As I discussed yesterday, yesterday was my older brothers birthday. If there is such thing as a middle family we were the middle of our family. That would be including the blending of the families for older kids and before kids adopted after me. But for a long time Ross and I were the “kids” at home. The 4 younger ones are still either not there are just babies. Ross is 5 years older than me and I'm totally surprised by his memory of things and how they differ from mine.
We had to laugh yesterday is revisited about hauling hay through the summer months on the farm. Typically there are 3 and maybe four cuttings of paid during the summer. This all depends on rain and such. And, when we cut the hay the process has to take place. Depending on how dry the season is behave most lay on the ground for one maybe 2 days and then with the hay rake up to a tractor and scrape all that a in the long lines and to then “dump” the hay into large mounds after which we would drive the tractor with the hay wagon and throw that hay onto the wagon and then onto the stack. Stack was always close to the barn were to be used to feed the cattle as easy as possible. Like I said I was a smaller of the 2 Ross be in 5 years older than me I think had a better process of what was going on even when I was 8 and expected the help of a process Ross would have been 13 and a lot more on top of things. He shared with me that he'd actually spoken with my dad about having a bailed rather than pitching the hay by hand. I don't know where Ross got these numbers but he said they would've done it for $.10 a bailed and I have no idea how many bales would've been produced but probably would've been a lot easier on us to bring in the hay and what we did.
My younger brother Paul is 5 years younger than me and then there's 3 kids under them. So, 50 ½ I have my accident that would be Paul about 10 years old still too young to do anything significant in the hay department. Ross was 20 years about out of the house by that point and really didn't have a whole lot of desire to hang around the hay field. Breaks my heart but I think my dad was pretty dismayed that his dream of a little family farm was, like going down the tubes. I think I was the linchpin I don't know what would've happened had I not had my accident if we would continue to move hay from the fields to the stacks are, phase out the whole project. Things are beginning to change Ross was out the door one where the other he was pretty much done with the farm and the agricultural life. I had a broken neck vows never going back to the agricultural life very significant or serious fashion. And Paul and my younger brother Jay were never going to be farmers it was a brave new world for adolescents in the mid-60s and early 70s of the last century. My brother tells me that my parents want to pay us for milking the cows morning and night's as well as with some of the work such as haying but I have no recollection of ever being remunerated for any of the work on the farm. I assume my brother is correct. I feel if I knew I was getting paid for working out how to much different outlook and possibly been much more focused but now I say say that's water under the bridge and that bridge is a long time ago…
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