The mo-ped was also a valuable tool for Dad. Near the end of the week, he said he would be going back to the old house to check on his beans in the garden as well as on our old neighbors. “Is there anything you can think of,” he asked Mom, “that we left behind that you could use?”
“All I can really think of is my sewing machine,” she answered. “Originally we thought it would be of no use without electricity. But the way things are progressing around here, the boys might be able to make it functional.”
“OK,” Dad answered. That struck me as a little odd. How could he bring Mom’s sewing machine back with him on the moped? Although, I recolected, Dad often had a way of making things work. So just after breakfast, off he went.
Later that morning, Uncle Jeremiah, Amy, Lynette, and I were working with Chip and Pepper, our young oxen. We were up to the point where we were actually leaving them yoked together for eight hours. They were getting used to it, were able to eat and drink while yoked, and even had gotten accustomed to being led around by us. We had started to give them verbal commands, not that they knew how to obey already, but they needed to hear the repetition of the commands to learn. The commands were simple enough. Of course, the obvious one was “whoa” for stop. Go was “hup”, left was “gaw” and right was “hee”. The actual word wasn’t that important, the sound of them was. Each had a distinctive ending vowel sound so the animals would not confuse them. We had just finished and Uncle Jeremiah was measuring them for the next size yoke that needed to be made soon, when we looked down the road and noticed a large charcoal gray Ford pick-up with some things loaded on the back approaching.
“Looks like the landlord from the old place,” I said.
“Wouldn’t know that,” my uncle replied, “but it’s your dad driving it.”
Sure enough, it was Dad. As he wheeled into the driveway, he throttled the diesel engine loudly enough to catch the attention of Josh and some of the others who were working close by. As they came out to see what was going on, we took stock of the items loaded on the truck. Of course there was Mom’s sewing machine and Grandpop’s mo-ped. We saw two cases of honey, a basket of beans from the garden and three implements that I wasn’t exactly sure what they were; one looked like a cultivator.
“Nice trade,” Josh said to Dad. “So this is what you got for our coal stove?”
“You remembered?” Dad replied. “This and more.”
“More?” Larry asked.
“Yep, the landlord’s son-in-law is a beekeeper. That’s where the honey comes from. But also in the deal are two hives of bees he’ll deliver next spring. That way we can have our own honey, but more importantly, ensure better pollination for all the fruit and vegetable crops we’ll be growing around here.”
“That hand cultivator is nice too,” Jeremiah said. “It’ll save a lot of hoeing when the time comes.” The hand cultivator had a high steel wheel in the front with wooden handles in the back, similar in design to a wheelbarrow. In between and at ground level was a row of narrow harrow like tines for scratching the dirt, making it loose for killing weeds.
“And look at that!” Joe exclaimed as he had just arrived and peered into the pickup bed. “A foot pedal driven grinding wheel for sharpening knives and axes.”
“And scythes and sickles,” Larry added. “We can sure use that. But what’s this third item?” The third item was shaped like the hand cultivator, but with a smaller wheel and a chain drive coming back to some kind of mechanism mounted under a metal box.
“It’s a planter,” Poppop announced. “One you can just push by hand through the field. It makes the furrow, drops the seed and covers it all in one pass. That’ll sure save us some time.”
“Sure will,” Jeremiah replied. “Do you have different plates for it?”
“Yep,” Dad responded, “in this box here with some spacing gears too.”
“Plates? Spacing gears?” I inquired.
“The plates are the metering mechanism. Round rings of metal with holes in that catch and drop one seed at a time. The holes have to be different sizes because some seeds are large like lima beans and others are smaller like sweet corn or pea beans,” Dad explained.
“The spacing gears,” Poppop added, “change the speed at which the plates rotate, either decreasing or increasing the distance traveled between each seed drop, hence changing the distance or spacing between each seed. You don’t plant every crop in the garden with the same distance between plants. There a chart for it?”
“On the underside of the seed box lid,” Dad answered.
“Good,” Poppop responded, “look here Alyssa. The chart tells you what gear to use with which plate to get the inches between seeds that you want. You’ll see when we use it.”
“Thanks,” I said, “looking forward to it.”
“And,” Dad continued, “got one more thing in the deal.”
“What’s that?” Josh asked.
“A Ford, four-wheel drive, diesel, pickup truck.”
“Neat,” Josh responded, “just for our old coal stove?”
“The truck couldn’t heat the house,” Dad answered. “Besides, what value does a truck have when there’s no fuel to run it?”
“Tank empty?” Larry inquired.
A big smile emerged on Dad’s face and then he said, “No, full. Part of the deal. Landlord filled it with the heating oil left in the tank in the cellar for the oil burner. It’s a forty gallon tank. I figure enough to combine twelve to fifteen acres of soybeans. Sound about right, Larry?”
After a little mental calculation Larry replied, “That would be just about right. No matter, every little bit helps.”
Poppop was looking at the beans and then asked, “This all there were?”
“No,” Dad answered, “they need about a week of good weather to dry well enough to keep. These will either have to be dried more, canned or eaten. If we don’t, they’ll spoil.”
“Either way,” Poppop responded, “these need to be shelled. I’ll take them in and we can get started on them. The cooks can decide later what to do with them. You picked them pretty quickly.”
“Had help,” Dad said, “a few of the neighbors were there. We actually picked more than these. I shared them.”
“Good for you,” Poppop replied.
“Which neighbors?” I asked. “Was Marie there? Did you talk to her?”
“No, she wasn’t, sorry,” Dad said. “But next time we go, you make the trip as well. Then you’ll get to see her. Everyone else seems to be doing fine. A couple other families moved into the house, must be about eighteen people in all. They had to take our things we left behind out into the wagon shed. No problem, I had told them. Next time we go over, I figure we’ll use Brutus and a wagon. Take Mom and a few others to pick the beans. That way we have a way to bring home the beans as well as anything Mom or Jean root out of our belongings that might be useful here.”
