A farming couple was trying out their recently-acquired hay baler in June. "They were surprised by the momentum of the bales rolling out of the machine and how, because of this, most of the 600-pound bales just kept rolling down the slope accumulating high speed," said the couple's adult daughter, Kristy Bliss.

Her parents, Richard and Bonnie Smith of Weyers Cave, Va., had been in haste to cut their hay after many days of weather delays. "It is very late to do a first cutting of hay; because of all the rain, it was too wet," said Bliss.

The baler machine bundles up masses of cut hay into huge cylinders, but apparently the rounded surfaces were just a bit too round. "They are so perfectly formed that they roll too easily," said Richard Smith who was operating the baler.

When Bliss saw bales lumbering downhill with startling speed, she hastily wrangled her own goats from their pasture and tied them in a safer spot.

The family has around 15 years of haymaking experience at the site, and hasn't had a problem with runaway fodder in the past.

Bliss estimated eight bales --in all a total weight of almost two-and-a-half tons-- went rogue and rolled away. One bale targeted the couple's garden fence, damaging it. One rolled to a stop in a creek. "Some into a flat field in the flood plain, a few in the woods," Bliss added.

One seemingly-vindictive hay bale whumped into the back wall of the couple's house.

From a distance, the house seemed fine --and there was hay to make.

Work continued.

However, when Bonnie Smith went inside to prepare dinner, she was shocked.

The impact punched some of the interior drywall panels forward, thereby whacking the well-loaded pantry shelves right off of their brackets. Shelf-boards and tools crashed down. Glass canning jars brimming with beets launched on short flights before bursting on the floor and spattering vinegary inky-red shrapnel. A barrage of candles and applesauce containers pelted the freezer and the washing machine. Bins tumbled, drawers opened. As the once-airborne dried lentils and pasta skittered to a rest, assorted condiments oozed over them.

Mrs. Smith could not even reach the freezer because so much debris covered the floor.

There was not an estimate of the lost hay's value. "The hay bale market fluctuates a lot depending on supply-and-demand of the season, and quality of the hay when cut: (whether it's) weedy or sprayed or organic, rained-on or sheltered," said Bliss. "A lot can change the price."

The couple will salvage what they can. They will pick up the bales they can reach "with the skid loader and put them on a wagon to take under roof into the barn," Bliss said.

Bliss said that when Bonnie Smith asked her husband how they might get the bale out from behind the house he said, "handful by handful."

Incidents involving rolling hay are not common, but they do sometimes happen. The best known one might be the fatal 2010 incident with rock star Mike Edwards, a founding member of the 1970s band Electric Light Orchestra. Edwards was killed instantly near Devon, England, when a rolling cylindrical hay bale crushed the roof of the van he was driving, according to BBC News.