# what do you call sections of hay bale?



## Lisa in WA

What do you call the sections of a hay bale?

Flake, leaf, biscuit (?!), or something else entirely?

I've always called and heard them referred to as "flakes". How about you?


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## Irish Pixie

Always heard (and referred to them) as flakes of hay.


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## Lisa in WA

woohoo! I'm feeling kind of racy...I posted a poll! Never done that before. Usually, I ignore polls but today I thought, "what the heck..you only live once!"
ound:


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## Countrygrl3

Ive always called them flakes. Tho my nieces (5 and 6yo) call them horse sandwiches lol.


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## Fowler

Dont know why? Or where I picked this up from, but I call it a beat. I never really notice what I called it till you asked this question. But I always tell everyone to give 4 beats of hay to the rams. Hmmmmmmm where did I come up with this?


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## beccachow

I noticed someone had posted a story where she had given a leaf of hay; took me a second to realize what she meant, lol. I had visions of her picking through the hay and finding a leafy part.


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## starjj

Flake of course. I didn't even know there were other words for it.


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## malinda

Most people around here call them flakes or sometimes leafs. One of my clients calls them "sheaves", and only a few days ago I heard someone call them "pads". That was the first time I'd heard that one.


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## wolffeathers

We have flakes here.


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## Minelson

Flakes here too...I did see a post here where someone called it a Fleck.


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## wr

I live a pretty sheltered life so the only thing I've ever heard it called is a flake.


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## Lisa in WA

wr said:


> I live a pretty sheltered life so the only thing I've ever heard it called is a flake.


Well darn. I thought that coming from the exotic and frozen tundras of the great white north, you all would call them icicles or igloos or Tim Hortons or something of that nature. ound:


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## FrogTacos

I learned them as 'chips' and this is what I call them.


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## PNP Katahdins

"Slice" is the common term here. I suppose you are talking about small squares? We use them for ewes in lambing jugs for a few days, but normally have big squares and sometimes big round "killer" bales. Big squares are also fed in slices rather than by the bale, to reduce waste.

Peg


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## Chixarecute

Flakes. 

Perhaps the "beats" comes from the plunger strokes. Our baler creates a flake with each "beat" (stroke) of the plunger. DH likes 15 flakes per bale. 18 is to tight, 12 is too loose.


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## wolffeathers

I have heard slice, but I think that's the only alternative term I've heard.


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## Reed77

flakes, I lol'd when I read biscuit


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## Vickie44

Flake or slice here also ~ Vickie


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## Lisa in WA

Reed77 said:


> flakes, I lol'd when I read biscuit


Apparently they say that in Australia.


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## Teej

Flakes.

I had a visitor here once and he called it a deck. HUH?


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## CAnnie

Oh this is funny...everyone I know calls them a slab! But that sounds funny to me now:sing:


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## Minelson

I like "biscuits"  I think I will start calling them that..


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## haypoint

Chixarecute said:


> Flakes.
> 
> Perhaps the "beats" comes from the plunger strokes. Our baler creates a flake with each "beat" (stroke) of the plunger. DH likes 15 flakes per bale. 18 is to tight, 12 is too loose.


I was going to respond to "beats", but you beat me to it. I never thought you could control the number of flakes to a bale. If I'm in a thin area, it'll take quite a few strokes. If I'm in a hurry and the hay is thick, I'll "crowd" the baler and the number of strokes to make a bale will be a lot less. I've never counted the number of flakes in a bale. It would be easy to do, I guess. Just roll the bale to the cut side up and you should be able to see each knife stroke, then count them.

When I read the post about "beats", I wondered how many people haven't been close enough to a baler to know that each flake is a stroke or that there is a top, bottom, outside and cut side to every small square bale?


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## haypoint

LisaInN.Idaho said:


> Well darn. I thought that coming from the exotic and frozen tundras of the great white north, you all would call them icicles or igloos or Tim Hortons or something of that nature. ound:


A Canadian comedy TV show was asking Americans if the Native people should be allowed to resume the Calgary Seal hunt, using the traditional methods of pummeling with timbits. Many Americans felt they should be allowed to use the traditional methods. I guess they hadn't heard of Tim Hortons.


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## DamnearaFarm

Flakes here in TN. Never heard them called anything else.


