It’s a great feeling of power to drive a John Deere 4020 tractor when you’re a kid. The big machine groaning, whining, and vibrating all at once. But the exhilaration didn’t last long once you got to the field. We cut hay on Mondays. Grandpa bailed it on Wednesdays – 200 acres of square bales, hundreds in rows. And on Fridays, we’d haul those hundreds of bales to the barn. Hauling hay is grueling. The youngest grandchild always got to drive the wagon, winding between rows of hay bales. Two or three people would walk along each side of the wagon. As we walked along, each person would grab a hay bale from the ground, carry it to the wagon, then toss it up to the stacker. When us grandkids reached about age 12, we graduated to become the stacker. The stacker stacked the bales in a crisscross pattern about six bales high by six bales wide. The wagon held about 150 bales. At the end of the day, we would unhitch the hay wagon from the tractor and unload the hay while someone went to fill the tractor up with gas. The next day, we’d be ready to roll first thing.
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