# I tried to quit, I promise.



## Lostin55 (Sep 21, 2013)

We backed off on the custom work with the intent to just stack small square this year.
Our biggest customer called wanting us to stack some grass hay. It had been put up by another local custom guy. When I went over to look at it, and I am serious, the bales ranged from 38 to 49 inches. I also noticed a few bales were seven flakes and most were eight flakes. My wagon won't stack those. 
He currently, as I type this, has four high school kids out there picking hay, about 1800 bales I would guess. Ouch. The young men are getting a dollar a Bale picked up, hauled and stacked.
Anyway, the first thing I noticed was a rake in one corner of a big Alfalfa field and a very broken swather in a different corner. It looks to have died a horrible death. At this point I was guessing the other fella was just about out of business. It didn't take a rocket scientist to know what was coming next.
Even though I said I wasn't, I just did. Overall, I had to tune up my old swather a bit, but it ran well and the hay is on the ground.


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## SCtrailrider (May 1, 2016)

Damit boy lol.......


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

Teslan said:


> When you think you are out they drag you back in.


 When you think you are out they drag you back in. Now you can see why your services were in demand.


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## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

Reminds me of an older neighbor of ours. He milked cows forever. Couldn't quit because he always had cows freshening. So he sold the bull and his AI cooler.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

stack em up said:


> Reminds me of an older neighbor of ours. He milked cows forever. Couldn't quit because he always had cows freshening. So he sold the bull and his AI cooler.


sounds like my Dad.He quit the milking the day he died.


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## Thorim (Jan 19, 2015)

Never say never, or I ain't do'in that no more lol.


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## Lostin55 (Sep 21, 2013)

Those high school kids that are stacking the grass hay, yeah, well, they are still at it. 
I think their greed over ran their common sense.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

Lostin55 said:


> Those high school kids that are stacking the grass hay, yeah, well, they are still at it.
> I think their greed over ran their common sense.


I was wondering how long it would take 4 teenagers to stack 1800 bales. I must be a wimp but thinking about handstacking that amount of hay just makes me tired.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Teslan said:


> I was wondering how long it would take 4 teenagers to stack 1800 bales.


Probably about 2 days working 6 hours each day. Could be less if they are older teenagers and have a bit of work ethic.

Regards, Mike


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## Lostin55 (Sep 21, 2013)

What are we on now? Day three. They were about 2/3 done when I went by and checked the Alfalfa.


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

Thats still not bad money for a high school kid...


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

The guy is probably lucky to find these high school guys to get the hay out of the field. If some of those bales are 48 inches long and if the bales are 16x18s some of those could come in at about 90 pounds. Even the 32 inch ones probably weigh 55. Unless they are real loose and that would make all sorts of other challenges. I don't know if I could find anyone that would complete the job to stack 1800 bales of uniform size around here by hand. To many locally know there usually is a better way to stack hay. Though not at those variances of length. Here people that don't have a way to stack hay bales or don't want to hire it done just sell the hay out of the field. But we have the market locally to do that in a timely fashion if priced right.


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## Dadnatron (Jul 24, 2017)

When I was a kid, my grandpa paid my friend and I 25¢ a bale for field to stack. We put up over 2000 bales 2 times a summer. We used his old 1954 Ford flatbed truck. I was bigger so my friend drove and I bucked them onto the truck until we had a bunch, then we both got on the back and stacked them.

Our Algebra teacher and his friend did the same thing, but they had a ground driven bale lifter, kind of like a stack wagon grabber, that took them from the ground to the bed of the truck. We were so jealous. They made 35¢ a bale for another farmer, but they had their own equipment.

... I'm now a MD.


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

Dadnatron said:


> ... I'm now a MD.


With this year's weather (and most year's weather for that matter) and you are into haying, one can only assume that MD stands for Manic Depressive?


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## Beav (Feb 14, 2016)

Since going to an accumulator 2 years ago I don't know how we rack surfed 15K bales a year. Now we are make 22000+ with less help. I will quit before I would back and hand stack. New accumulator and two grapples are less then 20K


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