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## po boy

Taps!


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## Our Little Farm

I call them flakes but have heard them called biscuits many a time.


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## Rogo

Bales here in Arizona are rectangular and about 130 pounds. 

'Flake' is the only word I've ever heard.


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## SSacres

Growing up we called them bats (might have came from my Grandfather & Dad) but changed to calling them flakes years ago.


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## 6e

I've always called them flakes, but I have heard many people call them a leaf of hay.


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## acde

we've always called it a slice.


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## Molly Mckee

We say flakes or chips, but I have noticed that my DH will say sections when is is talking about baling.


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## malinda

I've heard them called slabs too.

On another note, a friend who was born and raised in Chicago asked about all the "hay rolls" (round bales) he saw in the fields around here. My other horse friends and I had a good chuckle over that one!


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## 1sttimemom

Always called it a flake. But I've heard section, slice, and slab. When I've heard "loaves" it was referring the the whole bale and a "slice" was one piece from it...like a loaf & slice of bread. LOL


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## haypoint

SSacres said:


> Growing up we called them bats (might have came from my Grandfather & Dad) but changed to calling them flakes years ago.


That sounds right. Fiberglass insulation comes in bundles and each piece is a bat. I can see how a bale of hay and a bundle of hay are alike.


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## haypoint

Rogo said:


> Bales here in Arizona are rectangular and about 130 pounds.
> 
> 'Flake' is the only word I've ever heard.


60 years ago, most farmers around here were putting up hay loose into the barns. Then in the fall, they'd pitch it into a stationary baler, hay press. Because it would be shipped on rail, they packed them extra tight. A bale had to weigh over 100 pounds and were hand tied wire. They could really pack hay tight.


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## farmerDale

haypoint said:


> I was going to respond to "beats", but you beat me to it. I never thought you could control the number of flakes to a bale. If I'm in a thin area, it'll take quite a few strokes. If I'm in a hurry and the hay is thick, I'll "crowd" the baler and the number of strokes to make a bale will be a lot less. I've never counted the number of flakes in a bale. It would be easy to do, I guess. Just roll the bale to the cut side up and you should be able to see each knife stroke, then count them.
> 
> When I read the post about "beats", I wondered how many people haven't been close enough to a baler to know that each flake is a stroke or that there is a top, bottom, outside and cut side to every small square bale?


Square balers are a really neat tool. The number of strokes or flakes per bale should have nothing to do with the tightness of the bale, as from what I have seen of balers, and mine included, the tightness of the bale is set using tensioners, bale length is set by how much the "star" turns. You can have loose bales that are long, and tight bales that are short, shouldn't matter on the flake number, but maybe different balers are different?

They are cookies here, or fillets, or slabs, or shocks.:hysterical:

Just kidding, they are FLAKES as well. lol


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## wr

Lisa, if the frozen north doesn't start warming up pretty quick, I'm going to run a meteorologist or two through a baler and see if that can shake things up. 

haypoint, I think that was on This Hour Has 22 Minutes.


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## akane

My mom and my generation it was always flakes or slices. My grandma though called them something else. I can't remember what it was she wrote out in the instructions when she went somewhere once. I was only about 6 years old. It might have just been beads but I think it was a less common word than that. Never saw it since because my mom didn't know what it meant so my grandma always used flakes in her instructions after that.

We got some exceedingly high quality organic clover recently ( for rabbits cause I could never afford that stuff for horses and it would be unhealthy for them) that a standard square bale of your usual medium to small size was 70lbs not even packed extra tight. I could still pop the rope off by sticking a foot in the middle and pulling. Each piece of hay though was as dense as the company has ever measured on anyone's hay. There were no empty stems. It was solid stuff. I didn't quite realize that fact and that they hadn't just packed the bales tight until I pulled 2 slices off and held them in one hand. Then I'm going my god that is heavy hay. Just comparing a handful of the stuff to one of his earlier cuts was a huge weight difference even after you shook it loose. It takes 1/4th as much to feed the animals as well. Probably the best hay I've ever handled and I used to order stuff from the west coast at $1/lb for it's quality for the guinea pigs. 

