Trail of tears

Like most all mornings I was sitting at my kitchen table at 4am steadily working on a cup of coffee, in a futile attempt to wake up. Having a lot of work to get done today I needed all the caffeine I could take. I live on 60 acres just outside of a semi rural town. My land is pretty level from the road back to the last 10 acres or so where it slopes down into a valley. The valley is mostly wooded as it isn’t much use to me. At one end of the valley there is a large new subdivision, at the other is the local combination middle/high school. So naturally the kids cross my property near the treeline, to get back and forth. I watch them most mornings as my house sits about 25 yards off the treeline the patio and pool behind the house go almost up to the treeline. They usually walk just on the other side of pool fence. Now most people would be upset about the trespass but you will come to understand why I don’t mind at all.

I’m not much of a farmer I mostly just cut hay a few times a season and sell it to local dairy farms and horse owners. I have the cutting operation down to an art. I started at the road with the bar mower working my way back towards the house. The hay field stops about 20 yards from the front and sides of the house, which is a nice kept yard among other things I will talk about later. Next I switched out the mower for the tetter, and made quick work of the of the first tet. For those urban types out there a tetter fluffs up the cut hay so it can dry faster and shakes some of the dust out of it. By then it was about 7:30am and I noticed some of the younger kids on their trek across the trail behind the house the older kids start earlier and I was too busy to notice them. I take about an hour lemonade break, then tet a second time and go switch out to the rake. After another hour of drying I rake all the cut hay into nice straight rows that the baler can handle. I was patting my self on the back as I had gotten this far by 10. I had an order for 400 bales for a local horse owner and the rest I was processing into rolls for the dairy farms. So I put the square baler on first and quickly had 400 bales on the ground, it takes about 20acres to do 400 bales. It was around noon now so I swapped out to the round baler, and started baling the rest of the rows into large rolls. I was just finishing the rolls around 2pm, the timing was impeccable. I drove the tractor down toward the treeline parked and took a break waiting for the high school to let out.

Lucky for me a short time later I saw two faces I recognized as Jake and Pete and their girlfriends. Jake and Pete had helped me load bales a couple times because it is the one thing I can’t do from the seat of the tractor, and frankly it very hard work. “Hey guys” I shouted “wanna make a few bucks?” “Hell yea!” they both shouted in near unison,

“Homecoming is next weekend, we have to keep the ladies happy!” Jake said as he wrapped his arm around his girlfriend.

“Mr Steve this is Angie my girlfriend and that is Macy Pete’s girlfriend.”

“Nice to meet you ladies…those dresses for dances are pretty expensive right?” I asked.

“Yes sir” Angie said and Macy nodded in agreement.

“ How about $100 a piece for a couple hours work $400 should make for a hell of a date” I asked

Everybody agreed I explained I was going to spear the rolls and get them put up if they wanted to grab the other tractor and load up the big flat bed trailers using it. I told them to teach one of the girls to drive the tractor while the guys loaded it, and the second girl could help out where ever she could.

A few hours later all the rolls were lined up nice and neat and I had just finished putting the big tractor up when the other tractor pulled up driven by Macy, and stopped with the third full trailer in tow. Pete, Jake, and Angie had hitched a ride sitting on the fenders. All were disheveled and sweaty. I invited all up to the house for some refreshment and payment. I told the girls to follow the guys that they knew where the drinks were I always keep a second fridge full of water, and sports drinks. I stayed behind and covered the three trailers to keep the hay dry.

Upon my return to the house the four teens were sitting out on the patio, drinking Gatorade.