I must be a gearhead. When a memory of a trip or an event pops up, with it comes a clear picture of what I was driving that day. It was my 1966 Ford sedan. Four door, full size, either the Galaxie or the Custom. Beneath the hood was the roaring powerhouse of Ford’s venerable 240 six-cylinder engine, coupled to an automatic transmission. And four-60 air conditioning (four windows open at 60 miles per hour).

Brad Nelson

Retired Hay Hauler

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It was 1973 or 1974. I was in the dairy business and was out scouting for a source of hay for my herd. Dad came along for the ride that day. I had driven potato trucks the previous winter, hauling from the potato storage cellars on the farm to the potato processing plants. I had a fair idea where alfalfa was being grown, but we were still kind of in new country. Having found nice hay in the stack but no owners around, or haystacks not suitable for dairy feed but the owner was present, I pulled off the road and on a high spot in the terrain. The plan was to use it as a vantage point and see if there were haystacks we’d missed.

We couldn’t see anything promising and we needed to get on our way home soon. Near the car was a rough pile of big rocks. As if someone had dumped them there after picking them up from an adjacent field. I opened the trunk on the car and selected an oblong watermelon-sized rock and put it in the trunk.

Dad asked what the rock was for. I told him that I was going to take it home and give it to Elli. “Won’t that make her mad?” he asked. I assured him that it would not make my wife mad. I had done enough “off-the-wall” stuff over the years to guess that she would be delighted with the gift of a watermelon-sized lava rock. After all, I was sure none of her girlfriends had ever been given a plain lava rock of this size.

We arrived back home. I was greeted with the usual hug and kiss. Then I told her I had a surprise for her and opened the trunk. Dad stood by, skeptical of her reaction. I opened the trunk with a flourish and said, “I selected a lava rock for you, from the Little Valley area south of Bruneau, Idaho!”

Elli was surprised. A happy surprise. She said she wanted it by the door of the house. Dad just shook his head. I had not yet realized that by giving Elli something, it became special for that reason. It was hard for her to part with anything that had been a gift from me.

And the rock? It’s still on the steps in front of the house. My younger son said he wants it. Now I have to see if I’m still man enough to load it.

Facebook makes me stop and think rather often. A name showed up, commenting on something I’d posted. He had been a dairyman I’d hauled hay to. Upon inquiry, this was the son of that dairyman. He’d been a preschooler back then.

While still unloading on the father’s place decades ago, he had given his cows some of the load from my truck. When we had finished unloading, he called me over to the feedbunk. English was not this man’s first language, and I often saw him watching and listening to make sure whoever he was talking to understood what he meant to say.

“This hay, when the cow take a bite, I hear it crunch.” He was pantomiming with his hands as he watched my face as he talked, making sure he was understood. He went on saying that the other hay made no crunching sound when the cows “take a bite.”

I explained that where this load of hay came from, often when the hay was cut, a wind would blow day and night. This was good because it dried the hay faster. (In fact, I had seen hay be dry enough to bale 24 hours after it was cut. A steady 10-mph wind at 110ºF and 20% humidity will do that.)

To get the leaves of the alfalfa in the bale, there needs to be a little dew moisture. Just enough to toughen the structure that holds the leaf to the stem. Sometimes in the desert around Mountain Home, Bruneau and Grandview, Idaho, the dry wind will blow day and night for two or three days straight. Then the stems also become tinder dry. Usually, hay is baled as soon as the moisture level drops to 16% to 18% (for small bales), which leaves the stem still tough and chewy.