2000 Bales Field

Many moons ago I was sitting in this field surrounded by bales of hay - the small ones that you can pick up, the big ones hadn’t been ‘invented’ then. I was with Emma’s mum, Jean .... or Grandma as she’s more often called now .... and I think we must have been waiting for the tractor, trailer and loader to arrive so’s we could cart the bales back to the farm. The field is opposite what was my family home at the time, just 5 minutes from the farm.

To pass the time we roughly counted the bales that were stacked in groups of 6, as this was how many the loader could pick up and put on the trailers. There would be two trailers, Graham would give each one a load of bales alternately, giving us stackers time to pack the bales tightly so as to get the maximum load without losing any on the journey back!

Back at the farm we had a petrol driven elevator to get the bales from the trailer to the top of the rick we’d built up with all the bales we’d already carted. Usually we did it at night after milking, as during the day there would be cutting, tedding, turning and rowing to do in the various fields - also no silage produced their in those days. So, this must have been the last field if we were doing it in the day!

I remember cheese salad sandwiches and shandy to wash them down. Hay in all my clothes. Static hair when a storm was brewing ( hilarious! ). Cycling home in the dark, passing through patches of honeysuckle scent wafting across the lane. Undressing outside after mum complained about all the hay I was bringing into the house - that was fine, it was summer and we lived in a pretty remote place.

All these memories came back to me as I rode through the field with Emma, who wasn’t even a twinkle in her parents eyes then.

Happy days!