Hauling Hay... Mud Style | Midwestern At Heart

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It’s the time of year when grass really hasn’t started growing yet and we’re still having to feed hay but the hay supply is starting to run low. It tends to be a little stressful, not going to lie. This year we were given some hay. It was a long ways from home and we had to bring our own tractor to haul it home with, but you never complain there! We have hay to feed the cows and that’s what matters.

We spent 2 days hauling hay and one days experience was different than the next days experience. The first day we wound up in the wrong field. Still their field but the hay was older hay. Luckily we were directed to the correct field for the newer hay.

Driving in to the other field though we were beginning to wonder if there was hay in the field or not. It was kind of crazy. Seemed like we drove and drove and drove before we found the hay.

That first day we loaded 18 bales of hay on the trailer. Supposedly the most that trailer has ever hauled. It wasn’t our trailer, we borrowed Jared’s trailer to haul the hay on. Luckily Jared was there to follow us home because… we had no trailer lights. By the time we got out of the field we really should have had lights. We had him follow us all the way to our exit and then we only had 2.2 miles to go before we were home. <sigh> should I even admit that. It was a little nerve racking!

Then it rained that night.

Sunday morning we got up, hooked up, and took off for the field again for another load. This time we took dad’s truck hooked up to our flat bed to haul the tractor home on and then we could load the other flat bed up with hay. That was the goal anyway.

And dad’s truck has some weird quirks. Sometimes when you turn the turn signal on then the radio blares. We don’t know why. So anyway we almost got to the field. We turned off black top on to a gravel road and the radio went from being on 96.9 to like 107.9 but still showed up as 96.9. Dad and I looked at each other and giggled a little. Then we turned on another gravel road and it came back to 96.9. Okay, sure, why not…

Like I mentioned, it rained. Driving in to the field dad and I got stuck in his truck. Eventually we got unstuck, but not before slinging mud first.

We decided to only get 8 bales of hay on the trailer instead of a full load like the night before because we were sinking in the muddy field, fast. So hubby put me in the truck with the hay trailer and I was to floor it and not stop. Hubby was going to follow on the tractor in case he needed to push me out, which he did… twice. The first time I’m pretty sure I was driving at an angle to the trailer trying to keep us from what felt like flipping around. Not really but it sure felt weird.

Then going through the wooded area hubby had to push me again but I still was scared to death I was going to be pushed into the tree. I got out though. Whew. He had one bale on the back of the trailer to give himself a little weight. When I pulled out on to the road, I pulled out so that dad could pull out on the road too. Next thing I know hubby was yelling at me because he had to stay on the field to put that bale up on the trailer. So I had to back down the road to get that one bale of hay. Then pulled on forward so they could pull dad’s truck out on to the road to load the tractor.

After over 30 minutes of trying to load the tractor to no avail, we put the tractor back in the field and decided to come back up on a day day. The steering mixed with the slickness of the tractor tires on the ramp/trailer just wasn’t jiving right.

We had a low tire on the flatbed and hubby didn’t have his air compressor with him so we decided to go to town and get air for the tire. Why he went miles and miles down the gravel road, we’re not sure. That just added to the mud on the trucks and hubby’s black truck turned white. Dad’s Maroon truck turned a pink color. And the trailer. Poor trailer!