To be continued….. Mort
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
CHAPTER SIXTEEN - TIME
Haymaking didn’t happen without some consternation. Friday morning Jean was bound and determined to get some laundry done; the job had been neglected for nearly a week.
“Now Mother,” Harvey had said, “we have hay to make today; we need all the hands.”
“Maybe so,” Jean answered, “but you know hay drying weather is also clothes drying weather and besides that, soon all your hands will be walking round in dirty underwear. We need to get started today!”
Now Harvey didn’t rule his dairy farm as a king. On the family level, he was quick to consult Larry about farming matters and his wife as well on all matters. But with the arrival of the additional families, a new triumvirate had been formed. Harvey, Dad, and Joe collectively made the decisions. It seemed to be working so far. This being somewhat of a marital issue, it appeared Dad knew better than to interfere. Joe, on the other hand, had his own thoughts.
“It’s also time to butcher the largest hog we have. We need meat and I can’t have the butcher house full of laundry when I’m working on the hog,” he had said.
“But there’s hay to put away!” Harvey exclaimed.
“We need food,” Joe stated.
“And clean clothes,” was Jean’s response.
“And there’s two days to accomplish it all,” Dad finally interjected. “Joe, aren’t you going to roast the whole hog?”
“Yes, I was,” he answered.
“Well that you’ll do outside. You’ll only need the butcher stove to can the leftover meat. Isn’t that correct?” Dad continued.
“Yes.”
“And that you can do Saturday, instead, aren’t I right?”
“I suppose so,” Joe agreed, “if the tables aren’t being used to fold laundry when I want to go at canning.”
“If they get started right away, they should be done by dinner tomorrow. And Harvey, I believe there’s less than half of the amount of hay to put away today as we did yesterday.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Harvey answered.
“So we can do without ten or so women and girls and still get it all loaded and under roof. If we have to unload the last wagons on Saturday, then so be it,” Dad concluded.
“Then so be it,” Harvey concurred as he once again took the lead. “Mother, get started as soon as you can. Keep whomever you need. Larry and the boys will stoke the fire well so you have plenty of hot water. Joe, we’ll do the hog tomorrow. It will make a great dinner. The canning can be done in the afternoon. The women can finish folding in the house if they need to. Okay everyone?”
It was okay. The hay got put away, the laundry was done, we had a fine hog roast for Saturday dinner, the leftover got jarred in the afternoon for future use, and I guess we learned a lesson on priorities, urgency, and cooperation.
The following week the boys came up with several versions of wringers for the wash machine. They were patterned after the feed rolls on the forage harvester. These were spring loaded cylinders which pulled and guided the crop into the knives on the harvester that chopped the material fine. The rolls had serrated edges and were way too aggressive to use directly off the machine – would have shredded the wash. But they could use the drive and tension mechanism from the harvester and then replace the pair of rolls with smooth pieces of pipe. First they tried “schedule forty” plastic pipe which is about six inches in diameter, fairly heavy and is used for sewage lines both inside a home and underground. Harvey had several pieces lying around from his excavating days. The pipe being hollow, it was quite a challenge to put an end cap on the four ends that an axle could be mounted dead center so the rolls would run true. After a few tries, they had it working. They mounted a big crank to turn the wringer. Unfortunately, the pipe was way too smooth, so it would not pull the wash through; it just slipped, even after making several adjustments to the tension mechanism.
“Remember,” Grandmom said, “how the wringers years ago were made out of a semi-soft rubbery type material.”
“Yes, I believe I do remember,” Jean answered. “The boys really don’t know what they were like.” Then addressing them she added, “Could you find some sort of rubber like coating to put on the rolls or a different kind of roll?”
Aaron replied, “We looked at a lot of rolls from the farm equipment around here, and they were all too rough.”
“Suppose,” Dennis wondered, “we wrapped some of the duct tape that Bruce brought around the pipe. Would that be rough enough?”
“Maybe not initially,” Joe said, “we’d have to rough it up a bit with something like sandpaper, but then it probably would only last a few loads before wearing completely off. Worth a try though.”
They tried. He was right. Waste of tape.
Uncle Jeremiah suggested we stretch a piece of an old inner tube on the pipe and glue it fast. It was a project, trying to get the tube to just the right size so the glue would hold and the rubber wouldn’t be too loose on the pipe. But patience and perseverance won out and after a couple days of sticking to it, we had a working wringer. Finally, Barry and Dennis mounted a windshield wiper motor onto it so we wouldn’t have to crank. Great improvement, but we had to be more careful not to get our fingers caught between the wringers.
About the same time, Barry and Aaron had removed the circulator pump from Harvey’s furnace and mounted it in the line inside the house. They rigged a starter motor from Poppop’s Chevy onto it. After gearing it down, it worked fine.
“Still not sure how these motors will take the continuous use when it gets cold outside and will have to run for long periods. Nor how quickly we’ll have to replace the spent battery with a charged one,” Barry said. “If it becomes too burdensome, we’ll have to rig up another bicycle for people/pedal power.” This question, however, led to the determination as to where to put Larry and Joe’s windmill. On the porch right between the house and butcher house – that’s where we were using the most electricity and needing to have the batteries recharged.
When the windmill was up and functional there must have been a dozen batteries in line for charging at any given moment. They had built little carriers to move batteries where they were needed and we used a toy wagon to take four at a time to the barn for the lights later in the fall when we had to milk in the dark in the evening.
“You know,” Poppop said, “this reminds me of something. Before we had electric companies and wires bringing electricity to the farm, my grandfather Willis used to make his own with a generator. Gasoline was cheap and the generator was only run a few hours during the day to charge a bank of batteries that were stored in that small cellar beneath the butcher house.”
“Is that what those old electric controls in the corner of the butcher house were for?” Harvey asked.
“I think so,” Poppop answered, “remember I wasn’t around now mind you; only heard about it. Then all the lights in the house were direct current, running off the batteries in the evening. Wonder if we’ll regress to that?”
“Who knows,” was Dad’s response. “For the next several months, it might be hard to tell if we’re going forward or backward.”
