Written By John Caverhill
Hay cutting started around the last week in June just as the summer holidays began. The term ‘holidays’ was definitely euphemistic because some of the hardest work of the farm year commenced with the haying. During the summer of 1948, my hitherto casual relationship with the pitchfork became an intimate, hands-on experience that demanded my attention for hours each day.
Each morning Dad cut hay using our five-foot swath mower. The hay took two or three days to dry, depending on weather conditions. Then a dump rake was used to gather the hay, which was dumped in long bunches end to end making rows that stretched across the field. Next, the hay was ‘coiled’. Dad, big brother Ron, and I used pitchforks to gather the hay into rounded bunches, or coils. We gathered the hay using a motion similar to using a table fork when eating spaghetti, forming a tight bundle or coil three or four feet high and wide. A completed field looked like it was covered with rows of hay igloos.
The above were morning jobs, while hauling hay was done in the afternoons when it was dry. Dad and Ron pitched onto the wagon from each side while I built the loads. Loose hay loads are carefully constructed: first, they must stay on the wagon during its trip to the barn; second, so the hay can be unloaded quickly and efficiently. Because a twelve-year-old lacks the strength or height to fork big hay bundles eight or ten feet to the top of a load, Dad worked with me while I built my first load and thereafter coached me as he pitched on.
We built our loads of long-stemmed timothy and alfalfa in four large sections, or quarters, while shorter-stemmed clover, which doesn’t hang together as well, was built in six smaller sections. For pitching on, one stabbed a fork down into the centre of a coil then lifted and swung it over the shoulder onto the wagon. If a coil was constructed correctly, it could be lifted onto the wagon in one forkful. The first coil was centred on the back half of the wagon bed and additional coils were placed around and overlapping the centre coil on all four sides and tramped down to bind it all together. This makes the first layer, which extends out just over each side of the wagon bed and covers the back half. The hay should be well tramped down to help bind the load together. This layering is repeated until the hay is halfway up the vertical back rack which completes the first quarter. The process is repeated on the front half of the wagon and then the third and fourth quarters are added on top until the desired load height is reached. While building the load, attention always had to be given to keeping the load evenly balanced on each side, or the load might overbalance and roll off the wagon. Load heights are limited by the height of the barn door opening, around ten or twelve feet high.
Now that we have the load safely under cover from the rain, let’s take a break; we’ll unload the hay in the next issue.
