Building character

                  Have you ever heard the expression; it builds character? Somehow most of the things that build character involve some very intense physical labor. Things like digging post holes by hand, chopping firewood, cutting thistle or cleaning out stalls in the barn are all great character-building exercises. Probably the one activity that has built more character than any other is the activity of picking up little square bales out of the field, loading them on a trailer, and then restacking them high in a barn where they stay dry from rain and snow.

                  Growing up, we put up four cuttings of alfalfa, along with about 200 acres of sorghum-sudan grass hybrid with a wire tied little square baler. On wet years there might be 4 ton to the acre of hay. Most of those bales weighed around 80 pounds apiece. You can do that math, long story short there were a lot of little two wire bales to pick up. We were a little spoiled, we did have a New Holland 1069 stack wagon that gathered the bales out of the field for us. That possibly would have been hell on earth if we had to gather and stack all those bales by hand.

                  For those of you that have never had the privilege of putting up hay in idiot block form, that’s little squares for those who don’t know, let me walk you through this character-building exercise. Like all haying methods, the hay must first be cut, left to dry in the summer sun and baled only when the moisture content is just right. Bale the hay too wet and it will mold or spoil in the stack, too dry and you will lose all the leaves while you put it in a bale. It’s a fine line between the two, and a matter of 30 minutes can be the difference between one or the other. Once the hay is in a neatly packed little bale, this is when the fun starts. If you are lucky, you got the hay put in a bale without any rain. If you made it this far, better buy a lotto ticket before that luck runs dry. Unlike big round bales or the tightly packed large square bales, little squares will soak up rain like a sponge. Nothing is safe until they are in the stack in the barn or under a hay tarp. If little squares get rained on, you must roll them all by hand so that they will dry out.

                  When the bales are finally dry its now time to gather them from the field and put them in a stack. If you are lucky, you have a stack wagon or a bale bundler to do this task for you. If you aren’t, the person who is lucky enough to drive the air-conditioned pickup, usually dad or grandpa, will pick the absolute hottest day of the year to drive along slowly while you and some of your friends grab bales from the field and stack them high up on a trailer and haul them to their winter destination. You’ll grow blisters where you didn’t think you could blister; sweat will pour out of your body like a raging river. The hay dust will sting your eyes and make your nose itch. It’s hot back breaking work that will leave you dog tired at the end of the day. One thing is certain, you build character doing this chore.

                  The character that you build in the hayfield is one that learns the meaning of a hard day’s work. You learn to respect the money that you might have gotten paid for your wages, because you know how hard you worked to earn it. You learn not to quit when you are hot or tired, but rather to quit only when the job is done. This summer when you drive by a hay field and see some young men and women out there working on their character, be thankful for the life lessons that they are being taught. That’s all for this time, keep tabs on your side of the barbed wire and God bless.

Meinzer is a fourth-generation rancher raised on the southeastern plains of Colorado. He and his family live and ranch in Oshkosh, Neb.