Line 'O the day - April 2, 2008

Hopefully on some far off date someone will ask, “And what is it you do Mr. Eckles?”
And my reply is, “Me, I’m a good friend.”

Line 'O the day - March 31, 2008

If it’s crazy, it’s crazy, I don’t know. I do know it ain’t worth feigning sanity and passing this up.

Line 'O the day - March 26, 2008

Hope is on the horizon. I haven’t felt it yet, but I’m sure it’s up ahead.

A hayloft is hot

Hay was a big part of my life when I was growing up, as I've mentioned before. And for anyone that may not fully understand the reason for hay it is very simple. Grass doesn't grow very well in the winter, but cows still need to eat, and that's where hay comes in. It's stored grass, and there are different ways to store it. Massive rows of big round bales, which I've touched on before; suppose silage would be another way, but I'm not getting into explaining silage right now; then you have hay barns. These could be large open air pole barns, long machine shed looking buildings, and then of course your old classic looking barn with a hayloft.

A hayloft is a great use of space and convenience, for feeding out the hay. Not so much when it comes to putting the hay in during the summer. You need specialized equipment, not counting the baler, tractors and wagons to get the goods from the field to the barn. Specifically an elevator to get everything from ground level up into the loft. You need at least two people, one putting on the hay at the bottom of the elevator, and one stacking it in the loft, usually you'll have at least two ol'boys in the barn.

Now then all of that is preamble to a specific story. The first time I damn near had a heat stroke. I was twelve, maybe thirteen and we had a full out crew working. My older brother was out on the ground throwing bales on the elevator, and then dad, my uncle Glen (this is I think his first mention, he gets his own whole post in the coming weeks) and myself up in the loft. We had been at it all afternoon and had been packing this particular barn for a few days. It was just about full and we were stuffing every last corner we could right up to the rafters. With me being small, light and all I was perched way up in the loft with dad and Glen tossing bales up from the elevator to me to stack.

This is in the middle of summer and it is hot, we'll say like 90 or 95 degrees outside. Out in the field, or just anywhere outside working in that heat is easy, but being in the loft changes things. First and foremost I'm way up next to the roof, a metal conduit for heat to just build up. It's a damn oven, doubly so because I'm surrounded by hay bales, acting like an insulation trapping in every bit of heat it can. Add to all that the dust and confinement, and oh yea the fact that I'm thirteen and working my ass off trying to keep up with these two grown men.

So I start to feel a little peaked as we're working and I sorta gave up and sat down. And I remember my uncle's face when he looked up at me a few rows above his head. He grabbed my legs and pulled me down off the stack and just said 'let's get you outside'. Apparently I had the complexion of a ghost. I shut the whole job site down as dad and Glen got me down to the ground and shoved the water jug in my hands. About a minute after I was on the ground I started puking, odd that is what folks do when you get overheated. Fairly quickly after that my day was called and I was taken back to the house.

We had just gotten central air conditioning and it felt pretty good when I got in the house, but quickly that change manifested in another bout of vomiting. So I just went back out on the front porch to cool down. I remember there was a discussion about giving me one of the old man's beers, as it supposedly would help in some way. After a while I started feeling better and the episode passed.

Simply put a hayloft is hot as hell.

Line 'O the day - March 16, 2008

Often times my mind works in ways I’d rather it didn’t. These occasions offer me a chance to challenge myself.

Line 'O the day - February 27, 2008

The rules of life change far too often, and with such swiftness that it is nigh impossible to abide by them. So, from here on out playing by the rules is only a distant memory.


Present day note:
There are no rules, at least none that matter. Morality, virtue, love... there are no rules to these endeavors. And if you think there are, you're a fool. I have my fixed star and you have yours, and we navigate by them as best we can.

Redneck boys photo essay 1: Courtesy of Grandma

I requested a picture of me or my brothers on a tractor for the bit a few weeks ago. I get a stack of photos in the mail well after that posted, but I'm one to use the tools in front of me and so the idea for a short photo essay comes to me as I perused the snapshots of my younger days.