At least we were going forward on the heating, laundry, and electric lighting front. But on the flour mill, I wasn’t so sure. Grandpop’s mo-ped had become a popular item when it came time to go somewhere in a hurry. The younger men could pedal it most of the time and only kick the engine into gear for the harder hills. It took very little gas. One day Larry had taken it to visit the two old flour mills in the neighborhood. The one was completely abandoned and all the milling equipment had been removed. Strike one. The other mill had been turned into a home and the current occupants were not at all agreeable to Larry’s request to look around. He tried to explain to them that we would be willing to trade for the mill if they desired or that a running mill, if they allowed us to donate to its repair, would be a valuable tool for the community as well as a source of income for them. They weren’t interested. I guess not everyone’s heart had changed. Or maybe Larry was sensed as a threat in these uncertain times. Strike two. Back to the drawing board for the boys to build our own mill.
To be continued……Mort
“Now Mother,” Harvey had said, “we have hay to make today; we need all the hands.”
“Maybe so,” Jean answered, “but you know hay drying weather is also clothes drying weather and besides that, soon all your hands will be walking round in dirty underwear. We need to get started today!”
Now Harvey didn’t rule his dairy farm as a king. On the family level, he was quick to consult Larry about farming matters and his wife as well on all matters. But with the arrival of the additional families, a new triumvirate had been formed. Harvey, Dad, and Joe collectively made the decisions. It seemed to be working so far. This being somewhat of a marital issue, it appeared Dad knew better than to interfere. Joe, on the other hand, had his own thoughts.
“It’s also time to butcher the largest hog we have. We need meat and I can’t have the butcher house full of laundry when I’m working on the hog,” he had said.
“But there’s hay to put away!” Harvey exclaimed.
“We need food,” Joe stated.
“And clean clothes,” was Jean’s response.
“And there’s two days to accomplish it all,” Dad finally interjected. “Joe, aren’t you going to roast the whole hog?”
“Yes, I was,” he answered.
“Well that you’ll do outside. You’ll only need the butcher stove to can the leftover meat. Isn’t that correct?” Dad continued.
“Yes.”
“And that you can do Saturday, instead, aren’t I right?”
“I suppose so,” Joe agreed, “if the tables aren’t being used to fold laundry when I want to go at canning.”
“If they get started right away, they should be done by dinner tomorrow. And Harvey, I believe there’s less than half of the amount of hay to put away today as we did yesterday.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Harvey answered.
“So we can do without ten or so women and girls and still get it all loaded and under roof. If we have to unload the last wagons on Saturday, then so be it,” Dad concluded.
“Then so be it,” Harvey concurred as he once again took the lead. “Mother, get started as soon as you can. Keep whomever you need. Larry and the boys will stoke the fire well so you have plenty of hot water. Joe, we’ll do the hog tomorrow. It will make a great dinner. The canning can be done in the afternoon. The women can finish folding in the house if they need to. Okay everyone?”
It was okay. The hay got put away, the laundry was done, we had a fine hog roast for Saturday dinner, the leftover got jarred in the afternoon for future use, and I guess we learned a lesson on priorities, urgency, and cooperation.
The following week the boys came up with several versions of wringers for the wash machine. They were patterned after the feed rolls on the forage harvester. These were spring loaded cylinders which pulled and guided the crop into the knives on the harvester that chopped the material fine. The rolls had serrated edges and were way too aggressive to use directly off the machine – would have shredded the wash. But they could use the drive and tension mechanism from the harvester and then replace the pair of rolls with smooth pieces of pipe. First they tried “schedule forty” plastic pipe which is about six inches in diameter, fairly heavy and is used for sewage lines both inside a home and underground. Harvey had several pieces lying around from his excavating days. The pipe being hollow, it was quite a challenge to put an end cap on the four ends that an axle could be mounted dead center so the rolls would run true. After a few tries, they had it working. They mounted a big crank to turn the wringer. Unfortunately, the pipe was way too smooth, so it would not pull the wash through; it just slipped, even after making several adjustments to the tension mechanism.
“Remember,” Grandmom said, “how the wringers years ago were made out of a semi-soft rubbery type material.”
“Yes, I believe I do remember,” Jean answered. “The boys really don’t know what they were like.” Then addressing them she added, “Could you find some sort of rubber like coating to put on the rolls or a different kind of roll?”
Aaron replied, “We looked at a lot of rolls from the farm equipment around here, and they were all too rough.”
“Suppose,” Dennis wondered, “we wrapped some of the duct tape that Bruce brought around the pipe. Would that be rough enough?”
“Maybe not initially,” Joe said, “we’d have to rough it up a bit with something like sandpaper, but then it probably would only last a few loads before wearing completely off. Worth a try though.”
They tried. He was right. Waste of tape.
Uncle Jeremiah suggested we stretch a piece of an old inner tube on the pipe and glue it fast. It was a project, trying to get the tube to just the right size so the glue would hold and the rubber wouldn’t be too loose on the pipe. But patience and perseverance won out and after a couple days of sticking to it, we had a working wringer. Finally, Barry and Dennis mounted a windshield wiper motor onto it so we wouldn’t have to crank. Great improvement, but we had to be more careful not to get our fingers caught between the wringers.
About the same time, Barry and Aaron had removed the circulator pump from Harvey’s furnace and mounted it in the line inside the house. They rigged a starter motor from Poppop’s Chevy onto it. After gearing it down, it worked fine.
“Still not sure how these motors will take the continuous use when it gets cold outside and will have to run for long periods. Nor how quickly we’ll have to replace the spent battery with a charged one,” Barry said. “If it becomes too burdensome, we’ll have to rig up another bicycle for people/pedal power.” This question, however, led to the determination as to where to put Larry and Joe’s windmill. On the porch right between the house and butcher house – that’s where we were using the most electricity and needing to have the batteries recharged.
When the windmill was up and functional there must have been a dozen batteries in line for charging at any given moment. They had built little carriers to move batteries where they were needed and we used a toy wagon to take four at a time to the barn for the lights later in the fall when we had to milk in the dark in the evening.
