Never The Same IC#11 Part Three: Still the #@*&%*! Same

Stuck in a rut with no traction to speak of

Cue: “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” https://youtu.be/kHhsmpOzttY

 

To say Kirk remained still the same proved a huge misnomer because he wasn’t the same as before college, he now existed in a much worse off condition. Yes, he lived at home on the farm again, but all his ready escapes from before college were gone. His buddies had dropped out of sight whether married and working, or just plain working full time, or gone somewhere else to another town or another state.

As already previously mentioned, Kirk’s love life had stalled, and he wondered why. Quickly answering himself with the memories of failed relationships with Ultraviolet, Babe, Dee, and more recently Bonnie and Farrah. The first three girls were gone for good, and Kirk endeavored to forget Bonnie because he let her go and she remained out of reach, more or less, but Farrah lived closer, but she was going steady with someone, so in reality, she remained out of reach.

So, besides Kirk’s love losses there was no school to look forward to, or to dread, in the upcoming fall, and there were no school activities for the summer to distract him or provide a getaway. The worse part in this equation was that Kirk owed his father money and being  

at home he was available to work for his father�"all the time. Kirk sure didn’t want to live like a farmer, but he was a country boy back home on the farm. Yep, Kirk stood in a deep, renewed quagmire of a rut called his life and his feet stuck fast.

Part of being stuck at home meant him being at his father’s beckon call which Kirk had to respond to without viable excuse. Yeah, Kirk, after pretty much being free to do as he pleased, when he wanted, now had no feasible escape. In the short term that meant baling hay with his father. Kirk never really minded baling hay so much, he thought it fulfilled some sort of predisposition of a substantial perceptible accomplishment with an associated palatable physical exertion; because, most times, on those blistering hot, humid midday summer days, Kirk hated the hard labor while doing it, but when the work was finally done, there it was, a huge pile of baled hay. The process of hay preparation and baled completion remained an integral was part of country life for a country boy. And ever since being a boy when he finally witnessed it, finally really seen it, that is, the baler in action and how it functioned, its magical mechanical ability intrigued him.

Pulled by the tractor, the baler had its own snorting powerful engine that lifted, rotated, and shoved the hay through its devious convoluted chambers. Kirk thought the baler picking up and ingesting the loose, fluffy hay and spitting out nicely packed, twine encircled perfectly squared off rectangular bales was nothing short of miraculous to the boy and still as an older teen. And amazingly how those identical bales got wrapped by those two lengths of twine, not to mention the mechanical tying of those knots that converged on the magical. So, of course, the next day baling hay would be the task of the day. Kirk knew from experience that it would be a few loads of hay with each load being a hundred bales or more depending on his father’s guestimation of the grand total of bales.  

Early the next day his father spent the morning greasing the baler which sported a multitude of zerks. Apparently due to the inherently finicky nature of the baler, after all it is magical, warranted more attention from his father than the other pieces of farm equipment, and besides, any breakage of said baler usually cost more not to mention stopped the ongoing process.

Sadly, or at least dejectedly, Kirk decided he needed to do something with his toolbox. Still in the back of the Bug, he pulled out the heavy box and set it on the ground unsure what to do with it. Other than the tractor garage where his father worked, there wasn’t a real clean and dry workspace to put his tool box. Ironically, some of the tools that he had been required to purchase for his college course remained pristine�"totally unused. For the time being, he lugged the box to the back entry room of the house that pretty much acted as a catchall for all matter of odds and end. Maybe he’d haul the box to brother-in-law Mike’s garage if Kirk came up with an auto project there. With a deep-seated sigh, Kirk sat down on the back steps reflecting on his dismal situation.

Kirk’s father announced he was going to check on the hay so Kirk knew he balanced on the cusp of hard labor. His father took the family station wagon out the driveway and down the farm lane to the field. Kirk’s quick, untrained scan of the sky revealed that midrange clouds, altocumulus he assumed, were moving in. Also, by the feel of the morning, it wouldn’t take any kind of expert to recognize that it was destined to be a hot, humid day�"his favorite kind of day for hay making. He took off his ballcap to wipe his brow. His father came back relatively quickly. He announced out the car’s rolled down window that the hay was “good and dry.” Kirk knew what that meant.

So shortly thereafter, they went a short caravan with tractor, baler, and wagon hooked in tandem. His father drove. Standing up for the ride utilizing a lot of experience Kirk rode balanced with a wide stance on the rocking, bumping hay wagon. With the sky looking questionable along with the TV weather guy saying the night before that rain lurked out there and possibly heading their way by early evening, Kirk knew how his father would take on the day of baling. It would mean balls to the wall with no stops unless a breakdown occurred.    

