Don't kids haul hay anymore?

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Try contacting the local courthourt. There are plenty of people looking to pay their fines any way they can instead of doing public service work.
 
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I've given up trying to find help putting up hay this year. Our last cutting was going to be around 2000 bales. I got to the point of offering $.20 per bale, each, using my truck, trailer, loaders, and elevators. That's $200.00 each and no takers. Girlfriends and softball were the most common reasons. It took 2 days, but the wife and I and a son-in-law (who I may never hear from again) got it done.
The way I do math, that comes to $400 each not $200 each.
 
We used to load and stack Alfalfa bales for .05 a piece I'm not sure what kind of hay your cutting but we would have been wealthy at .20 a bale just to stack it. We had to walk/run alongside the trailer behind the tractor and throw the bales up to the trailer then stack it in the barn.for a lousy nickle a bale. If I weren't almost 67 with a torn up shoulder and disintegrating hip I'd nearly do it for the fun.
 
We used to load and stack Alfalfa bales for .05 a piece I'm not sure what kind of hay your cutting but we would have been wealthy at .20 a bale just to stack it. We had to walk/run alongside the trailer behind the tractor and throw the bales up to the trailer then stack it in the barn.for a lousy nickle a bale. If I weren't almost 67 with a torn up shoulder and disintegrating hip I'd nearly do it for the fun.
Now that I would pay to watch...LOL
 
If you had land to hunt you could trade letting someone hunt for work done over the year. If a person is willing to work in there spare time putting up hay and other chores then he is probably responsible. If he is not reliable and doesn't show up half the time then he doesn't get to hunt.

Wish I was lived near you. 2-3 cuttings and I would have a new bow.

Dave
 
Times change don't they

$.20 each a bale to load and stack....from the early 70s to mid 80s there were years when I sold hay for $.60 a bale. We did trefoil & timothy because we had horses as well as cows and I didn't like alfalfa for horse hay...not quite dry enough and you could get mold...cows didn't care but it could give horses colic.
 
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My grandpa and dad had row binders, none of those fancy bailing machines. Stacking shocks, then letting them dry in the shocks in the field. A month or so later came hauling it to the barn. This way you got to handle it twice. I preferred picking cotton, it doesn't make you itch and paid the same, nothing.
 
Yeah, I threw bales for my teen years--in exchange for learning to ride jumpers.

Did poor calculating when I bought 3 thoroughbreds in the late 1980's. One mare just died last Fall. So, I was feeding a single horse for a couple years. With no storage facility, I was buying "bagged hay" at the local Farm&Fleet store. Each bag was 50 pounds, and I bought 5 at a time. One bag was placed in the basket, the others beneath. More than once the nice young MAN at the Cash register would ask ME, "Can you take that out of the basket, sir?" To which, I started to reply, "Yes, I can, I got it INTO the basket and I'm 60 years old!" You, on the other hand are in your 20's --CAN YOU get it out of the basket??" NOT ONE DID!!! They brought the scanner around and left it in the basket.

I then rolled them to the car and removed them, loaded into the car and went home.

I wonder WHAT they will be able to lift when THEY are 60!!!
 
Dang, I hate red clover. Heavy, dusty, doesn't pack tight, more apt to bust open, and itches like crazy when you're covered in the dust. Early to mid 70's in south east Kansas, I was part of several different hay hauling crews. Generally made up of someone older who owned the truck, and 2 kids in their teens. Truck would carry 100 bales, and the crew would get $.25 a bale, or $25 for a load of 100. The older guy would keep $.15, based on a nickle for the truck, a nickle for gas, and a nickle for him as driver. While I wouldn't consider it to have been highly competitive, everyone knew which crews did the best work, from turnaround time getting a load picked up in the fields to neatly and tightly stacked in the loft or hay shed (though not to tightly- which could supposedly contribute to spontaneous combustion), to working the longest days. A good crew could get a load of 100 bales out of the field and stacked on the truck, transported and restacked at the barn, and back in the field for the next load in under an hour, and that was allowing 10 minutes travel time. $5 an hour, or a little more when we were really hustling, was some pretty good wages for a kid in rural Kansas. And 12 - 14 hours, making the best use of sunlight, was pretty common. The best part of that, though, was knowing you had a full day of work already lined up because you had a reputation as being a good crew and folks asked for you in advance, instead of being one of the groups that would meet at the co-op early in the morning, waiting to hear if someone needed them because their other arrangments had fallen through. While one of the harder (physically) jobs I've ever had, it was still fun, and think it helped build character. Red clover, though, I don't miss at all....
 