This is obviously all three of us with two important things for a country boy to have. A Grandpa and a horse, said grandpa keeps just for you. A note about this moment is that one-year-old Abe does not seem too pleased about being in the saddle with me.

To keep this short I'm going to narrow the focus of the selection to photos relevant to posts I've already put up. Two categories with a picture a piece for the three of us.

I've mentioned they start us learning to work on the farm early. Here is Jake at about two, getting the feel for the old Ford.

Here's me, sporting both the bib-overalls and boots. The levers and heavy machinery there are for a drill, when I was learning how to drill a water well. About four-years-old here.

Another bit of machinery that you ought to know how to run is a planter. Here is Grandpa getting Abe ready to go plant some corn.

We do work a great deal, and begin learning at a young age on how to be of use around the farm, but there is also plenty of leisure activities for young ones on the farm.

We fished quite a bit when we were little. It was one of Gramp's past times for us. This is Jake with what I assume is his first fish.

When you're a boy on the farm and not fishing you might take a goat out for a stroll around the yard. You want to know the most country thing in this pic? It's not the rural setting, the horse in the background, nor the goat on a damn leash. It's the Funk's Seed big G hat on my head, trust me.

And even when you have time off as a redneck boy, the adults tend to keep working. And like Abe here, all you can do is hang-out and watch from afar.

But above all the one thing a country boy needs, as anyone who read Where the Red Fern Grows knows is a hound dog pup.

Grandma sometimes, has issue framing her shots just right. And as a man with a degree in film making it's hard to use such a shot.  But us with our hound pups is about spot on for our childhood, plus Abe's rocking the bibs.

If you notice in the shot with Jake and the fish above, there are dogs in the background. I think my next photo essay will be the unveiling of a whole new level of country, and the role dogs played in my hillbilly upbringing.

Line 'O the day - February 23, 2008

I’m not a wealthy man and I’m no genius, so if I stop trying to hold onto the moral high ground I’m just another dick like everyone else.

Line 'O the day - February 19, 2008

That proposal seems to involve tater tots. So count me out on that shit, before we get too far along to turn back. (Utter.  Fucking.  Nonsense.)


Present day note:
It is nonsense, and I love it. I also actually like tater tots, so I don't know why I'd be against them in whatever fictional scenario was running through my head.

Not some high and mighty garden maze

Everyone, I think, has seen big round hay bales. They tend to range in size from abut five feet to six feet around. Most folk see them along the road as they drive through the countryside. They're an easy way to feed a bunch of cattle for a stretch of time, provided you have a tractor with a hay spike to move them. That's an obvious thing, hay to feed cattle, but to a bunch of redneck kids around the world big round bales are so much more.

One round bale out in the middle of a field ain't much good to a child, but a row of them is a country wonderland. In most cases you line them up in rows in the corner of a pasture or lot. More bales equals more fun. The most obvious thing to do is simply to climb up onto them, not an easy task sometimes for a four or five year old. And then once you've achieved the summit the new challenge is to maneuverer this treacherous landscape. Bales stacked end to end are easy enough to run across, but there are the occasional gaps which have to be vaulted over. The stack is never uniform which means there are always fissures scattered here and there. A mean trick is to assist your younger and much smaller brother up onto the stack and them drop him into one of these five feet deep holes. But you must be careful because all these bales are round and can allow for small crawl spaces along the ground that might lead them to freedom.

This brings up a bit of group fun. When you have these bales in large numbers, dozens and dozens of them all stacked together they create a hell of a hide and seek arena. Nooks and crannies abound. Or a rousing game of tag could be played out on top of the bales; they provide a well defined field of play, and the gaps allow for a cat and mouse aspect that you don't get on say a gym floor. A bonus here is that short of falling completely to the ground below you're not likely to get hurt. The bales are like big round soft pads.

Every summer these hillbilly play lands are built for us country rug-rats and then slowly whittled away as the hay gets fed throughout the winter. But while they last they are a simple pleasure all little ones should get to experience.