Putting up hay

Short Trip Home; Sam Bush, mandolin and violin; Mike Marshall, guitar, mandola and violin; Edgar Meyer, bass; Joshua Bell, violin

The bottom two levels of square hay bales, which, by the way, were rectangle hay bales, stacked on top of each other with the bales on their sides so that the twine holding the bale together didn’t connect with the ground. That way, the mice didn’t bite through the twine. Two levels of eleven rows of bales. Got it? Then the pyramid formation would begin with the third level: ten rows of bales on top of the second level of eleven bales. Then nine rows of bales on top of the ten to make the fourth level.

Uncle M. had a John Deere hay baler that threw the bales into the air and were “caught” in the hay rack or hay wagon that was pulled behind the baler. We had three hay racks. One was green, one was yellow, and the third which we acquired a few years later wasn't painted. Over the course of an afternoon, Dad and I, and sometimes Mom, could keep up with Uncle M. as long as we had those three wagons. We figured that we had to unload bales from the wagons, through the gate on the side, about twice as fast as a bale formed inside the baler. We lost time as we rendezvoused with Uncle M. to trade wagons, and then haul the filled wagon back to the haystack.

After we had a good fifteen to twenty yards of the first four levels on the ground, we started the next four levels by throwing the bales over the top of the wagon onto the stack. Eight rows of bales over the nine, seven rows of bales over the eight, six rows of bales over the seven, and finally five rows of bales over the six. I, and sometimes D., did the unloading, and Dad, and often Mom, stacked the bales.

When we finished, we had a very neat and handsome stack of hay that resembled a giant loaf of bread. Most of the years that I helped Dad put up hay, we were able to get three cuttings from the same field of alfalfa. That meant that we would start a second stack, maybe a hundred feet away from the first one.

When you stood on the very top of that haystack out in the middle of the open prairie, you were king or queen of all that you surveyed. The lights of Estelline twinkled about nine miles to the north. The grain elevator in Arlington peaked over the horizon about fifteen miles to the west. Factories, plants and university buildings dotted the skyline to the south, testifying to the presence of Volga to the southwest and Brookings to the southeast. And, of course, the city of Bruce, less than a mile away.

I first discovered Dad’s worrisome side on one of those hot days out in the hayfield. He saw our Pontiac Grand Prix head west into town. “Now where in the world are they going?” Probably to the store, to get food for lunch. What does it matter? “This is exactly how the miles get jacked up on the odometer.” Oh, good night, nurse, I thought to myself. We have a car and we can use it to go purchase food. It’s only a mile into town and the same short trip home.

Stylistically versatile double-bassist Edgar Meyer composed virtually all of the music for the unusual chamber ensemble that performs on “Short Trip Home”. Classically trained violinist Joshua Bell and bassist Edgar Meyer combine forces with bluegrass musicians Sam Bush and Mike Marshall to generate one of the finest crossover albums I’ve heard in years. The magic that they produce falls into a genre-defying, musical crevice, or, maybe, more accurately, a genre-fusing fissure with a scope much larger than the narrow range of radio station genres realizes or allows.

As he and I got older, I began to notice Dad worrying more and more about various things. Probably about me, a lot of the time. Did he always worry? Or did that come with more and more trips down the road?

Credits: To Dad's cows, who munched on PERFECTLY stacked hay.