When I was very little, hay for the hay barn was gathered loose. It wasn't packed into rectangular bales or big round bales. It was thrown into a wagon by pitchforks. The wagon had high sides all around to keep the hay in and this was pulled by the horses. One person had to drive the horses while one or more people would walk alongside, with pitchforks, tossing the dried and mown hay into the wagon. The hay would then get transferred to the hayloft by a clawlike contraption that would lower from a pulley at the top of the barn. This pulley was powered down below by a conveyor belt attached to the horses. The horses would pull on the belt, walking away from the barn, the claw would be lifted into the barn, then someone would pull the claw into the hayloft through the hayloft door. The hay would be released, then the horses would back up, lowering the claw down to the hay wagon again. The person in the hayloft would disperse the hay around the hayloft while the person down below would get the claw ready for another load. I loved the loose hay as it was perfect to slide down in the winter while bundled up in a snowsuit. We also had a rope string in the hayloft. We could climb onto a small ledge and swing from the rope into the mounds of hay.
Waiting for baled hay to come through the large barn doors. Pictured (I think) John Grobner, Danny, Mary Beth, and Uncle Steve.
One summer evening, right before dusk, my parents and Uncle Tim went out to gather hay. I didn't go with them at first. Maybe because it wasn't fun until the hay had started to pile up, and you could sit on top of it all or maybe because by staying behind I was able to watch Jaws on TV. After watching Jaws for awhile with my feet tucked underneath me so they wouldn't be bit off by some shark on the floor, I ran barefoot out to the field where they were gathering hay.
I was always barefoot, especially when I was running through a field of cut grass as some man had once told me that nothing was harder to run on than freshly cut grass. Personally, I felt that it was harder to run through the field once the cut grass had time to dry up and harden; regardless, I wanted to have tough soles.
I met the wagon and happily climbed up the sideboards to the top of the hay. Soon the wagon was full of hay, and Dad was driving the horses back to the barn. The ride back was the best part as the horses were allowed to trot and on top of the hay I was gently rocked by the creaking wagon.
Dad parked the wagon beside the barn, and we all started to get off the top of the hay. There was a pile of hay in between the wagon and the barn where I decided to jump. I jumped and landed on the tine of a pitchfork. I started screaming and screaming for someone to help me, and Uncle Tim came first and lifted me off. I was carried into the house and had my foot rinsed in the sink in the bathroom. I'm not sure how deep the tine had gone, but I must have jumped onto a pitchfork that was lying on the ground tine-up as it didn't go all the way through my foot.
Mom applied a scalding mixture of a slice of bread dunked in boiling milk. This was apparently her cure-all at the time as years later both Danny and Mary remember having this administered to them as well around the same time period. I believe the mixture was supposed to draw out impurities so we would not get infected, which I guess worked, but I mainly remember getting burnt by it.
After the mixture was taken off, my foot was wrapped up and I stayed off it for awhile. A few days later, I hopped on my good foot outside to the kiddy pool. Mom had told me it would feel good on my foot if I walked around in there. Our roving band of geese enjoyed the kiddy pool as much as we did, and they were always clouding it up with their poop, this time being no exception. I jumped right in anyways, and it did feel really nice to swish my foot around and even walk on it. My foot never got infected, and I never contracted tetanus, even though none of us had any of our shots as children. However, I can't watch Jaws without thinking of the pitchfork in my foot and I get sharp pains shooting up into my foot.
After I read this post by Bridget, I had to ask her if she was drunk when she wrote it. She has completely jumbled up the way hay was put in the hay barn. She is correct, when we were very little, all the hay put in the barn was loose and it was put into a wagon with high sides. The wagon had 2 hooks at either end. Two ropes with round metal circles on the end were laid in the wagon and each end was put around a hook. The wagon was filled half way with loose hay by the rake (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mbadelmann/5441964994/) then two more ropes were laid down. When the hay was brought up to the barn, the last two ropes laid down were brought together in the middle and attached to a pulley. Another pulley was attached to the horses and the horses would walk down the driveway to pull the hay in the barn. When the hay got to the correct spot in the barn (front, middle, back, etc) the pulley was tripped by a rope and the hay would drop. The pulley system would have to manually pulled out of the barn and this was repeated with the first two ropes that were laid down.
ReplyDeleteLater when the hay was baled by a tractor and baler, a "claw" was put on this pulley system. The claw would stick into 6 bales at a time and then be brought into the barn the same way. Often the bales would break from the fall.
Even later on, a conveyor belt was used. The conveyor went into the barn and one bale at time was placed on the conveyor which would take the bales into the barn.