My Grandpa had a herd of cattle he ran on his 200+
acres of land. Of course several acres were hay fields, so that meant Putting
up Hay. My Grandpa owned Black Angus
cows. I asked him one time why he didn't own Dairy cows like most people
in the area. He said he like owning Black Angus because they didn't need
much help with anything. Every rarely did they need help with birthing,
he didn't have to milk them. Just feed the cows hay & grain that was
about it.
So Putting up Hay
was very important, because he definitely didn't want to have to buy hay to
feed his cattle over the winter time. So every summer we would Put up
Hay, these where square bails not the round kind you see now. Grandpa had
one tractor, so he would cut the hay down thru the week get it rack & then
when the whole family could help on the weekends he would bail it & we
would put the hay on his old truck. This truck was like a 1950 big truck,
not a diesel but bigger than a regular sized truck also. He had a
conveyor type machine that would attach to the side of the truck. Whoever
was driving would need to line the bails up & feed them thru the Y shaped
arms of the machine & then up the belt the hay would go. So in order
for the truck to help with Putting up Hay
the bales of hay needed to be in a straight line.
Since of course I'm a girl & couldn't really lift
the bales of hay when I was younger, it was one of my jobs to run ahead of the
truck & straighten out the bales of hay so the truck could line them up
with no problem at all. This made Putting up Hay a whole lot easier. Because they didn't have
to pick every hay bale up from the ground & lift it five feet in the air to
put the hay on the truck. All they had to do was to have someone catch
the bails & someone else stacking the bails on the bed of the truck.
Then when the truck was full we'd unhook the conveyer
belt machine, take the truck & start Putting up Hay in the barn. Of
course here again I wasn't able to pick up the bails yet so just straighten
them or rolling them was about all I could do. As I got older I was able
to drive the truck. Now this at the time I thought was a job I would
like. But come to find out it's one of the worst jobs. Let me
explain, so the truck is an old 1950's truck. So no air conditioning, you
have to have the window down & since the hay is going up the conveyer
belt. You guessed it hay, dirt, weeds & bugs came flying in the
window. Now I'm not a typical girl & don't have to stay clean all the
time or anything. I mean I loved playing in the mud. But when
you’re covered from head to toe in dust & hay, this wasn't a good job after
all. So I wanted to help with Putting up Hay in another way.
I do know one thing I was so glad that Grandpa only
cut hay once a year, unlike some other farmers in the area that would cut
twice. Once would be green hay & the other would be the older hay
like we put up. Even though I was glad Putting up Hay was only once a year, I still was curious why
Grandpa didn't cut hay twice a year like so many others did. He said he
didn't want his barn to burn down. I'm like what does green hay have to
do with that, he said as the green hay dries out in the summer heat it
sometimes causes barns to catch on fire. I said well I agree then that
you don't want your 100 year old barn to burn down.
So Grandpa no longer runs his own cattle on his
property. He rents it out & lets someone else have the problem of
Putting up Hay for their own cattle.
But looking back Putting up Hay was some good memories. Spent day's working
closely with family, got to kid around with one another, usually we all got to
eat meals together. Family & hard work together, that builds some
values! I think we've lost some of that over the years. I wish
there was a way to bring it back. Seems like our kids are missing out on
some of the best things we had as children.
