As a kid, my favorite farm work was bailing hay. Even as a teen-ager, I always said, “I’d rather make hay than make love”! Of course, I was young then; now days I probably can’t do either one very well! Last year’s record hay baling day almost killed me!!! I assisted in loading 5 loads! If you figure there’s an average of 122 bales per load, that makes around 610 bales! Then figuring the unloading in the barn, that’s A LOT of hay bales to handle! Unfortunately, my desires write checks my body has trouble “cashing”! The other area of farm work I always liked and looked forward to was the corn and grain harvest. For me, the only better aroma of fresh-cut hay is the aroma of freshly harvested corn, soybeans, and wheat. I’d rather smell fresh-cut hay than the best smelling perfume on earth. Of course, if I did prefer perfume to hay, then extra sessions with my psychiatrist would be in order!!! The poor lady is overwhelmed as it is! I wouldn’t be surprised if she had to buy an extra file cabinet just for my case file as it is! In July, the first thing to harvest was the wheat. Our dad and/or Uncle Ned would take the International Harvester “76” combine and start in at the wheat fields. This old combine is still sitting back in the “Thicket” and the “skeleton” is all intertwined with brush and weeds. Once in a great while, I walk down to the “Thicket” and look at it. Although the ravages of 30 plus years have taken its toll, it doesn’t affect my memories of it. (Hmmm, I sound like Earl Hamler’s narration for a Walton’s episode.) As very young kids, Tim and I would wait for the combine’s hopper to get full, and then the fun started. As the hopper was emptied into a wagon, we would lie down and let the wheat pile up on top of us. The one thing that always puzzled us, and still does, is that there were always a lot of live insects in the wheat, especially grasshoppers! As soon as the hopper was empty, countless grasshoppers were hopping in all directions on top of the big pile of wheat! We could never figure out how they survived going through the combine! Oh well, another one of life’s unanswered questions to add to my endless list. One of my main endeavors during retirement will be to start looking for answers to some of these types of questions I’ve been storing up my whole life. Since I will be retired before my boss, I can look forward to his retirement book which will no doubt be titled, “How to Do Everything Right”! (Much more on this AFTER I’m safely retired 271 days, 14 hours, 43 minutes, and 31 seconds from NOW) One time, Tim and I were letting the wheat pile up on us, and instead of pulling ourselves out before it got to high and heavy, we let the whole hopper empty out. We were trapped under the weight of the wheat and could hardly breath! Just our heads were barely sticking out of the pile! It’s a good thing Uncle Ned decided to check on us! After he saw what happened, he quickly dug us out! THAT was a real scary experience to be sure! Did we “learn our lesson”? Nah, we went right back to doing the same thing with the next load, but we pulled ourselves out before the pile got too heavy from then on!