Pulling into the field and stopping, Kirk jumped off the wagon and cranked, by hand, the baler engine to life. With the engine snorting away, Kirk’s father engaged the baler clutch and all the baler’s flywheels, tines, plungers, augers, and gears came to life. Besides the engine noise, you could hear the tines clicking and scraping on metal, the gears whirring, chains rattling, and the plungers pounding. The amazing fact about this mechanized beast called a baler was that all this movement and noise was funneled through one single shear bolt skinnier than your little finger. The whole idea is that if something breaks or gets stuck, the bolt shears off before anything important breaks. Look at this way: While the baler is in full motion you could throw a thick iron bar into the baler works and BANG! the shear bolt breaks and all that ridiculous motion instantly stops. The engine would keep running with the flywheel spinning but nothing else would move. You’d have to call it ingenious to build a thing like that with all that power going through one little bolt to put all those big and little parts into motion.

Anyway, before Kirk climbed onto the wagon, his father started off, letting the baler pick up the outside windrow. Not a problem at all while moving, Kirk jumped on after years of practice getting on and off the wagon while moving. After ten yards and a minute, the first bale made its way up the chute to Kirk on the wagon. Snagging it with his hay hook, Kirk dragged it to the back of the wagon to begin the stacking routine. With time and more bales, Kirk stacked the bales alternating each layer changing the pattern of bales in positioning bales either lengthways or widthways in relative position to the wagon.

The pattern he stacked came with experience found especially important after losing a load of hay. That time years ago, while sitting on top of the load as his father drove a bit too fast around a curve at the barn, the load tipped one way and then the other before going over taking Kirk tumbling down with it. Let’s see, the wagon is about three feet high and eight layers of bales put the height well near twenty feet. Kirk found it wasn’t any fun at all to throw and stack all those bales back on the wagon after already being tired. After that incident, Kirk stacked tighter interlocking the patterns from layer and layer. It became second nature such as during this day. And so, the baling went�"on and on.

After a few rounds the good-sized field with the baler ingesting the loose windrows and spitting out bales one after another, the wagon filled up with Kirk hoisting the bales up eight layers high, well over his head level. Sweating profusely with the salt running into his eyes making him blink it out and the sweat running down his back with hay chaff and dust sticking to him and falling down his shirt, Kirk continued on as his father showed no sign of letting up. Soon, Kirk ran out of room, standing on the only two-foot square of wagon while surrounded by three sheer walls of bales. Finally, using of the only available spaces for the bales by throwing the bales straight up over his head, his father stopped. Despite his years of working out with the high school sports teams, lifting weights and running, Kirk sat down winded and tired already. He knew his break would be short.

With his father hitching up to another wagon, Kirk grabbed a drink and spied the sky. Dark clouds appeared along the horizon. He saw his father glare at the clouds as well. On the first load, Kirk had a few seconds after stacking the previous bale before he had to grab the next, but now, he noticed his father drove a bit faster. The baler snorted a little louder, the plunger pounded a little harder. And he had to step sprightly back and forth on the wagon to stack and keep up with the quicker rate the bales popped out. Kirk also sensed that the amount he sweated was not only because he had no time between bales, but the humidity had risen making the hay a little tougher for the baler to cut in each bale. 

Closer to the middle of the field, about halfway through making a full load, the windrow got larger, but Kirk’s father didn’t slow. Kirk had to actually throw the bales into place on the wagon and run back to grab the next bale before it fell from the chute to the ground. Kirk didn’t think he could make it through a whole load.

 The shear bolt will break with all that hay going through it, Kirk thought as he panted and stacked. Maybe wishful thinking...

Three bales later, abruptly, the baler’s noise just ceased except for the engine. His father stopped the tractor and threw his arms up in frustration before getting off and inspecting the baler. Kirk pulled the next two bales out of chute and stacked them.

“Anything broke?” Kirk asked.

“Other than the shear bolt, nothing that I can see.” His father said already having wrenches and a new shear bolt in hand. “Clear out the pickup and the chamber.”

Kirk pulled the hay out, carried it, and spread it on the next windrow, and then crawled inside the bale chamber. He had a hard time pulling it out because the hay was packed so tight. Dragging frantically with his fingernails, he eventually had the chamber nearly clear which he knew was enough. Catching his breath, Kirk watched as his father finished with the shear bolt because it wasn’t much of a job. His father tried rolling the flywheel by hand and bumped it back and forth but couldn’t make the baler do a rotation. Kirk got his hands on the flywheel and together they pushed hard allowing the plunger to cut through the remaining hay. After turning the flywheel a few times allowing the baler to go through the motions, they decided nothing seemed wrong with the baler. Kirk sure didn’t want to tell his father that he was just driving too damn fast for the amount of hay in the windrow because his father wouldn’t be told what to do especially by “his boy.”  