“You know,” Poppop said, “this reminds me of something. Before we had electric companies and wires bringing electricity to the farm, my grandfather Willis used to make his own with a generator. Gasoline was cheap and the generator was only run a few hours during the day to charge a bank of batteries that were stored in that small cellar beneath the butcher house.”
“Is that what those old electric controls in the corner of the butcher house were for?” Harvey asked.
“I think so,” Poppop answered, “remember I wasn’t around now mind you; only heard about it. Then all the lights in the house were direct current, running off the batteries in the evening. Wonder if we’ll regress to that?”
“Who knows,” was Dad’s response. “For the next several months, it might be hard to tell if we’re going forward or backward.”
At least we were going forward on the heating, laundry, and electric lighting front. But on the flour mill, I wasn’t so sure. Grandpop’s mo-ped had become a popular item when it came time to go somewhere in a hurry. The younger men could pedal it most of the time and only kick the engine into gear for the harder hills. It took very little gas. One day Larry had taken it to visit the two old flour mills in the neighborhood. The one was completely abandoned and all the milling equipment had been removed. Strike one. The other mill had been turned into a home and the current occupants were not at all agreeable to Larry’s request to look around. He tried to explain to them that we would be willing to trade for the mill if they desired or that a running mill, if they allowed us to donate to its repair, would be a valuable tool for the community as well as a source of income for them. They weren’t interested. I guess not everyone’s heart had changed. Or maybe Larry was sensed as a threat in these uncertain times. Strike two. Back to the drawing board for the boys to build our own mill.
To be continued……Mort
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Stump Family Tree
This week, in response to requests, and to help the readers keep track of the members of the communities, I’ve decided to list the characters in the story.
I’ll do a Stump family tree first, and then list others who have joined either the Stump community or Butch and Clare’s. – Mort
Willis Stump (Harvey’s and Dad’s great-grandfather)
-- he had two sons: Thomas, Sr. and Joel
---- Thomas, Sr. had two sons: Lester and Thomas, Jr.
------ Joe is Lester’s son
--------his wife is Sandy
----------they have two sons: Dennis and Aaron
------ Harvey is Thomas, Jr.’s son
--------his wife is Jean
----------their son is Larry
------------ Harvey also has a brother, Randall
----Harold (my Poppop) is Joel’s son
------ his wife is Myra (my Grandmom)
-------- their sons are Jeremiah (my uncle) and Dad
----------Jeremiah’s wife is Lois (my aunt)
------------they have two daughters: Amy and Lynette (my cousins)
----------Dad’s wife is Mom
------------ her parents are Grandpop and Grandma
------------ her brother is my Uncle Bruce
-------------- his wife is Kristen (my aunt)
-------------------- her mother is Leticia
---------------- they have a daughter, Jennifer and a son, Dean-my cousins
------------------Dean has a girlfriend, Vanetta
---------- their sons are Jake and Josh (my brothers)
---------- their daughters are Mel (my sister) and Alyssa-that’s ME!
- - - - also Barry, our auto mechanic, has joined us
Our neighbors at Crystal View Farm:
Butch and Clare Rorher
Ben Lukens and his wife Denise
----their sons are Dave, Clark and Ted
Lee Smith and his wife Donna
----their sons are Billy and Robbie
----their daughters are Renee, Karen, Molly and Susan
Dan Parris and his wife Julie (the teacher)
----their daughters are Tina and Leslie
----their twin sons are Blaise and Matthew
------ the elderly couple, Wayne and Joan Wolfe
To be continued….. what’s up next?....... Mort
I’ll do a Stump family tree first, and then list others who have joined either the Stump community or Butch and Clare’s. – Mort
Willis Stump (Harvey’s and Dad’s great-grandfather)
-- he had two sons: Thomas, Sr. and Joel
---- Thomas, Sr. had two sons: Lester and Thomas, Jr.
------ Joe is Lester’s son
--------his wife is Sandy
----------they have two sons: Dennis and Aaron
------ Harvey is Thomas, Jr.’s son
--------his wife is Jean
----------their son is Larry
------------ Harvey also has a brother, Randall
----Harold (my Poppop) is Joel’s son
------ his wife is Myra (my Grandmom)
-------- their sons are Jeremiah (my uncle) and Dad
----------Jeremiah’s wife is Lois (my aunt)
------------they have two daughters: Amy and Lynette (my cousins)
----------Dad’s wife is Mom
------------ her parents are Grandpop and Grandma
------------ her brother is my Uncle Bruce
-------------- his wife is Kristen (my aunt)
-------------------- her mother is Leticia
---------------- they have a daughter, Jennifer and a son, Dean-my cousins
------------------Dean has a girlfriend, Vanetta
---------- their sons are Jake and Josh (my brothers)
---------- their daughters are Mel (my sister) and Alyssa-that’s ME!
- - - - also Barry, our auto mechanic, has joined us
Our neighbors at Crystal View Farm:
Butch and Clare Rorher
Ben Lukens and his wife Denise
----their sons are Dave, Clark and Ted
Lee Smith and his wife Donna
----their sons are Billy and Robbie
----their daughters are Renee, Karen, Molly and Susan
Dan Parris and his wife Julie (the teacher)
----their daughters are Tina and Leslie
----their twin sons are Blaise and Matthew
------ the elderly couple, Wayne and Joan Wolfe
To be continued….. what’s up next?....... Mort
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Chap 15 - We Made Hay While the Sun Shone (conclusion)
The aches and pains started even before we had eaten supper that evening. Different parts hurt on different people. For some it was backs or legs; others it was arms or shoulders. Jeremiah wished out loud that Dr. Fleming would show up, but it was too early for him to come around again. Everyone had their own remedies. Many, like Dad, just wanted a hot bath, so we kept making and carrying hot water all evening. That meant Amy, Lynette, and I had to pedal a little more than normal to keep water in the milk tank. Jenn, Dean, and Vanetta helped out by taking a few turns on the bike.
