I got out of work early this afternoon (hooray for my boss thanking us for working so hard - and rewarding us by sending us home half an hour early! Best boss, for real). After sifting through the newspaper ads and browsing around Facebook for a little while, my dad mentioned that he was going to go unload some hay. I've helped with this on and off since I was a little kid... when you're a farm kid, you do this stuff.
So, of course, I offered to come help. Now, anyone who's ever done hay knows what's involved, depending on your location. At the wagon's end, you get the hay bales (which weigh approximately 50 lbs.) and put them on the elevator, hoping they won't fall off. In the mow, you receive the hay bales, and carry them to wherever they're being stacked, and put them in order, while the person at the bottom loads more bales for you. This can be altered, depending on how many people are on each end, but that's generally how it goes. The wagon is the desired location; you can breathe down there... haymows get hot and dusty in a hurry. At either end, chaff sticks to your exposed sweaty skin, and slips down your shirt, pants and other unfortunate locations...
It might not sound like much fun, especially once you've done more than one wagon of it... but it's satisfying. You feel the burn, even if you're in good shape. Plus, you get to see the results, whether you're in the mow or on the wagon... either you see the wagon emptying, or the mow filling up - both good things. So, knowing that there were only two wagons in the cards for tonight, I jumped on the chance to help my dad. Partly because I like helping him (he has me so spoiled, it's nice to give him a hand every once in a while), and partly because I like to do a little bit of hay every once in a while.
That isn't to say that I don't show signs of the wear, because I do - even having worn work gloves, I have a couple of blisters on my knuckles, from lifting the bales... and my arms look like I had a very short and unsuccessful cutting stint, with scrapes and scratches up my wrists. (Sometimes I wish I had thicker skin... literally.) But, the satisfaction that physical labor brings is undeniable.
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