Cut down

Yeah, I threw bales for my teen years--in exchange for learning to ride jumpers.

Did poor calculating when I bought 3 thoroughbreds in the late 1980's. One mare just died last Fall. So, I was feeding a single horse for a couple years. With no storage facility, I was buying "bagged hay" at the local Farm&Fleet store. Each bag was 50 pounds, and I bought 5 at a time. One bag was placed in the basket, the others beneath. More than once the nice young MAN at the Cash register would ask ME, "Can you take that out of the basket, sir?" To which, I started to reply, "Yes, I can, I got it INTO the basket and I'm 60 years old!" You, on the other hand are in your 20's --CAN YOU get it out of the basket??" NOT ONE DID!!! They brought the scanner around and left it in the basket.

I then rolled them to the car and removed them, loaded into the car and went home.

I wonder WHAT they will be able to lift when THEY are 60!!!

When I was still in my early 50s and buying feed in 100 pound bags I'd stand two up on the tailgate of my pickup truck (yes there was a gun rack in the rear window) get one on each shoulder and walk away with them. Now I can manage 1 40 pound bag of bird seed----if the truck (which no longer has a gun rack) isn't parked too far from the door. I spose that's what happens to a lot of folks in the years between the 50s and 70s. I even let the store employees carry it out now when they offer (which is often --- nice folks here in Delaware).
 
I remember getting .02 a bail bucking. (not for Dad though) One year he decided to plant 500lb of potatoes. We dug taters for a week! Pay, forget it, I had a roof over my head and food to eat!
 
Yeah, I threw bales for my teen years--in exchange for learning to ride jumpers. !

Just lost my last hunter in Feb...aneurysm. He was 10 years old. I am 68 and can still pick up, carry, and dump an 80 lb bag of alfalfa pellets. I have trouble with big alfalfa bales, but I can drag 'em!

I bred, raised, trained and showed draft cross hunters for almost 15 years. Before that it was TB hunters. Now I have no more horses, but still spend every weekend teaching 4H kids to jump horses.
 
Dang, I hate red clover. Heavy, dusty, doesn't pack tight, more apt to bust open, and itches like crazy when you're covered in the dust. Early to mid 70's in south east Kansas, ....

Are you familiar with the Flint Hills near Emporia? I spent my teenage years working on a 22,000 acre cattle ranch in the flint hills. Spent every summer from June to Sept. riding and working cattle on my uncle's ranch. What a way to grow up!
 
Dang, I hate red clover. Heavy, dusty, doesn't pack tight, more apt to bust open, and itches like crazy when you're covered in the dust. Early to mid 70's in south east Kansas, ....

Are you familiar with the Flint Hills near Emporia? I spent my teenage years working on a 22,000 acre cattle ranch in the flint hills. Spent every summer from June to Sept. riding and working cattle on my uncle's ranch. What a way to grow up!

Only from later years, driving through from Wichita to Topeka. Before moving to Texas in the fall of '76, spent most of my time growing up in Cherokee county, which borders both Oklahoma, and Missouri. Still have most of my family in and around Columbus or Joplin.
 
I'm in my late 30's International 706 pulling a John Deere 24T baler that never seemed to miss a tie. I liked when we pulled the trailer behind the baler because you could handle the bales one less time. My sister drove the tractor and seemed to always stop the tractor just when you had a 65 lb. bale overhead and only one foot on the deck and would laugh when you fell over backwards. My Dad says that I'm one of the youngest people alive who knows what a stooker is and knows how to stack it.
 