Lois was busy dispensing. Rubbing alcohol was a favorite, but she also had some analgesic cream made specifically for muscle aches. Some people just chose that stinky ointment that old people often use. A few people had chaffing in areas like their armpits or in between their legs. A little witch hazel took the sting out of that. Lois often followed that treatment up with some antibiotic ointment or Eucerin cream. The chaffing problem might get worse when we start working in the dusty, dry hay and sweating all the time. Thank goodness we all wore gloves or Lois would have been treating blisters, too.
I think everyone slept pretty well that night, but started slowly the next morning. The stiffness and soreness were more evident now, especially for Dad’s generation, but the younger ones felt it too. Dean likened it to the morning after the first practice of a new sport’s season. After all that running and using muscles you hadn’t used for a while, your body had a way of letting you know. But we got the regular chores done in good time and once again used the Brutus-pulled wagon to head to the hayfield. This time we took along every pitchfork we could find on the place.
“We have to remember to bring several back with us tonight,” Larry said, “to feed the cattle.”
When we arrived at Butch’s, his crew wasn’t too quick to join us. Definitely some of them were not accustomed to working the way we had on “Labor” Day. The job this morning was to turn the hay. With a power driven machine, it was called tedding. To start, we lined up all 35 people along the end of the field, each with either a pitchfork or a couple with Poppop’s rakes. The purpose was to get the partially wilted hay up off the ground, spread it apart, knock the dew off, and hopefully have it end up with the wettest stalks of hay on top for the sun to work at.
In the beginning we watched as Dad, Harvey, Larry, Jake, and Josh demonstrated. Each had their own style. Dad just took a forkful and flipped it over to expose the wet hay underneath. Harvey took every forkful and shook it apart. Larry would hold the fork backward and rake the hay toward him like an oar, leaving it fluffed up. Josh tended to lift every forkful waist high, and then fling it a far as he could throw it, spreading it in a wide pattern. Jake just kept flailing from side to side, scattering the hay in both directions.
I’m sure one way might have been better than another, but Dad said, “Just so we get it distributed and setting up so the air can flow through it. The tricky part is not to step on it after it’s been fluffed.” Therefore, once we were away from the end of the field, it was better if we moved backward, facing the hay we had already turned. We soon caught on – everyone using their own style. It was fun; throwing hay all over the place - had to be careful though, not to get too close to the person next to you. We also found out how poorly we had cut some of the hay the day before. Often, when I’d grab a forkful, some of the individual stalks were not completely severed. It then took a little effort to rip them free.
Our motion took us away from the barn and our water, though. In about an hour and a half we had reached the halfway mark in the field. “Time for water everyone,” Harvey yelled, “let’s take a break.” After drinking, we walked all the way to the back end of the field and worked toward the barn. It gave us a more positive feeling – psychologically - always moving toward our goal. We were done before dinner.
“Looks good,” Larry said, “now let’s mow a bit more, before we eat. What do you think, Pop?”
“Grab the scythes,” was Harvey’s answer. We mowed about an hour, until Clare called us in for dinner. We didn’t need to eat in the hot sun today. She had a tremendous pot of vegetable soup on her outside cook fire, made with the pork from Roger. It had plenty of broth and tons of vegetables, many that Poppop had brought up that morning. After the filling meal, cool drinks, and a short rest, out we went to mow some more.
When we had about six acres mown (about ¾ of what we mowed the day before), Harvey said, “Let’s pack it in. We’ve a little work to do in the barn for tomorrow.”
You see baled hay in its comparatively compact package with twine for handles, can be carried fairly easily to the horses or cattle that you’re feeding. Loose hay’s a bit more difficult, so Harvey needed to find a spot in the barn where it would be both easy to unload from the wagons and convenient to fork down a hole in the barn floor near where the horses were fed. Fortunately, Butch’s barn, like Harvey’s, was of the old style that had two stories – a lower level, we called the bottom of the barn, where the animals were housed, and an upper level, we called the top of the barn, where hay, grain and equipment were stored. In different locations around the top of the barn, holes were left in the floor to drop feed down to the animals below. We called the holes hay holes. To some extent they were dangerous, generally uncovered most of the time. There were few kids raised on a farm that hadn’t fallen through one sometime in their life. I was no exception. Heck, sometimes we jumped on purpose, if there was something soft to land on. The vintage barn that Butch had was a throwback, specifically designed for the handling of loose hay and straw, so he had no problem choosing a spot to store the hay we were to bring in the next day. We only needed to clean up about a half an hour to make the site ready.
Wednesday was the big day - eight acres of hay to bring in - another six laying. The weather appeared like it was going to cooperate – wind out of the west, blowing early in the morning, with low humidity. There was no dew left on the hay by the time we reached the fields. First we turned the hay we had mown on Tuesday, and then jumped to our original eight acre patch.
Now Poppop’s rakes came into play. Because it was mown earlier, the hay around the outside of the field was the driest. In the middle of the field, it had more moisture; the phrase we used to describe it was “it was tough” or “not fit” (for harvesting). In the corner of the field, the eight people with the rakes started shoulder to shoulder, pulling about ten feet of the scattered hay toward them – maybe each person two rake widths wide. That way they took about a 40 foot swath down the side of the field. They weren’t fussy about it; just pulled the hay together, and then stepped over it and took another ten feet. Meanwhile, the rest of us with pitchforks, gathered any hay missed by the rakes and formed it into a continuous fluffy pile, so that the drying air could flow through it. We also kept an eye out for any really tough hay and make sure that it was well off the ground, preferably right on the top of the windrow so the sun could hit it directly.
“You know,” Dad said, “for forty-five years I’ve been calling these rows of hay, that we made with machines, windrows, without giving much thought to why. Now that I’m making them by hand, I can understand.”
“It’s a row of hay, set up so the wind can go through,” I offered.
“You got it,” he answered.
From the time we started raking, it would probably take about four or five hours of good drying to be fit enough to safely store in the barn. It was well past dinner time when we had the whole field raked up.
“No problem,” Dad had said, “it might be pretty late until we quit up here this evening; supper might be late, too.”
