Hay day

Every year round this time I make a trip with truck and trailer to get my alfalfa for the year. I must say its something I always look forward to. It makes me feel so darn farmy. I get my alfalfa from a grower in Blackwell, which is about 20 miles south of Ponca City, just over a two hour drive. The drive through the prairie lands is unbelievable beautiful, a sight in Oklahoma I expected to be more prevalent before I moved here. There seems to be thousands of miles of rolling hills and prairie dotted with cows and the occasional coal burning power plant. Have you ever seen the huge mountain of black coal, its huge! no wonder they need to take off mountain tops to get to it. (don't worry I'm not going to preach)

I do have to confess, I moved here in October of 2003. I had been to Europe many times and never in the middle of my own country, not once! I had imagined Oklahoma being like the last frontier, with cowboys and cowpokes, barroom girls and religious fanatics in one man bands on every street corner, lulling and scaring the begibers out of you so you could be "saved". I also expected the the streets all to be dirt and I was convinced before I moved here I would have to stock up on essentials that most likely I would not be able to find here, like socks and skivvies, shampoo and the likes. Ha! I couldn't believe it when I drove in to town and saw Tulsa. Oh my God! I talk to more people that move here that thought the same thing before they came. I couldn't have been more wrong (about most of it anyway). However, I was slightly disappointed at first.

Once I get to Blackwell, I pull into a monstrous barn. This time I have to back the trailer in trying to get as close to the wall of hay as I can so the heavy 80 pound bails will be easier to load. It's difficult to back a 16 foot trailer perfectly parallel to the hay, oh heck, or anywhere for that matter. I have gotten much better at it but it takes me a few times. The hay is about one story high, Lance, the grower climbs up on a hay stairs he's made to get to the top. He sorts out the sun bleached bails that I reject and tosses down the bright green moist bails for us to place like a puzzle in the trailer. We need to take home 70 bails today.

BAM! the first one hits the trailer bed startling us. The bails are heavy and its hard to just toss them around like he does. but we manage to finally get all 70 snug as a bug and tied down for the ride home. He checks all my tires, which are of course all low he tells me with a eye rolling sigh that says, dang girls. He also tells me I don't have the safety pin in the trailer where it hitches to the truck. I say "oh is that what that is". more eye rolling.

We drive off into the sunset, literally. Stop in Ponca City for some "authentic Mexican food" and were off back to the farm where we will quickly be the most popular girls on the place. All of the animals LOVE alfalfa, even the chickens. Its dark, and were tired. I'll unload in the morning. A days work done.