Indeed, nothing had gone wrong with the baler, so they continued on with his father driving just a bit slower. The dark clouds still held off on the horizon as they finished the second load. There remained just a couple windrows. Rushing back to the barn with the load to unload it because they only had two wagons. Kirk knew the look of stress on his father. As they pulled up to the elevator, Kirk’s mother appeared with a large container of red Kool Aid. Kirk’s father chugged some right from the container while Kirk drank from a plastic glass that his mother had offered his father. After the chugging, his father climbed the elevator and shouted down to get going with the unloading.

Kirk plugged the elevator in and pulled off a few bales right from the wagon while standing on the ground to set them on the elevator. His father motioned to go faster even though he had to stack them in the upper loft. Kirk didn’t think it be a problem of sending more bales up because his father was essentially fresh compared to him. Kirk had the easier of the two jobs of unloading. Having three bales on the elevator at once, the unloading occurred in thirty minutes. They raced back out to the field, hitched up, and started baling again.

The sky now looked genuinely threatening. They pressed on. By the time they got to the last windrow, Kirk had spied a couple lightning strikes, but didn’t hear thunder�"not yet at least over the equipment noise. With only about half a load to finish the field, Kirk pulled the pin on the wagon, and his father jumped off the tractor to unhitch the baler. With a bit of nervous maneuvering, they hooked the two wagons in tandem, then headed back to the barn.  After parking the full load in the barn, they commenced unloading the half load. Not long into it, Kirk heard the first thunderclap.

He hurried even more when he saw rain striations not that far away by putting four and five bales on the elevator at once. His father had given up on stacking the bales in the loft and just tossed the bales in a surrounding pile at the upper end of the elevator. With maybe a dozen bales to go, Kirk felt a few big, cold drops of rain. He took his hat off and threw it. After another couple bales, the heavens opened up. Kirk felt like he stood under a freezing cold shower. He continued on bolstered by his father’s frantic gesturing in between tossing bales. Kirk appreciated the cold rain�"relishing the cooling of his previously hot, sweaty, tired body with his clothes soaked through and hair dripping wet. Finishing with the last bale, he eased off the wagon without any due rush. After the last bale got to the top and dropped in the loft, he used his feet to awkwardly pull the elevator’s electrical plug. His father just silently sat down on a bale up in the hayloft without saying a word.

Kirk sat down on the other loaded wagon in the barn to recover. Listening to the heavy rain hammering on the sheet metal of the tractor, the now empty wagon, and the barn roof seemingly the most soothing sound to Kirk at the moment. Nevertheless, tired out Kirk felt a sense of accomplishment after baling all that hay and getting most of it in the barn dry. He didn’t expect a word of gratitude from his father as par for the course.  After a couple minutes, his father made it down to the ground.

“Need to make sure those wet bales get set aside later,” his father said. “There’s no need spoil more than those few bales.”

Kirk non-verbally answered positively, but he thought more importantly that they shouldn’t risk spontaneous combustion, a real hazard with damp hay that caused many a barn fire. As the rain subsided somewhat, Kirk moseyed back to the house where his mother waited with more Kool Aid. He accepted it readily but after being doused with cold rain, he thought a hot coffee would be better suited to how chilled he felt. He mentioned it. She complied.

That evening meal, a very hungry Kirk ate greedily without much to say. His father thought they had been fortunate that they got the majority of the hay in considering the weather had been threatening most of the day. Eventually, his father circled back around to Kirk getting a job. Kirk didn’t want to hear about it, but knew he couldn’t slow his father once he latched on to an idea especially when it referred to money. His father “suggested” that Kirk go to the tractor dealer the following day, seeing nothing remained pressing on the farm that he needed Kirk help with. Kirk agreed with a nod of his head.

Cue: “Dream Weaver” https://youtu.be/LgCWgfwlk0M

That night, aching and exhausted, Kirk dreamt of being buried with a hay bale avalanche, then without skipping a beat being left standing alone by Bonnie who didn’t seem to know him as his dreamself shouted his unrequited love to her. Kirk awoke from the dream thinking it had been just a replay of the incident at the nightclub. His waking thoughts immediately turned back to his loss of the love of his life, Dee. Her laughing face, her small warm hand in his, and the finality, that last look over her shoulder as she walked away.

Kirk stirred in half sleep. Why can’t I shake Dee from my thoughts, Kirk thought. Will I, could I ever be reunited with her?

Kirk fell back into a deep sleep and…