Given what hay sells for in the pet stores I've thought about seeing if he'd let me repackage his excess for the pet crowd. $10 for those stupid bags of overly dry, slightly to mostly brown, stemmy hay. That's why I ordered hay for the guinea pigs since even from washington to Iowa bluegrass was cheaper than store bought, especially if I got 200lbs which was about a year's worth of guinea pig food at once, and a million times the quality. Hard to find grass hay in Iowa where everyone wants the richest legume they can get even if it's completely unhealthy for the horses and some other livestock. Not a problem for my constantly pregnant rabbits though and they've been cutting such crap from our hay field the horses haven't been getting too fat. I gave up complaining what's planted and how it's maintained since no one will listen but they do such a poor job maintaining the alfalfa that the fatsos tend to eat more wild grass, nontoxic weeds, and too old and too sunbleached of alfalfa to get fatter.


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## birdman1

most around here call them bats or beats by older farmers as the bailer compresses the hay.but I'v also heard younger people call em flakes never thought much about it as they all work pretty well


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## Denise K.

We have called them pancakes................ocasionally flakes of hay. Never really thought about what called them until it was mentioned here. But here they are known as pancakes of hay!


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## Joshie

I've never heard a flake of hay being called anything other than a flake of hay.


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## Joshie

malinda said:


> I've heard them called slabs too.
> 
> On another note, a friend who was born and raised in Chicago asked about all the "hay rolls" (round bales) he saw in the fields around here. My other horse friends and I had a good chuckle over that one!


My husband grew up in the Chicago burbs. The last time he was down here he asked DH what all those tall silver structures were. He couldn't identify an elevator. How does one live in IL and not know what an elevator is???

Most people around here feed small square bales to horses and round bales to cattle.


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## birchtreefarm

I've always called them flakes, but one person I horse-sat for called them "books".


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## Chixarecute

Farmer Dale & Haypoint - I may have mis-thought my answer. DH likes 15 strokes per bale (which, now that you're both jogging my memory, may not also be the number of flakes...but it could be). Yes, if the hay is thin, you'll have more strokes per bale. It's a balancing act, I think, between the strokes and the tensioner, and the bale size. DH wants bales with good tension, and consistent size. If the hay is right, that's 15 strokes. 

For what it's worth, we have a JD 327 baler. And, even more importantly, I prefer to rake and stack, please please please don't put me on the mower - and I'll only pull the baler and wagon on the outer half of the field, or on cleanups. I hate those tight corners!


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## nobrabbit

In NC we called them "pads". Here in our area in KY they're called "flakes or bats".


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## Natural Beauty Farm

We call them books, don't know why....


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## bergere

No matter what state I have been in, has always been called a, Flake. :grin:


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## fordson major

LisaInN.Idaho said:


> Well darn. I thought that coming from the exotic and frozen tundras of the great white north, you all would call them icicles or igloos or Tim Hortons or something of that nature. ound:



to call them Tim Hortons would be Sacrilege!! to feed your horse timmies that would be doping!! :buds:


as long as i can recall, they were flakes, though some people called them leaves. now we round bale just about everything. put up way to many thousands of small square bales!! was happy when i graduated to cutting and baling! (1974)


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## pancho

We always called them squares.


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## FarmboyBill

When I was a little kid, I always heard them called leaves. For the last 50yrs or so, that has interchanged with flakes.


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## shanzone2001

My teenage son sometimes calls it a "chunk" of hay but I am pretty sure he just made that up.


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## wintrrwolf

This is an old one but here it goes:: growing up in Illinois and Iowa I always heard Leaf, then we moved to Kansas and Missouri and hmmm yup still a leaf now in my 50's living here in Kentucky they use flakes...but in my mind you have 1 square bale cut it into quarters each quarter is about 2 flakes/leaves but I am sure I would be corrected most verbally if I used that terminology it always has to be complicated...


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## Alice In TX/MO

Flake


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## robin416

Flake from Michigan, to Maryland, to VA, to TN to AL. (yeah, that's all the places I've lived and dealt with horses) It must be a west of the Mississippi that it's none by other names?


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## Lisa in WA

I’ve lived all over the country, northeast, southwest, Midwest, southwest and northwest and it’s always been called a flake.
It was also pony club terminology too.


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## robin416

So, are all these other descriptors a small regional thing? 

