Carrie spotted a deal: First-cut, small bales of hay for $5.50 each and less than an hour away.
We payed $8.50 per bale for delivery from past Lynchburg. We hadn't used up all of that yet, but Carrie wanted to have the hay on hand in case of another drought like last summer. The savings were nice, too (assuming we use it all).
We drove into Louisa a bit past Zion's Crossroads and turned on to a long driveway.
The house was being renovated.
It was the first hay season for the property. We were at ground zero of a possible steady hay source. The owner's neighbor had the equipment and brought it over for them to put their land to use.
It was supposed to rain, so Carrie wanted to go into action ASAP.
Shane's not big enough to lift bales on his own and not old enough to leave at home, so he had to come along for the ride.
That's okay, though. There was a dog!
"You can't run away with the stick!" Shane yelled.
"That's what dogs do!"
We laid down a tarp and went to work. In retrospect, I should have worn long sleeves despite the heat and humidity.
We stuffed 74 bales into the back of the trailer if I remember correctly (20 - 24 - 24 and then 6 vertical).
The back of the truck was next.
My beautiful wife was very pleased with the hay quality.
She was so pleased, she wanted to fit more hay into the tack room. We ended up with exactly 100 bales of hay!
Meanwhile, Shane did his normal thing: He declared he needed to do an emergency poop.
Again, there were no barn bathrooms. If he'd waited 20 minutes we could've been on the road! The guys were nice enough to let Shane use their house bathroom if he didn't comment on the mess.
....and again, Shane was in there forever. We finished loading up all the hay and then stood around wondering, "Where is that kid?" I eventually went looking for him!
The work was only half done putting the hay in the trailer. When we got home we had to pull it all back out.
It was a lot of work (about 2 tons to be exact at around 40 lbs a bale!)
We weren't done, though. It was going to rain and Carrie wanted to replace our shredded rain guard.
We didn't have a ladder large enough so we had to improvise.
Does using a step ladder on the back of a truck make you a genius or a redneck?
Whatever you answered, you were talking about Carrie! I hope you were kind! My job was to hold up the tarp and watch the stepladder to make her job easy. She drove the truck to reposition as necessary while I made sure nothing shifted.
We drilled and installed eye hooks instead for a more permanent setup than last time.
Especially at the bottom. We learned the hard way last time that tying the tarp off to pallets didn't work!
It wasn't 8 hours, but it counted as a full day's worth of work to me!
We're stocked for the summer and beyond. Let us know if you want hay. There's hay for everyone!
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