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It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
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It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
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To donate via Stripe, click here.
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Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
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Try to do it with scythe and horse drawn cart … I did when I was 15 in Poland.
Actually on another subject, I found a group of French folks who were and still are (I think) busting their tails of building a 13th century castle using only tools available at the time
I was impressed.
Worked on a farm in S/W Wisconsin for a couple weeks when I was a kid in the late 60’s. Had muscles I never knew I had after bailing hay. Corn detasseling is “fun” too, just not as strenuous.
And it always seemed to be done on the hottest day of year.
Duh!!!!! It has to be dry!
Credits to Mr. Obvious!
True dat!
I actually liked baling hay. It was hauling and stacking that sucked.
Stacking the last bales in the upper loft right next to the galvanized roof was my favorite part. Round bales have created a whole generation of softies!
Next to a Galvanized roof!
When the mow got real high the older workers would leave the young ones to take the bales off the elevator and drag them to a resting spot. It was hot work. The best part was dodging the nails sticking thru the strapping…
Good times!
Elevator? What elevator?
The hay wagon full of bales would get pulled up into the hay loft … we’d stack the loft by hand …
Sheesh …
Miss it and don’t miss it all at the same time.
I remember a line from a movie … talked about ‘the pain, and its cure’ … all at once.
1961 I spent the summer bucking hay. Loading the truck out in the field and then unloading the hay and stacking it in the barn. We were all teenage guys in the group, even the kid driving the truck. One thing I remember was the lunches the farmers wife put on for everyone were amazing, every lunch was like a banquet that would outdo most thanksgiving dinners, we ate good. I got a good workout that summer.
Most farmers that can hire someone, tend to treat you well. At least form my experience.
Spent several summers throwing hay bales up to the farmer on the flatbed. Farmer was about 6’7″. Me and his 2 sons had to get those bales high enough for him to catch them and stack them high.
Did that. I found digging a footer by hand and running a dirt across the yard with a wheelbarrow to fill in holes a lot more work.
The worst part to bailing hay is afterwards when you blow a bail our of your nose.
Average people don’t know hard work: steel working in the sun, milking cows, catching chickens before sunrise for the slaughter house, picking vegetables in a harvest, the electrician working in attics in the summer, the plumber working on stopped up toilets and under houses, the roofer in the sun on high steep roofs, the lonely scared soldier, and as a railroad switchman I had calluses on my hands so thick from hanging on boxcars that I could not make a fist.
Youtube, Mary Duff “The Working Man”
4-5 man framers crews churning out a track house weekly, Phoenix during the summer , and 20 guys from all the crews building a custom the 6th day,
I remember showing up (from the east coast) and framing in the desert by Mesa. On the East and PNW, we frame in the rain. A DROP of rain fell and the lead drew a 3′ diameter circle. He said 5 drops and we’re out of here. At 5 drops, I’ve never seen a crew roll up faster. I’m looking at them like they’re a bunch of candy asses. Then the rain hit. I was soaked through in less than a minute.
I had never seen the rains in Arizona.
“…the roofer in the sun on high steep roofs…”
And there went I in Connecticut for 10 years in the 80’s and 90’s summer and winter till my back gave out.
You have my respect.
the roofer in the sun on high steep roofs
Some of my best memories. Wearing nothing but cutoff shorts and a toolbelt , working off a 2×6 plank on roof jacks.
I only roofed in the summer and was a bronzen Adonis.
A lot of my associates later came down with melanoma from our carefree days roofing and framing in the sun.
I detasselled corn, picked asparagus and tomatoes every summer as a teenager. The guys handled the hay and the girls were picking. Everyone was in fabulous physical health, great tans and most importantly, pride in hard work and well-earned pay. Where has the work ethic gone?
This is how I spent my youth. Either baling hay or hanging tobacco.
My 11 year old son is helping my neighbor with the haying. Not sure he can do much being a little kid, but I at least want him exposed to MEN and hard work ethic. I will expect him to help the neighbor every summer as he grows up.
It can’t do him anything but good to learn those lessons … maybe give him a bit of an understanding of just how things really work … how things really get done — and that’s by folks putting shoulder to the wheel … every … day …
Maybe one of the guys will show the boy the proper way to use a hay hook.