After dinner the hay wasn’t as dry as Harvey and Butch would have liked it. “Always a trick,” Harvey told the group. “You want to have very dry hay on the bottom of the pile in the barn - makes less chance of spoilage. Still you want to get started as soon as you can, so you can finish before running out of daylight.”
Just because we couldn’t start loading, didn’t mean there wasn’t work to do. Back to field #2 we went – the one we had mowed six acres of on Tuesday.
“Let’s mow some more,” Harvey directed. “It’ll give us hay to put away Friday. Why should we waste this good weather?” For hay making – yes, good weather; Harvey had hit it. For working – today was the hottest so far this week. People’s attire had changed somewhat, too. There were a lot more long sleeves, wide brimmed hats, and handkerchiefs tied around some necks. A few people had been sunburned the last couple afternoons. I admired the men who grabbed the scythes. They ached already and with a lot more work to do today, common sense might have told them to rest and store up some energy for the looming tasks ahead. But soon the scythes and sickles were swinging away and more hay was being knocked down.
An hour later, with about another two acres cut, Harvey said, “Good enough, let’s start loading.” We all got a fresh drink of water, set a little spell, and then Harvey and Butch headed into the field. Each had a team of horses with a wagon. About 15 people climbed aboard Harvey’s and went to the far end of the field. Butch stopped at the near end. We reversed the roles we had the day before. Today the men had both the pitchforks and the meat of the job. They plunged their forks into the piles of hay and then “pitched” it onto the wagon. As the pile increased, a couple boys climbed onto the wagon to “pitch” the hay higher and get as full a load as possible.
This time, I had a rake, and was relegated to gathering together the last few stalks of hay that the “pitchers” had left behind. The process really didn’t take too long – there were four of us raking and at least a dozen with pitchforks. We actually had to stay out of each other’s way. Before the wagon was full, Clare and Ben came out with the third team and an empty wagon. The switch was easy, but this second load would take much longer to fill, for the eight strongest loaders went back to the barn with Butch to unload the first wagon.
“Just pace yourselves,” Dad said. “From the looks of it, you’re all getting the knack of it.” I watched Butch and company as they neared the barn. They drove the wagon straight into the barn, close enough to where Butch wanted the hay piled and allowing enough room to unhitch the horses from the wagon, wiggle around it, and bring the team out of the barn to yet another empty wagon. They hitched it up, and then Butch drove it right past us toward Harvey’s crew. By the time Butch reached them, their wagon was full; a switch was made and back came Butch with another full load and four more men to help unload it. When he reached the barn the first wagon was empty – another switch and back to the field. What planning. Load after load, teams switching wagons, workers switching tasks. I even tried tossing hay onto the wagon for a spell.
We didn’t work non-stop. A couple times we’d just sit in the shade a few minutes. There were water breaks for the horses and drink breaks for us. Clare had prepared a concoction that was to be like Gatorade, that her family had used long before Gatorade was invented. It was water flavored with lemon juice, sweetened with honey, and some vinegar and a little salt added. It was OK, I’m no fan of vinegar, but it was supposed to keep our electrolytes balanced and provide us with stamina and energy. Must have worked: we just kept going. The job was getting done.
By late afternoon, six of the unloaders left for Harvey’s for milking chores, slowing things up a bit. But I believe we only had two loads of hay left laying in the field. An hour later, the field was clean with all four wagons full.
Inside the barn, the task was getting tougher. The first loads of hay were easily thrown down off the wagon onto the floor. Now, however the hay had to be thrown up for the pile was over eight feet high. Then others standing on the pile threw the hay even higher. I finally got to help in the barn and out of the sun, but now I realized another purpose for those long sleeved shirts and handkerchiefs – the dust. And even though I thought it was hot outside, inside it was stifling. The heat collected under the roof of the barn and the higher the pile of hay grew, the hotter it got. No wonder the men were rotating in and out of the barn all day – another benefit to numbers.
It went pretty fast though, what with two dozen plus forks in the barn at the same time. Right after we started the second to last load, Josh, Jake, and Uncle Jeremiah came back from milking.
“Is it that late?” Dad asked, “that you guys are finished with the milking already?”
“We milked our cows,” Josh said, “then Larry said he, Joe and Harvey could clean-up and feed all the animals. We needed to bring Brutus back, to haul everyone home and besides, we figured you were wearing out.”
“Naw, we’re still in great shape,” Butch huffed. “But appreciate it just the same. Why don’t you two young guys climb up in the pile?”
When the wagon was empty, Ben said, “Fourteen down, one to go.”
“We did fifteen loads today?” Mel asked.
“Yep,” Ben answered, “time flies when you’re having fun.”
Uncle Jeremiah and I got the last forkfuls of hay on the wagon. He stuck his fork into the final remnant, lifted it up and said, “There it is! That’s what I’ve been looking for all afternoon!”
“Did you lose something?” I asked gullibly. “What were you looking for?”
“The last forkful!” he laughed along with everyone else. It was an old joke and I fell for it, but I vowed not to let it happen again.
“The wagons can stay where they are until tomorrow,” Butch announced. “Bring my horses to the front of the barn so we can take off their harnesses, feed them and loose them in the pasture.”
That finished, we started climbing on board the wagon hitched to Brutus for the trip home when Josh said, “Wait! There’s something I need to do, yet.” He ran across the pasture, took off his shoes and leaped into Harvey’s pond. Didn’t take long for the rest of us to follow suit. None of us stayed in very long, however. Harvey’s pond was only a couple degrees warmer than spring water. Most of us jumped in, screamed, and popped right out again. Cooled us off though, and washed off the dust, sweat, and grime of a day’s hard work.
We repeated that day’s hard work on Thursday and Friday, then several more times in the ensuing weeks. A few more acres at Butch’s farm, and then several acres at Harvey’s other rented farm; that hay we brought home for Harvey’s animals. In all, it gave a nice pile of hay in the two barns. Mission accomplished; we made hay while the sun shone.
