Haying

One last task on the farm should not be overlooked — haying. Generally hay was not baled in Iowa, rather it was harvested as loose hay, hauled into the barn in the hay rack and lifted into the barn in slings. Early in my days on the farm it was my duty to drive the horses as the hay rack trundled down the field, with the hay loaded delivering the hay up at the rear of the hay rack. Another dusty job though not as bad as corn shelling or threshing. A newly mown field of hay is a delight visually and by smell — the hay loses its sensuous appeal later one. The hay field was alfalfa directly across the road from the front of the farmhouse and when the hay was ready to cut it had started to blossom and the field was a sea of light purple.

Haying provided an insight into my uncle’s background and experience, a sort pf glimpse of a repressed part of his character that except for this one event I never saw. In haying, the hay, if gathered loose as was the practice uncle Carl used, was conveyed into the barn on a sling. Typically three of these were used for each load of hay, a sling being laid on the floor of the hay rack, with the other two being laid on top of the hay in the partially loaded rack one after the other. At the barn the two ends of a sling were attached to a carrier which was attached to a rope which first carried it vertically to the level of the large hay door of the barn and then through the hay door into the hay mow. Once inside the barn the middle of the sling was tripped open and the hay fell down in to the hay mow. The tripping was done by a small rope that followed the sling as it went into the barn and trailed along for some distance outside the barn. The rope pulling the hay up and into the barn was pulled by a team of horses. During my haying days with my uncle it was my duty to drive these horses and to stop them when my uncle called from the barn to stop (i.e., when the sling with the hay in it was in the proper position to be dumped).

One time Clarence Blomgren (the Chevrolet dealer in Gowrie) had come out to the farm for some reason to see my uncle and he was standing hear the end of the trip rope when my uncle yelled “Stop” within the barn. Clarence seized the rope and pulled, apparently tripping the hay in the wrong place. (The first “stop” from my uncle might be just a preliminary positioning.) From within the barn came one loud cry “SHIT.” It is the only time I ever heard my uncle use a four-letter word. A sidelight is that I never remember hearing my father, grandfather, or my maternal or paternal uncles every using such an expletive, I wonder to this day where my uncle picked it up and to what extent it was part of his previous experience.