It was a beautiful, warm, late-summer afternoon, and I was enjoying every minute of it. I was busy baling a heavy third crop of alfalfa hay off of my upper-marsh hay field. I was baling hay with my old 276 New Holland hay baler I had bought used 24 years before from John, who was the implement dealer in my hometown.

It had served us very well over the years, baling many thousands of small square bales for our cattle to eat.

This was to be our last day of hay baling for the summer, and we were looking forward to having it done for another year. We had been blessed with an excellent hay crop, and the haymow in our barn was filled to the roof.

I had already baled a few loads off that day, and I only had a load-and-a-half to go. I was baling along at a good speed in heavy hay, and the baler was really putting the bales out fast. And then it happened – a tremendously loud bang. It was iron smashing against iron. I grimaced when I heard it; I knew it wasn’t good.

I immediately stopped the tractor and went back and looked at my baler. It was a terrible sight. The heavy input drive shaft that runs the gear box, that runs the feeder fork assembly, that feeds the hay into the bale chamber – had broken. It broke when the feeder fork assembly was in the bale chamber, so when the bale plunger went back, it was iron meeting iron.

The result was a big bang and a terribly busted-up hay baler. Needless to say, I was done baling hay for the day. I had a neighbor come the following day and finish baling it for me.

In the following weeks, I called around to salvage yards and machine shops trying to come up with parts to fix my old baler. It was nearly impossible to come up with all the parts on that old of a machine. I did eventually find all the parts I needed, but they were very expensive.

A number of the men I talked to told me it would cost far more in parts and labor than the machine was worth. I didn’t like what they said, but I came to see over time they were 100 percent correct on that. So I ended up retiring my old hay baler.

Every once in a while, I hear or read of a so-called “expert” who’s promoting the “Big Bang Theory.” They claim all the planets and life itself came about from a big explosion or “big bang.” I just have to shake my head “no.” I am amazed anybody can actually believe that. I remember the day my hay baler did its big bang.

Did it run better afterwards? Did it make better hay bales after that? Did it evolve and run all by itself after that? The answer to all these questions is absolutely “no.” After its big bang, it was junk. So how do people think this universe and life itself could come about as a result of a big bang? I must admit: To believe that takes a whole lot more faith than what I have.

I do know, though, a loving, eternal God created all this. Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” And what is even more amazing is that man sinned and made a terrible mess, but God sent His Son to redeem us back to Himself.

I know this to be true for, years ago, I knelt down one day and repented of the terrible, sinful life I had lived and asked Jesus to forgive me and to come into my heart and be my Lord and Savior. And life for me has never been the same since. Did a big bang save me? No. But a loving God certainly did.  

Tom Heck, his wife, Joanne, and their two children own and operate a 35-cow dairy farm in Wisconsin. Contact him at Life on the Family Farm.