Work Ethic

 

Everyone who has ever worked in the hay knows the misery. 

Sweat dripping, often burning as it floods the eyes.

 Piercing chaff navigating its way to every inch of your body, including your eyes and your nose. 

A need to keep moving and especially a need to hold up your end of the deal from start to finish without complaining. 

Thirst quenched with gator aid or hose water. 

Hornets dive bombing you as you huff and puff, moving each bale to the next spot. 

It's not a pretty job; it's a dirty job, which almost always needs to be completed at the hottest time of the year. 

Yesterday we had a crew of four young men, three of them cousins; one the grandson of one of my classmates. 

They all arrived by 4:30 a.m.

When they had stacked the last bale in the lean to next to our shop, my Fitbit read 7:27 a.m. 

Ten tons of hay were put away for the winter in less than three hours. 

While keeping bales moving almost constantly, this crew worked meticulously and purposefully with their gloved hands, a hay elevator, a dolly and a wheel barrow, almost always with smiles on their faces and friendly banter coming from their mouths.

When the "knocker downer," as Levi Wood called him, broke three bales, the crew gathered up the loose flakes and tied man-made bales to be stored for easy feeding in the barn aisle.

While the guys worked, the horses, beneficiaries of this project, were happy to supervise. 

When the stack inside our big barn stall had reached a fixture where a lightbulb which had been broken off during last year's hay stacking, Bill handed Wyatt a bulb, and he screwed it in.  

When one mom came to pick up her son and saw the usual layer of chaff which covers the ground from moving hay, she grabbed a rake and began cleaning it up.  The crew pitched in on that project too. 

These young men have learned how to work, thanks to good role models who have come before them. 

They've also been taught to be gentlemen.

And, this is the part I actually like about hay storage day:  connections to the past and reminiscing about the old days. 

While seated around our dining-room table eating sloppy joes, fruit and potato salad for breakfast, the conversation focused on how the grandpa's stacked, stored and later fed their hay from the lofts which were always a part of most barns. 

It was also fun for me to tell stories about their parents and grandparents and how my mother was great friends with Wyatt's great-grandmother Myrt.  

I told Colter that his mom Angie (the rake lady) had graduated from Boise State University the same year as my daughter-in-law.  

That particular graduation weekend, his grandfather Leonard  and grandmother Naomi (Angie's parents) had also traveled to Wyoming for Levi's dad Ben's graduation. 

Colter's dad Jason was literally in the very last English class I taught at Sandpoint High School, and I'd had Trent's mom Melissa as a student a few years earlier.

Three of the crew are playing football for Sandpoint High, so, of course, I told them how their coach Ryan and my son Willie, also an SHS coach played together when they were young boys.  Ryan lived in our neighborhood. 

I'm pretty sure also that both Ryan and Willie could share some of their hayhand stories.  

So many connections and so many good memories associated with these young men's family members. 

Yes, the dirt, the grime, the back-breaking work and all that stuff we oldsters avoid these days does have its good side.  We get to reminisce about our personal experiences bucking bales and we get to see their even bigger smiles while handing over their checks. 

Twas a great crew and we are grateful.

Thanks, guys and special thanks to all the role models who have influenced these amazing young men. 

Happy Thursday.