I know it's pop up north but soda in the south. (Just thought I'd throw that out there)


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## Lisa in WA

robin416 said:


> So, are all these other descriptors a small regional thing?
> 
> I know it's pop up north but soda in the south. (Just thought I'd throw that out there)


it was soda where I grew up in northeastern Pa. Tonic in MA. Pop in the Midwest. Seems to be soda in the West.


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## robin416

I didn't hear anyone refer to soda as tonic when I lived in Mass.


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## Lisa in WA

robin416 said:


> I didn't hear anyone refer to soda as tonic when I lived in Mass.


Don’t know what to tell you. It was widely used when I was a kid in the 70’s and 80’s in the Boston area.
You can always google if you don’t believe me.


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## robin416

Why would I not believe you?


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## aoconnor1

Back to the original question... I have lived in many states, always have called it a flake off a square bale.


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## aoconnor1

And just saying, my great aunt and uncle called a soda a tonic, they lived in NY city.


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## AmericanStand

robin416 said:


> So, are all these other descriptors a small regional thing?
> 
> I know it's pop up north but soda in the south. (Just thought I'd throw that out there)


 Cola and Coke and Pepsi are all used interchangeably.
Technically they’re all soft drinks but I’ve never heard anybody call for a softy.


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## AmericanStand

I’ve heard flake and beat far more than anything else. 
But I’ve also heard them called a stroke ,cut, piece ,section and divide.


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## Irish Pixie

In my area of NY when I was a kid, you were getting a Coke no matter what you decided to actually drink. Now it's soda. In western NY it's pop, and always has been. 

It's always been a flake of hay here. 

Regional dialect is odd.


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## altair

I call them slabs. My husband's dairy-farming family calls them gullets.


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## Danaus29

I spent many hours stacking square bales as a teen and never knew the number of "flakes" in a bale could be adjusted. Grandpa was the only person who adjusted settings on his baler, he didn't trust anyone else to set it up.


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## GTX63

“Flake” most of the time, “pinch” some of the time and “chunk” when we are taking our flakes with us.


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## AmericanStand

Danaus29 said:


> I spent many hours stacking square bales as a teen and never knew the number of "flakes" in a bale could be adjusted. Grandpa was the only person who adjusted settings on his baler, he didn't trust anyone else to set it up.


 The number of flakes beats or strokes in a bell is it just by how quickly you drive into the material. If the material is thin and you’re driving slow the number of layers in a bale can be to many to count. At the other end of the spectrum maximum thickness of the layers and the minimum numbers of strokes is determined by toughness of the material and sharpness of the cutting blade.
My old 14 T is doing its best to get down to eight beats in a 48 inch bale. 
It is much happier with 12. 
I really do need to sharpen it.


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## Seth

Lisa in WA said:


> woohoo! I'm feeling kind of racy...I posted a poll! Never done that before. Usually, I ignore polls but today I thought, "what the heck..you only live once!"
> ound:



Living on the edge!


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## Lisa in WA

Seth said:


> Living on the edge!


I had no idea that I’d started this thread till you posted that. 
It was 8 years ago!


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## AmericanStand

How fast time goes !


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## GTX63

See, this is the things about these threads. Leave them to the wolves and they just turn sideways.

One of my sister in law's sons was about 10 when he asked to go play at a new friends house. He was back for dinner and all was good.
He stopped by there a few more times in the following weeks.
Passed by the house one day after school on the way home and the door was wide open. Son says "Stop. I have to go check and see if their dog is still there." Mom gets out and they go up to the house. Inside are a half dozen kids sitting around the tv and the kitchen table.
"Is your mom here?" My SIL asked.
"I don't live here" were a couple responses.
"Where is Mary?" she asked again.
"Who?"
"Jimmy's mom." she said.
"Dunno" was the reply.
Apparently Jimmy's mom was always hospitable enough to take in the afterschool mob, provide snacks and video games, but she seemed to have trouble avoiding conflicts in her hosting duties with things like, her job, bingo, her time at her boyfriends, the tavern and various other flitting around.
Our nephew found the dog in the bathroom eating a hershy bar and popcorn, so they closed the front door, went home and made a few phone calls...

Lisa, if you start a thread and you don't keep an eye on it, then you end up being "that person"; buying kegs for underage kids and mopping puke off your kitchen floor.
This is how it starts.


