Hay Bales to Go

By Laurel Erhardt
OMG - too funny! Looks like a 10 tier load? Reminds me of the good ol' days (?) of bucking bales. No automatic loaders. It was hard, hot, heavy work. The Erhardt's are inherently strong. My brother-in-law Gene, especially so.

I would watch the "buckers" struggling to throw the bales on the old truck crawling through the field. The truck was usually driven by the 10 or 12 year girl 'cause anyone who was big enough to buck or stack bales was assigned to those duties AND usually the driver was the littlest and youngest who was simultaneously learning to drive a stick shift.

The younger buckers would be struggling with learning the rhythm of striding alongside a crawling truck, jerk a bale up off the ground, step, use your arms to throw and a knee to push the bale onto the back of the truck for the stacker to put in place. The better placed the throw - the easier it was for the stacker. 

The stacker, is trying to keep his balance on a pile of bales in the back of a moving truck while he’s arranging those bales into a secure stack on a vehicle that is cursed with rookie driver clutch jerks. It is also pretty common at this time, for the young crew to have an introduction to cussing on the job 101.

The load starts out easy as you walk along and are only throwing bales truck bed high, then you have to buck it up higher and higher as the tiers grow and grow... Hay haulers brag about their loads in tiers.... "brought in a 8 tier load - man, that was a good stack job!. Getting one more tier on a load is desired to save a walk back to the barn where you offload the whole damn thing into the barn. One more tier is desired and dreaded as your aching arms and tired legs struggle to throw the bales higher and higher - on a hot August day.

Anyway - I digress, because all I wanted to mention was, I remember watching the buckers struggling to buck those bales up to the 3rd, 4th, 5th tier - arms struggling with a 75 to 90 lb bale, knee jerking up hard to help the tired old arms - then there was Gene Erhardt, walking along like he was taking a walk in the park. With one hand and no knee bucking, he would reach down and pick up a bale with what seem like no more effort than picking a daisy - whistling or humming a little song - and give it an easy swing onto the truck exactly where the stacker needed it. Every time.

RIP Gene, we miss you.

---