Ah, the life on a farm! It certainly is one of excitement. Nothing is ever boring, and something always goes wrong. Guaranteed.
It's like a predator. Once one sneaky critter realizes it can stick around and cause problems, word gets around, and more start coming. It could be just a small little detail, but it often leads up to a whole chain of predators, er, problems (or problems in the form of actual predators).
An example from over this past winter is proof enough.
Problem: It is mid-winter, and all the grass is dead.
Solution: Feed them hay.
Problem: Because of the bad hay year, our hay farmer doesn't have a lot of square bales.
Another problem: We're running out of the load of square bales we were able to buy.
Solution: A local friend gives us the number of a guy with nice round bales.
Problem: We have never done round bales before.
Solution: We'll figure it out. Can't be that much harder that square bales, right?
Admittance: We were wrong.
Situation: We have one round bale in the bed of the truck, and four more on the flat-bed trailer.
Problem: We don't have a place to store such big bales of hay.
Another Problem: It's starting to rain.
Solution: Park beside long driveway and cover the hay with a tarp.
Restatement of Previous Problem: The horses are still hungry.
Situation: We need to move these huge round bales from the trailer to the pasture so the horses can eat them.
Problem: These things weigh a good couple hundred pounds. We're not picking them up and moving them anywhere.
Solution: Buy a hay spike for the tractor at the farm store.
Current Plan: Drive the tractor to the garage, attach hay spike, carry round bale to pasture.
Problem: The battery for the tractor is dead. We're not driving it anywhere.
Another problem: There is no light in the basement, so we can't see the battery well enough to remove it.
Solution: A chicken heat lamp from the chick stuff in the basement. Plug it in, and light!
Problem: There's no light bulb in the heat lamp.
Solution: Run panicking around the property searching in every single place we store farm stuff, looking for a light bulb. It is finally found with the home supply stuff in the basement right beside the tractor.
Problem: The light bulb does not fit the heat lamp socket.
Solution: Remove the broken shards of previous light bulb from the lamp socket; replace with new, complete and working one.
Problem: Acid from the battery is spilling on pants, burning holes in the jeans.
Solution: Remain completely clueless of situation until bedtime, and casually prepare to remove battery with a socket set.
Problem: Socket set is at the shop.
Solution: Gather number of siblings, drive to shop, and grab socket set and the battery charger.
Brief Victory: Remove battery, and charge it.
Situation: The tractor is now in working order and is at the garage so we can put on the hay spike.
Problem: There is no place to install the hay spike.
Solution: Drill a hole in the bucket.
Problem: The drill is at the shop.
Solution: Everyone piles into the truck and drives off to get the drill.
Problem: There is not a drill bit the correct size for the needed hole.
Solution: Ransack the garage, looking for something close to the correct size, until I find the perfect one hiding in a pile of chains and other old historic stuff from my father's grandpa.
Situation: The hay spike is finally on the tractor, and now we're going to pick up the first round bale and take it to the barn on the gator.
Problem: The hay spike will not penetrate the tightly packed bales.
Solution: Spray cooking spray on the spike.
Statement of Defense: That's what the guy we bought the bales from told us to do in the event of spike not penetrating.
Problem: The spray is not working.
Solution: John will push on one side, Father and the tractor on the other, and we'll eventually get it on.
Mathematical Equation: Because John < Round Bale, and Tractor > John what you end up with is a -John.
Solution: We decide to forget being perfect, and accept a round bale half-mounted on the hay spike.
Current Plan: Hurriedly transport round bale from tractor spike to back of gator so we can drive to pasture without dropping said hay bale.
Problem: The gator battery is also dead.
Solution: Dump the round bale in the truck bed to drive around to the barn, as we've had enough problems for the day.
Problem: The round bale is right at the weight limit for the tractor.
End result: Barely make it to the truck, dump the round bale in the bed, drop it off at the barn.
Complete end result: Happy horses, and a number of tired humans who never want to see a round bale again.
For the record, we now have a better, more efficient, way of handling round bales. But our first experience with them was obviously not the best. :) Hope you enjoyed!
