It was a beautiful, sunny day, and we were happy to be going about our work. On this July day, we were planning on round-baling our upper hay field. It had a beautiful second crop of hay on it that I had cut a couple of days before. I went out and raked it around noon and then went out to bale it. It was beautiful hay that our cows would love to eat in the coming winter.
The south end of this hay field is nice and level, but as you go north, it goes steeply down into a big valley and then goes uphill a little to the neighbor’s fenceline. Normally, I would drive so that I would get a full round bale to discharge out of my baler when I was up on the level south end of the field or down in the big valley. If you’ve done much round baling, you know that doesn’t always work.
On this particular day, I was two-thirds of the way up the steep hill when my bale got to full size. I thought about going to the top of the hill and discharging the bale, but I didn’t want to take that much time. I backed the baler up so it was at an angle with the hill and discharged the bale. I’ve done this at other times and it worked alright. This time I didn’t get the angle right, and the discharged big bale started rolling downhill.
It didn’t take long, and that bale was moving really fast. It wasn’t heading straight downhill to the big valley in the hay field. Instead, since I had turned it at an angle with the hill, it was making record-breaking speed toward my excellent cow pasture fence. All I could do was sit there in my tractor seat and watch it go.
My fence was a nice, five-strand barbed-wire fence with a lot of T-posts in it. My big round bale went speeding right over it, totally flattening it. My bale came to a stop in the lower end of my cow pasture on nice level land. I breathed a sigh of relief. My fence needed fixing, but all my cows were up on top of the hill, safely out of the way. I hate to think what would have happened to them if they had been down in the lower end of the pasture and gotten hit by the bale. I thanked the Lord they were all OK. A fence can get repaired, but sometimes a cow can’t.
I sent Joshua out to the pasture with the skid loader to retrieve the bale of hay while I finished baling the remaining hay, not discharging any more on the steep hill. My cows were all resting peacefully in the sunshine – they never even knew what happened. After that, Catherine and I went out and fixed the fence. I decided then not to discharge any more bales on that steep side hill in the future.
Now when I bale that field, I always discharge the bale up on the level part of the field or down in the big valley. It may take a little longer to bale the field, but it’s a lot faster than fixing the fence and a whole lot better than hurting a cow.
I have found in life that a person always needs to be open to learning and growing. When I learn from my mistakes and change, I become a better person. Things get better for me and for those around me. In our lives, God expects us to learn from our mistakes and to change. It’s a part of growing in Him, and it’s always for our good. I strive to keep growing in Christ, seeking to be more like Him; that’s my ultimate goal. My big bale of hay got away from me that day, but I never want to get away from Jesus, my Lord.