Now that none of us kids are home Dad does round bales and moves them with a front end loader. When we ask him why he waited until we left to get it and for that matter a riding lawn mower he just smiles.
 
Had one

I'm in my late 30's International 706 pulling a John Deere 24T baler that never seemed to miss a tie. I liked when we pulled the trailer behind the baler because you could handle the bales one less time. My sister drove the tractor and seemed to always stop the tractor just when you had a 65 lb. bale overhead and only one foot on the deck and would laugh when you fell over backwards. My Dad says that I'm one of the youngest people alive who knows what a stooker is and knows how to stack it.

I had a JD 24T baler in my baling days. Good machine. Also had a New Holland haybine, and an IH Tedder pulled them all behind an IH 340 Tractor.
 
Today's youth are spoiled brats.

Interestingly enough, my grandfather said this about kids he knew in the 40s! "Today" is a moving target. Every generation thinks the younger kids are lazy and shiftless.

Frankly, kids can make a lot more money behind a computer or in the comfort of an air conditioned store or office. They're not stupid. If there was no comfortable way to make a buck, they'd be sweating for it if they needed the money badly enough.

When I did hard work as a kid, it was because I had no choice in the matter. It was do the work my parents told me to do or I'd get punished and it was always painful in more than one way. No money or choices involved.
 
I am still a young buck in Texas. We hauled hay when I was younger but my Grandpa stopped and went to just round bales instead of both. I am teaching my kids to work but things are not the same as it used to be. I was chewed out for making my kids carry groceries. I get dirty looks for making my kids walk in a store. Standards are not the same.
 
My 17 year old step son just learned that he is going to be painting the house this summer since he is too lazy to get a job and was stupid enough to get his lisence suspended. He actually had the nerve to ask me how much he was going to get paid. I put his pay in writing and he was happy with the number, then I put down some more numbers, such as his food bill, his laundry bill, his electric bill, his gas bill, his phone bill, his cable tv bill, his car insurance bill, and his water bill and at the end of all that, he will only owe me about 4 grand after painting the house twice a year forever. He stopped asking to get paid for painting after that and went back to his video game, good move since that will be disappearing soon until the house is painted to my satisfaction.
 
True

Today's youth are spoiled brats.

Interestingly enough, my grandfather said this about kids he knew in the 40s! "Today" is a moving target. Every generation thinks the younger kids are lazy and shiftless.

Frankly, kids can make a lot more money behind a computer or in the comfort of an air conditioned store or office. They're not stupid. If there was no comfortable way to make a buck, they'd be sweating for it if they needed the money badly enough.

When I did hard work as a kid, it was because I had no choice in the matter. It was do the work my parents told me to do or I'd get punished and it was always painful in more than one way. No money or choices involved.

That's because they are -- unless the parents make specific efforts to make them work every generation wants more things for less effort and with an occasional hiccup they usually wind up getting it.

I wanted and got more than my parents even though we were poor, we were not as poor as their parents and even though I was expected to do my chores with out compensation, I didn't have as many chores as my parents.

My kids wanted and got more than I did, even though we worked very hard to instill a good work ethic and good work habits in them.

My grand children want (and expect) more than their parents, with no work expected of them at all. Not even picking up their own toys off the floor - they walk on them and if they break one, so what, they'll get a new one.
 
My 17 year old step son just learned that he is going to be painting the house this summer since he is too lazy to get a job and was stupid enough to get his lisence suspended. He actually had the nerve to ask me how much he was going to get paid. I put his pay in writing and he was happy with the number, then I put down some more numbers, such as his food bill, his laundry bill, his electric bill, his gas bill, his phone bill, his cable tv bill, his car insurance bill, and his water bill and at the end of all that, he will only owe me about 4 grand after painting the house twice a year forever. He stopped asking to get paid for painting after that and went back to his video game, good move since that will be disappearing soon until the house is painted to my satisfaction.

