TRUCK DRIVER

All summer long the farmers on our ranch have been working hard.  I mostly help Dave on the cattle end of our ranching production.  Once in a while though, the farmers could use and extra hand.  So the other day they called on me to learn to drive the silage truck.. OH DEAR...

This was my rig for the day.

This is a view of the front of the chopper.  It goes along and picks up the windrows of cut hay, or in this case, Sudan Grass, and chops it up then shoots it into the back of the trucks as we drive along side of it.

This picture shows how it works, although it isn't us.  Our trucks are much older.  I had my hands full and couldn't get all the pictures I needed.

When the trucks are full, we drive them to the bagger.  Here we have to carefully back up and then dump into the bagger.  It is tricky to get straight enough backing up.  In fact I did have a mis-hap backing one time and broke the tailgate on my truck. So I had to change trucks. All the trucks are a little different. So I had to learn all over again.

A view from my mirror dumping.

When the bag is full we have to start a new bag. This requires the help of all the drivers.

The bag gets changed and we continue on.

This is my second truck. An old Mack. It was a little tricky to drive.  I had to call my daughter to see if she remembered the gear pattern.  
The kids all drive these trucks when they are teenagers and get quite good at it.  Way better than their old mom.  I managed to drive to the field, fill up, drive to the bagger, dump and return to the field. So I guess I did ok.  Just the one kind of big oops.  I guess we'll see if they call me up for help again.