OVER MY SHOULDER

I was only 8 or 9 years old when Dad started taking me to the hay field. I am sure that in most cases, I was more of a burden than help, but Dad and the neighbors who were in the hay field never made me feel anything other than helpful. I had watched Dad and the crew load hay on the wagon and put it in the barn with the large hay fork that ran on the track.

When I started going to the hay field, we were baling hay with an old horse powered baler. I recall the team pulling the iron wheeled baler to the field, where the tongue was removed, the wheels were removed, and the baler was set flat on the ground.

The team was then hitched to the sweep arm that would power the baler. The team would walk in a circle around a large cog wheel that would run the plunger back and forth through the feed chamber, and force the hay into the bale chamber. The team had to step over the plunger and baler frame each time that they came around.

After the hay had been mowed and allowed to cure, it was raked with a sulky rake into windrows, then gathered with the buck rake. The buck rake was a wide rake with long wooded teeth that ran along the ground under the hay and gathered the hay into a large load which was then delivered to the baler. This rake was powered with a horse on each side of the rake.

Sometimes we younger boys would ride the horses, and pick up the hay. Usually, there would be one driver in the back of the rake who would walk and drive the horses. There was a long “seat” board in the middle on the back of the rake, which was used to raise the rake teeth over rocks or other obstacles that might interfere with the loading of the hay.

I recall how exasperated Dad and the other crew would be if someone (sometimes it was me) failed to raise the teeth over the rocks in the meadow, and would break the wooden teeth----they were particularly upset when one would catch the rock on a turn and “take out” several teeth. It always seemed that the windrow was placed on top of the rocks. Broken teeth required stopping everything and making new teeth from 2” X 4’ stock to replace the broken ones.

Once the buck rake had delivered a load of hay to the baler, there was a man and a helper who would “feed” the baler. Feeding the baler consisted of gathering a pitchfork full of hay together and placing it into the feed chamber when the “plunger” was out of the chamber. As the horses came around and the plunger came into the feed chamber, the fork full of hay was forced into the bale chamber as a “flake” of hay.
The helper’s job was to keep hay to the man who was feeding the baler.

As the hay moved along the bale chamber, Dad (or one of the people tying) would call for a header block. The man feeding would then miss one feed to allow the hay chamber to become empty and the header would be dropped the next time the plunger came through. A header was a block of wood just the right size to fit into the bale chamber, built with a 2 x 4 center, with 3/4’ boards on each side leaving slots on each side for the baling wire. They had a strap handle with which to hold them as they were dropped into the feed chamber through an opening just above the bale chamber.

The header was dropped to provide the division between each bale, and to provide a path way for the baling wire that was used to tie each bale which was usually about every 42 inches or so long. I recall that later as I was taught to tie the bales, we would tie the wire with a figure 8 tie. If one forgot to drop the header, there would be an extra long bale which required a splice.

I recall one old gentleman for whom we baled his meadow “on the shares” (he received 1/3 and Dad received 2/3) who would stand behind the baler with a tape measure measuring all of the bales which came out and he would load the larger bales.-----Dad was always a little ornery, and would on occasions “forget” a header on purpose and make a bale 18 inches or so longer, just to see Daylon wrestle it on to his wagon.---Usually Dad would wait until the wagon was nearly loaded.

I remember the first time that I was allowed to assist with the haying process. My assignment was to “back wire”. I thought that this was a big assignment. It consisted of “returning” the wire back through the “header” to dad who would tie the bale, and stack the bales on the hay pile. Looking back, any 8 year old (which I was) could have done this, but I thought (and no one told me any different) that it was a “man’s” job. As I recall, we thought that we had a “big day’s” run if we baled 200 or 250 bales in one day.

In a year or two, we “graduated” to a stationary gasoline powered baler, and later to a buck rake mounted on the front of a tractor---one could really “wipe out” rake teeth on a turn with a tractor, as it would take a little longer to stop it than to stop a team which would usually stop by themselves. The baling process was still the same, except a second feed man was added to speed up the amount of hay that could be fed into the baler, and we used a side delivery rake to windrow the hay.

I was “allowed” to do various things---back wiring, wiring and tying, as I became older I ran the buck rake, and when I was large enough to handle an 80 pound bale, I tied and stacked the bales----I never was allowed to feed the baler, ---guess that they thought I would loose the pitch fork in the baler.

About the time I started High School, Dad leased a Case pickup baler from a neighbor, and we did contract baling most of the summer. This baler was powered by a gasoline engine mounted on the baler. The Baler was pulled behind a tractor, and it picked up the hay from the windrow as it moved across the field. The process was about the same except that the “header” was a metal needle that tripped automatically into the side of the bale for the bale division. Those who wired or tied, rode on a seat on either side of the bale chamber. Needless to say, on some days it was quite dirty and dusty-(particularly on the days that we baled red clover, and worse yet if the clover had been wet and laid in the field for several days to dry)

Again, I had various assignment---wiring and tying, back wiring, but mostly, I loaded the wagon or sled behind the baler. A good day’s run with this baler would be from 650 to 750 bales per day--an exceptional run could reach 850 bales per day. It seems to me that I loaded 64 or 68 bales on each wagon load. The last few bales to complete the load were “tricky” on the front corner, particularly when my brother Jim, who drove the tractor would swing wide on the corner and turn sharp just as I was going up with the last bale----I still think that sometimes he did it on purpose just to see me take a tumble from the wagon. At least when I was on the wagon, I was not “stuck” in a hot barn storing bales for the winter, where there was very little or no breeze.

Sounds like work---it was, but it is funny how hard work---being made to think that you are doing a man’s job at the age or 8 or 9 and being made to feel as “one of the crew”-- gives one a feeling of contribution and acceptance. I always felt appreciated, and that I was contributing to our daily livelihood --- and I still remember those good fried chicken dinners that Mom would bring to the field at noon. It was good to sit in the shade of a tree (or the wagon or hay pile) and eat dinner and enjoy being a part of “the Crew”.