“If you trust in yourself…and believe in your dreams…and follow your star…you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy.” – Terry Pratchett
“Good morning Bruce. Beautiful morning! Thanks for your help yesterday. How can I help you?” “Well, no big deal really. I just need to get a few bales of hay into the barn. It’s supposed to hit about 105 this afternoon with possible thunder showers later, so getting an early start would probably be good. Ever buck hay bales before, Rich?” “Nope.” Well, it’s pretty easy really. A bit dusty. You probably should have worn a long-sleeve shirt ‘cause they can get a bit scratchy.”
We drove about a half mile to his neighbor’s hay field in a flat bed truck with 8 foot high rails. “A couple of truck loads and that should do me”, says Bruce. “The rest we’ll put up for my neighbor. He has some back issues and I promised to load up his barn in exchange for my hay.”
I learned that each hay bale weighs about 55 pounds and a fully loaded truck holds 480 bales. I began to understand how his neighbor developed his back issues. After an hour or so my arms hurt. After two hours, my shoulders hurt and my back was killing me but we kept heaving bale after bale into the back of the truck and carefully stacking the bales so they wouldn’t shift as we loaded one load after another, drove to the barn and unloaded and restacked bale after bale after bale. I had hay debris where hay debris should never be. My hair, face, skin, ears, nose, and mouth were covered and filled with dust and hay chaff. I cannot remember a time when I was so sore, so miserable, so hot, so dirty, and so tired. I began to understand religion and the concept of hell. If this is what possibly awaited my fate after death, I was going to turn my life around.
By this time, Bruce had improved the financial model for his cattle ranching business and had figured out how to get free hay to over-winter his cattle herd which had now grown to four.
Husbandry 