Those were the days, huh, Joe?!
You don’t see that much any more, not with those modern round balers these days.
Many a boy was made a man working the hay field.
WOW! A flat field to load bales!
Most of our hay ground was rolling, to downright dangerous.
And we almost always racked with the wagon attached to the baler. That saved having a kid or two walking along picking up bales off of the ground. I got pretty good, with both hands, using a bale hook. Once a guy gets used to the hook, he feels lost without it.
I have bailed hay but it was not grass hay, it was peanut hay.
Back then after the peanuts were pulled, they would be stacked into haystacks. The hay stacks would be built around poles usually with a cross member to hold them better. This was cleaner and dried them better but was much more labor intensive.
Now they just upturn them with a tractor and leave them to dry in the Sun.
Back then the peanut picker was a combine. It would pick the peanuts and bail the hay at the same time. The picker would go around to the various hay stacks. Later the hay bales which were the same size as those in you picture would be picked up just like those guys are doing.
I was around 9 at the time and would roam the fields after the picking had been done and would collect a large amount of free peanuts. They would have laid out in the Sun long enough to almost be cooked. Just enough to make them delicious.
I stacked hay on a hay wagon for my grandpa. He always told me, “Thanks until you’re better paid.” That’s all I got.