Bringing in the Hay on the Manor

Late summer was always the time to cut, rake, bale and bring in the hay. Our grandfather was a typical farmer and very frugal. His tractor and mower and rake, and baled were all from 1942, and we weren’t too sure how they still operated. They were a testament to the man who cared for them for over 40 years at that time.

There were times when we were asked to put our foot on the clutch and engage it while he got off the tractor to clear something. That clutch was a tough one, and we had to use all our weight and booth feet to engage it to stop the equipment from operating. If we let that pedal out, then it could have injured or worse our grandfather. We were both thrilled to asked to do this as well scared to do it. The enormous responsibility to engage that pedal was immense.

The process of baling was easy enough, as kids we rode on the fenders of the tractor, but there could only be one or two kids at a time. He had a mower, it was a cycle type, the blade dropped to the ground and he went around the field cutting the hay. He would leave the hay down for awhile, and then rake it. This was to dry out the grass otherwise baling green grass would cause it to heat and mold or even catch fire in a barn and….

Eventually he raked up the hay in rows so the baler could pick it up and make bales. People were using the little square bales, but he stuck with the round ones. After baling it might take a few more weeks to pick them all up  and get them to the barn. Well, the picking up was a challenge. First we would walk up to the bales and kick them over. We did this so that we could catch the mice. The filed mice made nests under the bales, and if we were fast after rolling them over we could get the parent mice. If not we would rut around and find the nest and get the little pink babies and stuff them in our shirt pocket.

We has two hooks, we would hook the bales on each end and haul them up on a trailer. Someone on the trailer would grab them and stack them. Our grandfather used one of those old two prong pitch forks and jab the bale and toss it up on the trailer like it weighed nothing. We were awed by his power and strength how he could toss the bales up like they were feathers. Someone would always get the task to run back to the house and fill some old jars with water from the hand  pump well in the yard. That water was crisp clear and cold, and we would run the water out to the field and pass it out.

Sometimes he would need a part as well, and he would send us back to the barn and tell us exactly where the part was. One of the fields has honey bees. He let a bee keeper keep them there, and for that we would get cans of honey. Cutting the hay was a challenge there, he would rev up the tractor and we would duck and race past the honey bees. We never did get stung by them though.

Once the bales we stacked on the wagon we would head to the barn. Most of the time it was an uneventful ride to the barn. However every now and then, perhaps the stack was unstable, but at times the trailer would tilt too far and still the load. One time when this happened, my sister disappeared. We were all on the bale's messing around, next thing we knew the bales were tumbling, and we went everywhere. That one time when my sister disappeared, we were frantic to find here.

Our grandfather was flinging bales everywhere and we were tossing them as fast as we could assuming she was under the pile dying. Well after turning over the entire load and not finding her, Apa, as we called my grandfather, sent one of to the house to see if she was there. Sure enough she was there at the kitchen table having some sort of snack! She fell with the bales and ran home, none seemed to notice her run. I can tell you Apa was both relieved and quite mad. What a waste of time looking for her and the panic thinking she was under load squished!

Well, we would get the wagon backed into the hay barn and unload. Sometime Apa would allow us to unload the bales in such a way as to make little forts in the hay mound. We made tunnels and pockets so we could later climb in them as forts.

Unloading was mostly uneventful as well. However there were a few times that there were some incidents. Once my brother fell through the bales, he went all the way down to the bottom off the barn. We ran up to the house and had to get Apa so he could rummage down there and haul him up. Another time my younger brother was messing around with the pitch fork and stabbed it right through the top of his foot. Apa yanked it out and carried him up to the house where there was some very loud screaming when they applied antiseptic to it. That was the norm, I mean he the pitch fork went through his foot impaling it, and all they did was pour antiseptic on it, no hospital no doctor.

One of the rewards getting back to the barn were the mice. Remember the mice we tossed in our pockets? Well, the cats knew when we arrived and greeted us. We tossed the little pink babies on the ground and the cats grabbed them greedily and chomped away. Quite gruesome but it was what it was

Life on the Farm

Ah, life on the farm, sunshine and rosy days. well, maybe not so much!

It was good to be a kid on the farm most days, this time of year the hay would be in the barns, the leaves are turning and the crisp air feels good from the summer heat.  My grandmother was not one for kids under foot, so she would kick us out of the house and we were to fend for ourselves all day. Only come in when called in, otherwise out of site.

On many of those occasions it may have been best that the parents did not know what we were up to.  One day while playing hide and seek or some such game, we hid back under the rear foundation wall of the horse barn. Well, to our surprise, someone has put a stash of old Playboy magazines there. I may have been the first time my eyes saw such sights. So that was what woman looked like. I mean its not the same to see your mother or sister in the house with nothing on. That was completely different and it did not even occur to me to make the connection that they were female also. The magazines were something altogether different.

Mostly we simply found games in the barns or down by the creek to keep us entertained, and most of the time we were safe. We knew better than to climb the ladder to the silo, well at least I did  I can not speak for my brothers though. There was an old barn owl who lived up in there and we didn't want to bother it so much.  My grandfather would get mad if we messed around with his cows, he said it agitated them. That did not stop us from time to time trying to ride them though.

The creek was a long winding thing that ran through the entire property, and has great pockets of shrubs, where you could always count on finding a big snapper turtle. Sometimes it took a few of us to wrestle it out of the mud, and carry it up to the house to show it off. Of course we were always told to not play in the creek, so well might imagine the first stop for us.

Sometimes we lived on the farm for months or years,I guess it depended on my fathers work, or if he was fired again. Maybe it was because my mother left him again and we headed back home. Home of course being the farm.

My grandmother took to keeping collies, and she raised them bred them and took them to dog shows. She would get lots of ribbons or trophies, and sometimes we went along. She had kennel dogs, ones who were not show dogs and she had breeder dogs. The horse barn was converted to a dog kennel and they had runs they could run out into. At night though they were lured into the barn with a bone and we dropped a trap door preventing them from going outside in the runs.  We had chores to clean the pens and refresh the feed and water for them, and we were lucky to get fifty cents a week for the work. In addition we had to clean the barn and help milk the cows.

The best times were taking what we called "Trips" with our grandfather. These were the special times. He would take a straight truck up to one of the Auction Houses and we would haul the cattle back to the meat packers, aka slaughter house. The ride was the best, there was an old eight track in the truck and we would listen to Arlo Guthrie doing Alice's restaurant mostly. How he put up with us I will never know. We were an unruly bunch.

At the Auction house especially the night trips, we would wander the barns there looking at all the animals and always amazed at the size of the pigs. These things were enormous and grunting and so forth. It wasn't all of that could take the trips at once, there were too many of us to do that, so that was what made it even more special. Sometimes we would even ride in the back with the cattle if it was a day trip with only the calves. Never with the full grown cows.

Life on the farm was full of work, but it was also full of play and adventure.