Nirvana of Baling
The pontificators advise us all to live in the moment.
We will be happy only if we observe and appreciate what is going on around us right this instant instead of thinking about the future while the present is passing us by.
Celebrate the colors of a butterfly’s wings.
Notice the clouds in the sky.
Other pontificators advise us all to plan for the future or we will be sorry.
Very sorry.
Contribute now to a retirement fund to pay for being old.
Eat more vegetables and less sugar.
We are supposed to live in the moment, yet we are obviously doomed if we don’t plan for the future.
No wonder our society is neurotic.
Throw in a few unrealistic expectations about airbrushed sexiness and we have the complete recipe for American Crazy Days.
Yet, ranchers know that baling hay is the perfect artistic intersection of living in the moment for the future.
I greased the baler with a plan to stack a few small square bales in my barn.
Really, my alfalfa is far too short to bale into hay this year.
Normally, I harvest about 1000 pounds per acre, but this year it looks like about 300 pounds per acre.
With crazy fuel prices, running a swather, baler and stacker across the field makes absolutely no financial sense.
But I need a few small square bales to feed to my sheep during lambing season instead of attempting to feed big round bales.
Lambs manage to get squashed by round bales.
So I factor in the benefit of about 10 extra live lambs when I calculate the cost of my hay.
Plus, the alfalfa is so short that a lot of the plants slide right under the swather blade and pop back up, ready for fall grazing.
The pontificators who preach planning for the future would be proud of how I include all of the factors in my calculations.
The pontificators who preach living in the moment would reach Nirvana if they ever operated a small square baler.
The small square baler has so many moving parts that must work precisely right at precisely the right time.
The operator on the tractor needs to watch ahead to drive straight and watch behind to be sure the alfalfa is going in, being compressed and coming out correctly.
This takes focus and concentration, with not a second to think about the future or unrealistic expectations for airbrushed sexiness.
If ever there is a person who lives in the moment, it is the tractor driver who is baling hay.
Right up until the moment she realizes she didn’t plan ahead for her future.
Right up until the moment she realizes she was an idiot and didn’t retighten the lugs on a wheel.
Fortunately, all of that focus and concentration allowed me to spot the wobbling wheel and shut the baler down before the wheel fell off.
Suddenly, the day’s plan included a trip to town for new lug bolts.
The first store had a wide variety of lugs but needed specs.
The second store had the specs, but the lug bolts were out of stock.
Back at the first store, the helpful attendant bagged my solution.
By 7 p.m., I was back at the baler, ready to tighten lug bolts.
Past closing time, I opened the bag to find the wrong parts.
I was back in the moment, that’s for sure.
Only my dog heard my reaction to that moment.
It wasn’t Nirvana and it wasn’t sexy.
Baling hay helps me master the art of living in the moment while planning for my future, but meeting unrealistic airbrushed expectations of sexiness are beyond me.
I’m an American, but I’m not that crazy.