When he's done with yours send him my way. Since mine is mostly brick I'll let him off easy and only charge him $500 to do mine.:biggrin:

We have a car show here every summer with around 1500 cars each year. The youth group at the church spend 3 days during and after the show cleaning up the garbage. They get paid around a grand and spend it on sleeping bags and other supplies that get sent to a mission for homeless kids in Toronto. A lot of the kids this stuff goes to are homeless because it's actually safer than being at home with their so called parents.
Same group from the church go out a couple times a year and do yard work etc. for a lot of the elderly in town. They don't charge but will take a donation that gets used for other mission work.
Oh, I'm in a small village of 900 and a 45 minute drive to the nearest city. Moved here from Oshawa about 8 years ago and find a totally different attitude among the youth. Got 4 grandchildren all city kids. The youngest is 9 and I'm seeing a totally different attitude with her about work around the house now that dad is home all the time instead of away with his job 6 or 7 weeks at a time. My daughter has 3 the two oldest 18 and 20 would starve to death if they didn't have mommy to look after them, the other seems to have a little more on the ball wouldn't even have a clue which end of a paintbrush to hold.
 
Growing up we didn't bail our own hay. But to save money we would go and pick up the bails from the field ourselves, several trips a day to fill the truck and trailer. Everyday at 4 am we were up to bottle feed up to 40 baby calves in time to be at practice by 6:15 am. All for room and board. Jeeze my parents were so mean :)
 
Growing up we didn't bail our own hay. But to save money we would go and pick up the bails from the field ourselves, several trips a day to fill the truck and trailer. Everyday at 4 am we were up to bottle feed up to 40 baby calves in time to be at practice by 6:15 am. All for room and board. Jeeze my parents were so mean :)

We didn't bottle feed ours but we did have to teach them to drink from a pail. We bought 3 day old bull dairy calves from the livestock auction, had them cut and raised them as steers...The most we raised at one time was 21 though, usually about 10 or 12 a year.
 
My 17 year old step son just learned that he is going to be painting the house this summer since he is too lazy to get a job and was stupid enough to get his lisence suspended. He actually had the nerve to ask me how much he was going to get paid. I put his pay in writing and he was happy with the number, then I put down some more numbers, such as his food bill, his laundry bill, his electric bill, his gas bill, his phone bill, his cable tv bill, his car insurance bill, and his water bill and at the end of all that, he will only owe me about 4 grand after painting the house twice a year forever. He stopped asking to get paid for painting after that and went back to his video game, good move since that will be disappearing soon until the house is painted to my satisfaction.

Don't forget to have him polish the brightwork! Good practice for when he gets his turn at paradise island.
 
Growing up we didn't bail our own hay. But to save money we would go and pick up the bails from the field ourselves, several trips a day to fill the truck and trailer. Everyday at 4 am we were up to bottle feed up to 40 baby calves in time to be at practice by 6:15 am. All for room and board. Jeeze my parents were so mean :)

We didn't bottle feed ours but we did have to teach them to drink from a pail. We bought 3 day old bull dairy calves from the livestock auction, had them cut and raised them as steers...The most we raised at one time was 21 though, usually about 10 or 12 a year.

We had buckets with a big rubber teat on the bottom.
 
Hauled over 10,000 lbs of scrap to the junk yard at 5 cents a pound, and I am not even close to being finished with that one storage unit. Told a couple kids I would split the money with them if they helped, When they saw it was all engine blocks and heads they wanted more or just just said no. Yeah, it was 103 yesterday and about the same Monday. They were short sited though. I have 4 more units and those are mostly aluminum at 36 cents a pound and copper wire, if stripped at 50 to 65 cents a pound. It might take me longer to get it done but I get all the money and the exercise. Both of which I need.
 
next time, try these two ideas, contact local Youth Pastors. youth groups are always in need of fundraisers, and a decent sized youth group will have a few good size boys who are up to it. Second Baptist in Springfield, or any similar sized church will certainly have more than enough volunteers.

the second is like the first. High school Football coaches/boosters are also on the lookout for fundraisers, plus this is a hell of a workout to boot.

either way, you might want to lower the price a little so you can afford to feed them during the day,

Good luck
 
My brother is a Co. Deputy and works the courtroom also. He says to check with the court clerks. In his county there is a list of people waiting to do their community service. The judge loans them out pretty regular.
 
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