To be continued……. Mort
Lois was busy dispensing. Rubbing alcohol was a favorite, but she also had some analgesic cream made specifically for muscle aches. Some people just chose that stinky ointment that old people often use. A few people had chaffing in areas like their armpits or in between their legs. A little witch hazel took the sting out of that. Lois often followed that treatment up with some antibiotic ointment or Eucerin cream. The chaffing problem might get worse when we start working in the dusty, dry hay and sweating all the time. Thank goodness we all wore gloves or Lois would have been treating blisters, too.
I think everyone slept pretty well that night, but started slowly the next morning. The stiffness and soreness were more evident now, especially for Dad’s generation, but the younger ones felt it too. Dean likened it to the morning after the first practice of a new sport’s season. After all that running and using muscles you hadn’t used for a while, your body had a way of letting you know. But we got the regular chores done in good time and once again used the Brutus-pulled wagon to head to the hayfield. This time we took along every pitchfork we could find on the place.
“We have to remember to bring several back with us tonight,” Larry said, “to feed the cattle.”
When we arrived at Butch’s, his crew wasn’t too quick to join us. Definitely some of them were not accustomed to working the way we had on “Labor” Day. The job this morning was to turn the hay. With a power driven machine, it was called tedding. To start, we lined up all 35 people along the end of the field, each with either a pitchfork or a couple with Poppop’s rakes. The purpose was to get the partially wilted hay up off the ground, spread it apart, knock the dew off, and hopefully have it end up with the wettest stalks of hay on top for the sun to work at.
In the beginning we watched as Dad, Harvey, Larry, Jake, and Josh demonstrated. Each had their own style. Dad just took a forkful and flipped it over to expose the wet hay underneath. Harvey took every forkful and shook it apart. Larry would hold the fork backward and rake the hay toward him like an oar, leaving it fluffed up. Josh tended to lift every forkful waist high, and then fling it a far as he could throw it, spreading it in a wide pattern. Jake just kept flailing from side to side, scattering the hay in both directions.
I’m sure one way might have been better than another, but Dad said, “Just so we get it distributed and setting up so the air can flow through it. The tricky part is not to step on it after it’s been fluffed.” Therefore, once we were away from the end of the field, it was better if we moved backward, facing the hay we had already turned. We soon caught on – everyone using their own style. It was fun; throwing hay all over the place - had to be careful though, not to get too close to the person next to you. We also found out how poorly we had cut some of the hay the day before. Often, when I’d grab a forkful, some of the individual stalks were not completely severed. It then took a little effort to rip them free.
Our motion took us away from the barn and our water, though. In about an hour and a half we had reached the halfway mark in the field. “Time for water everyone,” Harvey yelled, “let’s take a break.” After drinking, we walked all the way to the back end of the field and worked toward the barn. It gave us a more positive feeling – psychologically - always moving toward our goal. We were done before dinner.
“Looks good,” Larry said, “now let’s mow a bit more, before we eat. What do you think, Pop?”
“Grab the scythes,” was Harvey’s answer. We mowed about an hour, until Clare called us in for dinner. We didn’t need to eat in the hot sun today. She had a tremendous pot of vegetable soup on her outside cook fire, made with the pork from Roger. It had plenty of broth and tons of vegetables, many that Poppop had brought up that morning. After the filling meal, cool drinks, and a short rest, out we went to mow some more.
When we had about six acres mown (about ¾ of what we mowed the day before), Harvey said, “Let’s pack it in. We’ve a little work to do in the barn for tomorrow.”
You see baled hay in its comparatively compact package with twine for handles, can be carried fairly easily to the horses or cattle that you’re feeding. Loose hay’s a bit more difficult, so Harvey needed to find a spot in the barn where it would be both easy to unload from the wagons and convenient to fork down a hole in the barn floor near where the horses were fed. Fortunately, Butch’s barn, like Harvey’s, was of the old style that had two stories – a lower level, we called the bottom of the barn, where the animals were housed, and an upper level, we called the top of the barn, where hay, grain and equipment were stored. In different locations around the top of the barn, holes were left in the floor to drop feed down to the animals below. We called the holes hay holes. To some extent they were dangerous, generally uncovered most of the time. There were few kids raised on a farm that hadn’t fallen through one sometime in their life. I was no exception. Heck, sometimes we jumped on purpose, if there was something soft to land on. The vintage barn that Butch had was a throwback, specifically designed for the handling of loose hay and straw, so he had no problem choosing a spot to store the hay we were to bring in the next day. We only needed to clean up about a half an hour to make the site ready.
Wednesday was the big day - eight acres of hay to bring in - another six laying. The weather appeared like it was going to cooperate – wind out of the west, blowing early in the morning, with low humidity. There was no dew left on the hay by the time we reached the fields. First we turned the hay we had mown on Tuesday, and then jumped to our original eight acre patch.
Now Poppop’s rakes came into play. Because it was mown earlier, the hay around the outside of the field was the driest. In the middle of the field, it had more moisture; the phrase we used to describe it was “it was tough” or “not fit” (for harvesting). In the corner of the field, the eight people with the rakes started shoulder to shoulder, pulling about ten feet of the scattered hay toward them – maybe each person two rake widths wide. That way they took about a 40 foot swath down the side of the field. They weren’t fussy about it; just pulled the hay together, and then stepped over it and took another ten feet. Meanwhile, the rest of us with pitchforks, gathered any hay missed by the rakes and formed it into a continuous fluffy pile, so that the drying air could flow through it. We also kept an eye out for any really tough hay and make sure that it was well off the ground, preferably right on the top of the windrow so the sun could hit it directly.
“You know,” Dad said, “for forty-five years I’ve been calling these rows of hay, that we made with machines, windrows, without giving much thought to why. Now that I’m making them by hand, I can understand.”
“It’s a row of hay, set up so the wind can go through,” I offered.
“You got it,” he answered.
From the time we started raking, it would probably take about four or five hours of good drying to be fit enough to safely store in the barn. It was well past dinner time when we had the whole field raked up.
“No problem,” Dad had said, “it might be pretty late until we quit up here this evening; supper might be late, too.”
