12/02/05 Fear words

Fear Words Agriculture and the ag industry have made a lot of changes in the last 40-50 years. I'm Jeff Keane; I'll be right back to tell you how these changes have even taken the fear out of some words. Just a few years back the word hay or the term haying- time made many a farm kid and a few town kids break out in a cold sweat. For many young people, the word, hay, meant what seemed like about nine million hay bales setting out in the field that had to be picked up and stacked. That's when the cold sweat stopped and the real sweat started. Farm kids hauled hay because it was just part of the job and lifestyle, but for some town kids it was a summer job. Your remember, that's when kids were allowed to work to make money and gain self respect by seeing their work accomplish something tangible  like a bunch of single bales hauled out of a field and stacked right to make a haystack that didn't fall down. Oops that's a little off the subject, but it just popped into my head and transferred to my mouth. Now, I didn't have to do much hay work when I was younger because we didn't have any irrigation and our dry land fields were, and are dry land! But I was lucky enough to visit my cousins at haying time. Did I say lucky enough? Anyway, with the wonderful mechanization of haying operations, the fear of the word hay has lessened considerably and has let farm kids enjoy just watching the hay crop grow and not fearing that dreaded time when they would hear  it's haying- time. I'm Jeff Keane.