So true, with a fence cleaning chaser in the hot summer sun…………………
I always had a saying for it, “at least it’s honest work”
More so in Kalofornia and NYS
Aww- now you got everybody curious.
Retirement only kills the unprofessional retirees. Professional retirees know that fishing, golfing, sailing and a host of other activities is life affirming and fun. Unprofessional retirees need meaning in their life and, sadly, think that working will provide that. Silly.
*s/… just in case those with no sense of humor read that…
Mygirl;
I will never retire.
I am what I do.
I have enjoyed every job I’ve ever done.
I will not do a job I do not enjoy (a bureaucrat?).
The more difficult, the better – it’s a true character builder.
Look at these comments. Not a one hates the experience and insight they gained.
These are Mike Rowe (a man I hold in high esteem) kind of people.
Disclaimer: Some of the jobs were dark (when I worked for your government, a long time ago), but I would never trade the experience for one more feely-good.
That would be the 12 years I’ve been on TBP?
Just for starters hay makes you sweat and itch.
Not sure who the guy is in the pickup truck … but if he’s her husband or significant other, I hope he appreciates what a strong and capable and hard-working woman he’s got there … and, from what I could see when the camera was just right, she’s a very lovely woman, too … The Right Stuff …
Amen … although, truth be told, it was the peak of our summer fun the days we’d go out to my paternal grandparents’ 220-acre farm and bale hay, harvest corn, etc.
But the biggest thrill — what gave me bragging rights upon returning home to ‘the city — was that I’d get to drive the tractor (starting, like my cousins, at age 8 or so) … and, since the cousins all lived near the farm, they’d let me have a large portion of that fun since they’d be able to do it whenever possible either at their own parents’ farms or at grandparents’ farm.
It was good, hard work – and we did it every summer through my high school days. Good chance to keep up with the rest of my dad’s side of the family — the aunts and uncles and numerous cousins … always great times.
And, of course, there was Grandma’s cooking … one of the best …
At the end of it all, we’d get to bring home a side of beef or of pork … we’d eat like kings for weeks.
I have been paid to buck hay bales….
YEAH BABY!
Congrats, dude you are Stanley Cup bound!!!!So happy for you!!! What a stunning OT win!!!!
Amazing… thanks nkit! Hopefully its the Bolts playing the Habs. It would be good to trade jibes. Also this good news for the lockdown.. The Gubmits here are going to be under pressure to ease up on the lockdown insanity.
I hope we get there.. The Isles should be named the New York Goons… They are dirty..Hope Kucherov can play tomorrow after they damn near broke his spine Wednesday..just 46 seconds into the game…yeah, I know, just a coincidence..He is one of our best players..Canes tried the same shit.. Mayfield is a scumbag as is that fucking POS Balzar…Maybe karma will catch up to them…You don’t cross check a man in the face and not get at least a one game suspension, but it is New York..Oh well, congrats again, amigo
Or board a player in the face ala Kris Draper. Hockey fans have long memories.
Go Habs. Yeah. Something has to take the pressure off the sht in this world. Go puck. Wish it were Red Wings, but that’s for another year.
So, you’re the second Winged-Wheel fan around here..The other one is intolerable…..
Every Saturday 140 hessian bags of chicken feed that weight 140 pounds, Bag hooked and kneed dragged out of the dry store to the B&S powered three wheel, three speed flat cart. Every stitched bag opened and then knee dragged through the pens and emptied into the feeders. First and because your hands where fully engaged, you had to balance the the bag on your Right Knee and with your left knee lift the timber latch, push the door in and overstep the Chooks who where running around in fits of wokeness at fresh feed. You walked upon chicken shit and the lice and dust made by them flapping there sweet little wings in excitement added to the sweat trickling down from your head to ass.
20 ton @ 10c /bag gave me $14. Good Lord I was 14 years old and that was a fortune.
You should see my shoulders, arms and chest today at 67 Years old.
Hard work teaches you to whistle through the pain and sweat never killed anyone
As a teen I did farm work for neighbors by day and then would go off and haul hay for about 5 hours well into the night. Tom paid us 2 cents a bale-brome hay for horses-dusty and itchy. A couple years later he picked up a used bale loader and we were able to load more than double the number of bales in an evening. A few years later they built a K-Mart where the hay barn used to sit.