Hay day and lots of steps...

Thursday, March 3, 2016

It was a ‘hay’ day at the farm, which meant I’d be receiving anywhere from 180 to 270 bales of hay, each weighing around sixty pounds, that I would have to stack in one of our two lofts.  I look forward to the workout, which I figure is simply a bonus on whatever else I will be doing by day’s end.  I saw the truck pulling onto the property around two and headed for the rear lot where he would back up to the loft and the work would begin.

I couldn’t help but notice that Steve, the primary delivery guy, was alone in the cab of the truck.  I was alone on the ground waiting.  That meant it was the two of us…and it was a big load.  He typically loads the elevator with bales and his assistant works with me in the loft stacking and hauling.  Alone, I’m forced to stack in threes and then wheel it the length of the loft, dropping and slowly working the piles back towards the delivery point.  It doubles the time and the work load, but it also doubles the calorie burn and the adds a ton of steps to the effort.  Two hours later, he sent the last of 270 bales up the elevator.

“Not bad for a couple of old guys,” Steve said as we lowered the elevator, a 200-pound piece of metal and motor, to the back of his flatbed trailer.

“Don’t know who’s old here, but yeah, they don’t make them like us anymore,” I replied.

He’s in his early fifties, but a lifetime of working on a farm and do hard, physical labor has given him the body of man much younger.  I know from talking to him he doesn’t work out…but why would he?  After leaving me, he would return to his farm and load his trailer with another 270 bales and head out to do it all again.

The loft walking and all that I had done leading up to it had me at 14,700 steps, according to my IPhone application.   I went home knowing that Kimberly was walking over to join me for dinner, but realized that if I walked to her place and then returned to mine, I’d have a huge step day.  I arrived there only to find she felt it was too cold to walk with wet hair (hers…I don’t have any) and that I had topped 16,000 steps.  Between that and the hay, I was pretty sure I’d done enough.