on swimming in hay bales

and noble fractures

Zeke is one of the smartest men I know.

He’s spent a lot of time as a farmer.

He’s not a prepper.

And, he loves a lot of the same skills.

You know, figuring out what he can do to limit his participation in the global machine.

With this in mind, he’s spent a lotta times working on farms.

He takes vacation days so he can go help people cut and bale hay.

One field was three kilometers away. We’d load up the wagon six to eight bales high. On the ride back, It got pretty bumpy and uncomfortable standing on the three point hitch.

My thought? Why stand there? There’ a giant stack of hay to sit atop.

Sitting on the hay wasn’t safe. One wrong bump and the bales would start falling. People would do it, but if you did the farmer offered this advice. Swim.

Swim?

Yeah, breast stroke.

Zeke mimed a horizontal breast stroke.

The farmer showed me that. You swim. Push the bales away. Chuck them off the wagon. Get them away from you. Eventually you’ll hit the trailer and end up safe. One guy? He held on. He went with the hay. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the bales rained down on top of him.

I was aghast.

Yeah. It wasn’t pretty. Massive compound fractures to his legs.

Farming is such a safe profession eh?

But even more so, if you find yourself on an unstable pile, dont reach and hold onto stuff. Don’t reach and hold onto people. Don’t ‘save the hay’

Swim.

You have a better chance in finding a needle in a haystack than a sense of nobility in a compound fracture.