> and dropped a wheel off the edge and dumped about half the load.  I can 
> guarantee that loading them the second time was a lot less fun than the 
> first time and the girl finished washing the car and left.
> 
> -- 
> Don Bowen           KI6DIU
> http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html
> 
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