Hay

Before bailing became prevalent, processing hay was a labor-intensive activity. Here are my memories involving the hay field beside my grandparents’ home in Oregon.

When the hay was ready for harvesting my Uncle Bob hitched the horses to the mower and mowed down the hay. Then he hitched the horses to a rake and raked the hay into rows. The hay was left that way to dry out. (Without proper drying there was a danger of spontaneous combustion when the hay was stored in the barn. A lot of barns were burned down that way.) A few days later a second pass with the rake turned the hay over, allowing for complete drying.

When the drying was complete the manual labor began. The horses were hitched to the hay wagon and they pulled the wagon to the hay field. While my father, Uncle Bob, and Uncle Jack pitched the hay into the wagon with pitch forks, Cousin Susie, my brother, and I tromped the hay down to compact it in the wagon. All the while Uncle Bob was issuing verbal orders to the horses to keep them moving the wagon to facilitate the loading process.

When the wagon was full it was off to the barn. I remember the barn as being huge with a very large hay loft. At one end of the barn was a large door above the hay loft. The top of the door was shaped like an inverted “V” to match the shape of the roof. The door was hinged along the bottom and was raised and lowered using ropes and pulleys. At the very top of the door opening was a large wooden boom that projected out from the barn about six feet. It was under that boom that the hay wagon was parked.

Attached under the boom, and running the full length of the barn was a trolley track. On that track was a rolling carriage to which was attached a large, two-tined fork. I do not recall all of the technical details but somehow the carriage, with fork attached, was positioned over the hay wagon. The fork was then released from the carriage and lowered rapidly, using ropes and pulleys, into the load of hay. When the fork was firmly embedded in the hay, two “fingers”, one from each time, were activated to hold the hay onto the fork.

While all of this was going on the horses were unhitched from the wagon and taken to the other end of the barn. There they were hitched to a very long rope. This rope ran all the way through the barn, through pulleys, and down to the fork in the hay. When all was ready the horses pulled on the rope, causing the fork, loaded with hay, to rise up to the carriage. When the loaded fork reached the carriage, the carriage was released from its position at the end of the boom and began to move down the trolley track into the barn. When the fork load of hay was over the spot where Uncle Bob wanted it, he pulled a cord that released the “fingers” and the hay dropped.

If we (the kids) had done a good job of compacting the hay in the wagon the entire wagon load went into the loft with the first try. As I said, it was a large fork.

This process was repeated until all of the hay had been transferred to the hay loft.