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## Lisa in WA

GTX63 said:


> See, this is the things about these threads. Leave them to the wolves and they just turn sideways.
> 
> One of my sister in law's sons was about 10 when he asked to go play at a new friends house. He was back for dinner and all was good.
> He stopped by there a few more times in the following weeks.
> Passed by the house one day after school on the way home and the door was wide open. Son says "Stop. I have to go check and see if their dog is still there." Mom gets out and they go up to the house. Inside are a half dozen kids sitting around the tv and the kitchen table.
> "Is your mom here?" My SIL asked.
> "I don't live here" were a couple responses.
> "Where is Mary?" she asked again.
> "Who?"
> "Jimmy's mom." she said.
> "Dunno" was the reply.
> Apparently Jimmy's mom was always hospitable enough to take in the afterschool mob, provide snacks and video games, but she seemed to have trouble avoiding conflicts in her hosting duties with things like, her job, bingo, her time at her boyfriends, the tavern and various other flitting around.
> Our nephew found the dog in the bathroom eating a hershy bar and popcorn, so they closed the front door, went home and made a few phone calls...
> 
> Lisa, if you start a thread and you don't keep an eye on it, then you end up being "that person"; buying kegs for underage kids and mopping puke off your kitchen floor.
> This is how it starts.



Sorry! I’ve been flitting around for the past eight years.


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## GTX63

Don't be a flake.


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## Danaus29

AS, thanks for the explanation. I was usually just stacking it as it popped onto the wagon out of the baler. Grandpa never even let Grandma drive the tractor or run the baler, far as I know.

It was an ancient baler, used twine instead of wire, was painted red and part of the brand logo was missing where the twine rubbed across it. Funny, 20 years ago I could tell you what brand it was because the image was burned into my mind. Now I can't remember it.


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## Lisa in WA

GTX63 said:


> Don't be a flake.


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## AmericanStand

Lol sounds like a Massey Harris .


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## Danaus29

AmericanStand said:


> Lol sounds like a Massey Harris .


YES! Although it was likely a Mass rris.


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## mrghostwalker

Slab or a slice


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## mrghostwalker

Slab or a slice


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## 54metalman

AmericanStand said:


> Cola and Coke and Pepsi are all used interchangeably.
> Technically they’re all soft drinks but I’ve never heard anybody call for a softy.


I know in the south the waitress would ask you what you would like to drink. You would say a coke and she would ask what flavor. Then you could say Pepsi or what have ya. Really messed my friends up when they came to visit from the NW.


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## AmericanStand

54metalman said:


> I know in the south the waitress would ask you what you would like to drink. You would say a coke and she would ask what flavor. Then you could say Pepsi or what have ya. Really messed my friends up when they came to visit from the NW.


That’s one of the reasons northerners think southerners are stupid. 
And of course it’s the other way around when Northerners can’t tell the difference in flavor between a Coke and a Pepsi.


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## Danaus29

Just don't ask for a Coke at the Pepsi stand at the fair. For some reason that makes the vendors irritable.


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## aoconnor1

We always ask for a soda, then specify what variety I grew up calling it soda pop, now I just ask for a soda.


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## Irish Pixie

AmericanStand said:


> That’s one of the reasons northerners think southerners are stupid.
> And of course it’s the other way around when Northerners can’t tell the difference in flavor between a Coke and a Pepsi.


I can tell the difference (or did when I drank soda) and Coke is way better.


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## aoconnor1

Totally can tell the difference between the two, and you're right, coke is better


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## Danaus29

"I'll hush up my mug if you fill up my jug with that good ol' mountain dew"

But I do agree that Coke tastes way better than Pepsi.


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## 1sttimemom

Always called it a flake. But I've heard some weird people call is a "slice". Like a slice of bread. LOL


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## Bucephalus

Lap.


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## AmericanStand

I was a coke fan for over 50 years. Then , I discovered it upset my stomach now I’m more likely to drink Pepsi or better yet RC


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## Breezy

A slice, a pop and a pepsi.


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## arachyd

We always called them laps.


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## barnbilder

Around here it's a bat. Go east a little and it's a pad. A flake is what you call the horse people that refer to hay by anything besides pad or bat. And the rake has more to do with determining how many are in the bale than the baler does.


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