Hey, Hay it's that time of year again

Bucking hay has always been a part of my life. Where's theres livestock, there's hay. 

Growing up my dad made sure we were part of the process. A guy would cut and bale the field and then my siblings would load it in the truck while I drove. 

My dad instructed me to drive slow and keep the windows down so I could hear him when he wanted me to stop. 

I felt so big being the driver regardless of the fact I could barely see over the steering wheel and my toes hardly touched the pedals. 

Stop and go, go and stop, up and down the field. My confidence was growing and I was feeling quite important until my dad said, Stop. 

I didn't hear him at first so I kept driving. 'Stop!' he yelled but I guess his words went unnoticed until he shouted, STOP!!

I stopped alright by slamming on the brakes. It wasn't the speed that sent a bale of hay over the top of the cab and on to the hood of the truck, but the jerking motion of my sudden halt.

Following the bale of hay was my youngest brother. I watched him tumble over the cab, bounce off the hood and fall to the ground.

Times have sure changed. Not for the animals, they still need their hay and certainly not for my brother, he still bouncing around but the loading and stacking has come along way.

We have a guy deliver it straight from his field to our farm.

Then the husband would use his forklift to transfer a few bales at a time from the stack to the shed where we store the hay.

He needed me to operate the levers while he stood on the pallet and began pulling bales.

Here we go again. Once more I'm behind the wheel, er levers in this case, to assist. 

How hard can it be? Push the lever forward the lift goes down, pull the lever back the lift moves up.  

This simple job requires great concentration as there are two levers. Pull the wrong one and the forks tip down as I learned the hard way. 

Luckily enough I didn't send the bales and the husband to the ground like I did my brother years ago but it did get my attention and from that moment on, I made sure I was using the proper lever.

The husband would then drive the bales to the shed and start arranging them.

Farm kitty inspected the bales. Last year we found a dead snake which kinda freaked me out.

 The horses in the background are looking quite interested in in their winter supply.

It started to rain a little bit while we were putting the hay away. 

Luckily not enough to do any damage to the hay, but enough to decorated the sky with a beautiful double rainbow.