After dinner the hay wasn’t as dry as Harvey and Butch would have liked it. “Always a trick,” Harvey told the group. “You want to have very dry hay on the bottom of the pile in the barn - makes less chance of spoilage. Still you want to get started as soon as you can, so you can finish before running out of daylight.”
Just because we couldn’t start loading, didn’t mean there wasn’t work to do. Back to field #2 we went – the one we had mowed six acres of on Tuesday.
“Let’s mow some more,” Harvey directed. “It’ll give us hay to put away Friday. Why should we waste this good weather?” For hay making – yes, good weather; Harvey had hit it. For working – today was the hottest so far this week. People’s attire had changed somewhat, too. There were a lot more long sleeves, wide brimmed hats, and handkerchiefs tied around some necks. A few people had been sunburned the last couple afternoons. I admired the men who grabbed the scythes. They ached already and with a lot more work to do today, common sense might have told them to rest and store up some energy for the looming tasks ahead. But soon the scythes and sickles were swinging away and more hay was being knocked down.
An hour later, with about another two acres cut, Harvey said, “Good enough, let’s start loading.” We all got a fresh drink of water, set a little spell, and then Harvey and Butch headed into the field. Each had a team of horses with a wagon. About 15 people climbed aboard Harvey’s and went to the far end of the field. Butch stopped at the near end. We reversed the roles we had the day before. Today the men had both the pitchforks and the meat of the job. They plunged their forks into the piles of hay and then “pitched” it onto the wagon. As the pile increased, a couple boys climbed onto the wagon to “pitch” the hay higher and get as full a load as possible.
This time, I had a rake, and was relegated to gathering together the last few stalks of hay that the “pitchers” had left behind. The process really didn’t take too long – there were four of us raking and at least a dozen with pitchforks. We actually had to stay out of each other’s way. Before the wagon was full, Clare and Ben came out with the third team and an empty wagon. The switch was easy, but this second load would take much longer to fill, for the eight strongest loaders went back to the barn with Butch to unload the first wagon.
“Just pace yourselves,” Dad said. “From the looks of it, you’re all getting the knack of it.” I watched Butch and company as they neared the barn. They drove the wagon straight into the barn, close enough to where Butch wanted the hay piled and allowing enough room to unhitch the horses from the wagon, wiggle around it, and bring the team out of the barn to yet another empty wagon. They hitched it up, and then Butch drove it right past us toward Harvey’s crew. By the time Butch reached them, their wagon was full; a switch was made and back came Butch with another full load and four more men to help unload it. When he reached the barn the first wagon was empty – another switch and back to the field. What planning. Load after load, teams switching wagons, workers switching tasks. I even tried tossing hay onto the wagon for a spell.
We didn’t work non-stop. A couple times we’d just sit in the shade a few minutes. There were water breaks for the horses and drink breaks for us. Clare had prepared a concoction that was to be like Gatorade, that her family had used long before Gatorade was invented. It was water flavored with lemon juice, sweetened with honey, and some vinegar and a little salt added. It was OK, I’m no fan of vinegar, but it was supposed to keep our electrolytes balanced and provide us with stamina and energy. Must have worked: we just kept going. The job was getting done.
By late afternoon, six of the unloaders left for Harvey’s for milking chores, slowing things up a bit. But I believe we only had two loads of hay left laying in the field. An hour later, the field was clean with all four wagons full.
Inside the barn, the task was getting tougher. The first loads of hay were easily thrown down off the wagon onto the floor. Now, however the hay had to be thrown up for the pile was over eight feet high. Then others standing on the pile threw the hay even higher. I finally got to help in the barn and out of the sun, but now I realized another purpose for those long sleeved shirts and handkerchiefs – the dust. And even though I thought it was hot outside, inside it was stifling. The heat collected under the roof of the barn and the higher the pile of hay grew, the hotter it got. No wonder the men were rotating in and out of the barn all day – another benefit to numbers.
It went pretty fast though, what with two dozen plus forks in the barn at the same time. Right after we started the second to last load, Josh, Jake, and Uncle Jeremiah came back from milking.
“Is it that late?” Dad asked, “that you guys are finished with the milking already?”
“We milked our cows,” Josh said, “then Larry said he, Joe and Harvey could clean-up and feed all the animals. We needed to bring Brutus back, to haul everyone home and besides, we figured you were wearing out.”
“Naw, we’re still in great shape,” Butch huffed. “But appreciate it just the same. Why don’t you two young guys climb up in the pile?”
When the wagon was empty, Ben said, “Fourteen down, one to go.”
“We did fifteen loads today?” Mel asked.
“Yep,” Ben answered, “time flies when you’re having fun.”
Uncle Jeremiah and I got the last forkfuls of hay on the wagon. He stuck his fork into the final remnant, lifted it up and said, “There it is! That’s what I’ve been looking for all afternoon!”
“Did you lose something?” I asked gullibly. “What were you looking for?”
“The last forkful!” he laughed along with everyone else. It was an old joke and I fell for it, but I vowed not to let it happen again.
“The wagons can stay where they are until tomorrow,” Butch announced. “Bring my horses to the front of the barn so we can take off their harnesses, feed them and loose them in the pasture.”
That finished, we started climbing on board the wagon hitched to Brutus for the trip home when Josh said, “Wait! There’s something I need to do, yet.” He ran across the pasture, took off his shoes and leaped into Harvey’s pond. Didn’t take long for the rest of us to follow suit. None of us stayed in very long, however. Harvey’s pond was only a couple degrees warmer than spring water. Most of us jumped in, screamed, and popped right out again. Cooled us off though, and washed off the dust, sweat, and grime of a day’s hard work.
We repeated that day’s hard work on Thursday and Friday, then several more times in the ensuing weeks. A few more acres at Butch’s farm, and then several acres at Harvey’s other rented farm; that hay we brought home for Harvey’s animals. In all, it gave a nice pile of hay in the two barns. Mission accomplished; we made hay while the sun shone.
To be continued……. Mort
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