This is one of the jobs you have to do. At 8am a truck arrived pulling two huge hay wagons to be unloaded upstairs in one of the barns. I bought 300 bales and was happy to pay $50 extra to have an elevator along with Mark (nephew of Ted, the hay broker) to help stack the hay. When the first wagon was empty, 4 of us rolled it down the hill and reattached it to the truck so the second one could be brought up. This time, there was over a ton of hay left on it and we could not back it down while it was hitched. After much finagaling (???) we figured out a system to keep it from rolling out of control...we put a bale of hay behind each back wheel and moved it three or four feet at a time (catching it with the hay bales) until we were down the hill. Quite amazing. I was shocked that two 40 pound bales could hold back all that weight. While I was trying to grab a bale with a hay hook, I missed it and punctured my knee instead...and it is the one I had surgery on several years ago. Poured some alcohol on it and kept going. When the job was finally done, I had to clean the stalls and was ready to crash. I passed on a lesson with Roy (and Abbe) today...just too much. The bad news is,
Roy sold his house and will be moving to Tennessee at the end of the first week in September. I hope I can continue working with my horse the way he did. He had a great impact on many people.
Phew! Next time could be have video? If you map it out maybe I can come up with a process improvement for ya - baha!
ReplyDeleteYou are so tough, but please take care with that pitchfork!