Tales of a Hay Hauler

by Brad Nelson

Now the boys have boys

The following column previously appeared in Progressive Hay Grower in December 2003.

Elli, my wife, is about to dispose of every pot and pan in the house larger than the 1-quart size. I like to cook. Maybe it started when at the age of 10, my family moved into town.

Dad’s back had become so painful, that as he stated, “There just wasn’t anything being done on the farm that didn’t absolutely have to be done right now. I knew you couldn’t farm like that, so we sold the farm and moved to town.”

The family now was the proud owner of “Paul’s Motel,” in Nampa, Idaho. Dad soon had a job, and the motel then was mostly run by Mom, with the help of the rest of us. I, being the oldest, ended up with the cooking assignment regularly enough to pick up a like for the sport. I remember Mom coming to my rescue a few times to correct the mistakes of her novice chef.

I soon learned that it was easier to add salt than to take it out (also pepper.) If it’s burned, the only hope is to get the top half out of the pan and quickly! That part of it may be saved or it may not. You know it’s a lost cause when the dogs won’t eat it.

My glory years at cooking were when Dan, one of my sons, had a couple of buddies living with us for a while. I’d put together a concoction of some form of good-old whatever-it-is, eat what I wanted and when the boys came in from school, they’d finish it off. Nikki, our youngest, was 14 years old before she had any idea what leftovers were. Teenage boys eat like Pa, Ma and the dog. (They shovel fast like Pa, sit there eating a long time like Ma and all the while take big bites, like the dog.)

It was in this time frame that I won my first trophies at a chili cook-off. I entered two batches. They were the same, other than one had been altered, seeking the “hottest chili” award. This was a fund-raiser for the Middleton, Idaho, high school band.

The format was for the chili to be served to those paying admission, and a sample from each batch to be judged by the band director and the high school principal. I made sure the batch of “hot” chili had been so labeled as to not injure any of the guests. The judges had no such warning. They had been given numbered containers of the competing recipes. They would try each batch simultaneously, then write down their comments and move on to the next batch.

I happened to be watching them as they simultaneously tasted my good and hot chili. They both dropped their spoons and went for the water pitcher with such vigor that they almost upset the table. I got the trophy for hottest chili. I also got a trophy for second place overall for the other batch.

The reason all the pans of reasonable size are about to go is that I never learned to cook “just a little.”

I received instructions the other day to be available by 6 p.m. Saturday evening for a birthday party for 6-year-old Ashton, my grandson and Dan’s oldest. There were four generations at the party.

Two uncles, one aunt and one cousin of the birthday boy rounded out the party, plus his younger sister, brother and parents. Among the plunder received was a truck. This was a tractor-trailer combination, designed to haul cars. About a dozen little cars came with.

As Ashton wrestled his way through the packaging to get it out, I told him that if he sawed the top off of the trailer, he could use it to haul hay. His father piped up that the boy may just try that.

Then we talked about one birthday at which Dan received a toy truck. The very next day when I got home he proudly showed me what he’d done to it. It had been sawed in half, and the two halves were wired together with a piece of wood 2”x4” “to make it long enough to haul hay with.”

I started to speak, then bit my tongue. I realized that I had never had a truck in my life that had remained like I found it for longer than a couple of days.

When the room emptied to just Dan, his son Luke Oscar and me, Dan told of some of his experiences with his trucks. Dan said that just good old word-of-mouth advertising had done him the best. One lady called and stated that another person had spoken highly of his work, and on that recommendation, she wanted him to bring her a load of horse hay. Dan said he hauls her about four loads a year.

The name she mentioned didn’t ring a clear bell, so he finally looked the referral source up in his invoice book. It turned out to be the neighbor of a fellow he’d hauled to. One load there was about a ton of hay more than would go into this fellow’s barn. So the lady across the street took the last ton. Dan was amazed that being congenial while delivering that last ton of hay had generated substantial new business.

At another place, the neighbor wanted about half of one trailer of hay. When they were ready, they walked over to see where it needed to go. The lady with the horses had pallets set out in her yard for Dan to stack the hay on. As he questioned the lady, he found that she really needed it in the barn, which was down a long driveway. She had always moved it herself, since she had been told the hay trucks couldn’t get back there. Dan found it a tight fit, but backed the trailer down the driveway and unloaded the hay in the barn where it was needed. This person now orders a whole trailer at a time and has lunch prepared for them when they come with the hay, “adequate for a football team.” The climate for doing business can often be controlled.

Jake, Dan’s brother-in-law, has followed Dan’s example in getting along with people. He said that being patient and friendly and having an extra Twinkie or handful of cookies has made him the favorite of the forklift drivers who unload him at the pallet places in Montana.

Think about it. If you were driving a fork lift and had your say in it, wouldn’t you go first to the truck whose driver is always pleasant and sometimes has extra “munchies”? And at a certain café in the same area, they almost always get the pie with meals at no charge. The waitress there insisted they couldn’t possibly be truck drivers. Why? They were too pleasant and not at all crude.

Every day can be a good day. And every encounter with another person can be pleasant. The best part is, it doesn’t cost any more. PD