|
Back in about 1961 or '62, when I was still in high school and weighed about 130 lbs, we had a lot cattle to feed. We'd chopped our hay for years, but for a variety of reasons it was decided that some of it would be baled that year. We didn't have a baler, but there was a man about 4 miles away that Dad knew well, and he got him to custom bale some alfalfa hay.... Fred arrived after lunch with a MASSIVE MM baler. I don't know if it was anything like the one you saw, but this beast was probably 10+ years old, and it was a tank. It had a Wisconsin V4 for power, a huge flywheel on the side, and tires well over 3' tall. The day was hot, and when I saw the size of the bales it was making, all the joy went out of my young life. It made long, tight, lead-heavy wire-tied bales that weighed anywhere from 110 lbs and up. About 100 yards into the first windrow, something broke, and I thought perhaps I'd gotten a reprieve. No such luck, Old Fred fixed that monster in about 15 minutes with a couple of wrenches and a big hammer. We started baling again..... 1100+ bales later, it was nearly dark, and the hay was in the barn. My job had been to unload the wagons into the elevator; I had handled every one of those bales, and felt like my arms were 6" longer. That Moline baler was absolutely the hay-eatingest machine I have EVER seen in operation. Fred, Dad, and several of the others who made hay that day are gone now, but I drove past Fred's old place a few weeks ago and thought I could see part of that old beast peeking out of the weeds...
|
