Haying
 

Anyone see any farmers mowing their hay today??

Memorys
 

Back in the fifties I remember "Haying" in northern New Jersey as a "youngster". We walked alongside a haywagon and tossed the hay..pitch-forkfull at a time on to the horse drawn wagon. It was Hot and the chafe fell down all over us. We were itchy..and dirty..and couldn't wait till we could dive into the pond after the work was done. :) NB

Some got part of 1st cutting in prior to the recent batch of rain. Many cut today, tedding tomorrow and bailing later tomorrow or Friday. A bit late but looks like a good 3 day run. A lot of work but a great sense of satisfaction when it is in the barn.

Haying today
 

Haying is a science. The grass has to have a certain amount of moisture to prevent decay and mold growth. The current weather promote haying.

I'm always looking for volunteers!

I worked on a small farm from 9 years old til 16. I remember all those things, plus the trip to the hard cider barrel after we put each load in the hay mow.

I did the same thing up here in NH as a teen. Very taxing work. It helped to be young:)

Haying
 

Did the same thing when I was young in Holden Mass. Worked loading the hay wagon and filling up the barn in the morning. Lunch and played in the stream that ran by the farm until 3:00 Pm and then hoed and weeded until dinner time. They are cutting and bailing on Parade road but it is all mechanical now. No more horse and wagon

I Remember More
 

I was a child of seven or eight..living in Vermont. A 100+ year old barn up the road Burst Into Flames and burned to the ground. "Spontaneous Combustion" it was said. The Hay was too Green...or something....and Poof. :look: NB

...oh well.... what the hay? .... could be the origin for this phrase came from an agricultural use?

...it seems highly likely that every New Hampshire hay field of ten acres or more, like the one on the hillside immediately close to Route 25B in Centre Harbor, owes its' continued existence to the NH current use law...which drastically reduces what its' property taxes would be...oh well...what the hay?:D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_use

No bozo
 

That was the most poetic description of haying ever heard.


Yeah it is still of like that....

Early on we used a hay rake, then pitched the hay on to wagon once it had been collected in "lines", but later had a modern convenience called a hay loader on my uncle's dairy farm in Ryegate Vermont. Wow, great memories! Fresh warm milk right after we milked the cows is my best memory. Can't find that anymore.

I can remeber a few barn fires, but I remember one farm in Ward Hill, Mass. that started loading in Green hay with huge blowers, keeping the air circulateing. Apparently it worked. I don't remember the barn burning. I guessd it saved labor by not having to do the tedding operation. I remember driving the horse with a rake like the one in Pineneedles picture. I also remember using a loafer rake.

I learned to ski on Ward Hill - haven't thought of that in ages :)

A loafer rake, used in the mid-1800s, and obviously even later than that. Unless bclaker is around 160 years old.:D

No. I'm only 83. Here's a load of pictures of old farm tools:

https://www.google.com/search?q=farm...w=1390&bih=666

Modern times.
 

Stop by the Ramblin' Vewe Farm on Morrill St in Gilford and you can see how hay is collected today. We don't have blowers to dry the hay, we wait until just the right time to harvest. At the time we store the hay, the hay is saturated with a natural flame retardent and fungicide. The flame retardent doesn't prevent burning but slows down the process.

My Best Memory
 

When we got to the barn, a big "Claw" gizmo would come down from the peak of the roof of the three story barn and hook the loose hay off the wagon and take it Up and drop it in the barn.

Later in the fall, or maybe winter, Us kids would like to go into the barn and climb up HIGH inside the post and beam barn... and Jump down into the loose hay sometimes three storys below. The farmer didn't like us to do that and told us...IF we DID that..the cows would smell our human scent on the hay and wouldn't eat it.

After I grew up I figured the farmer was just concerned that when we landed in the hay.. we might land Wrong and be injured. :) NB

PS: In those days (Late 40s...) a Law Suit for injurys was not a big priority in most peoples minds.

When I was a kid in the 30's, a family moved to New York during the depression and the barn was left open. all of us kids would play in the barn. Someone had detacbed the rope used with the claw and tied it to the rail and we used to use it to swing from one hay mow to the other. I was lucky to be the last one to try it. The rope broke and I ended up straddling an 18 inch long peg used to hang harness. I was lucky not to do any damage.

The Ward Hill I was referring to is a Southwest section of Haverhill, Mass. There were no official ski areas there, but both Charles' farm and Blackadar's farm had hills that we used to ski on as kids. Maybe you used to ski on one of them or maybe it was a different Ward Hill.

There is a farm in Barnstead (?) on the left heading toward Alton on 28 that has working draft horses. We saw them out there last summer, I think they were haying.

The smell of hay...........
 

I grew up in a small town in NH, and can remember the smell of haying season. Yum! Now we have guinea pigs (and I've moved to the next small town over lol) - every time I open that bag of hay for the GPs it brings me right back to haying season. :)

This one was in Shrewsbury MA. A lot or Ward Hills apparently :laugh:

Ski Ward doing fine
 

They're still cook'in in Shrewsbury. You can't make the hill any taller, but they've broadened the operation a bit and the do a good job trying to maintain their snow base.

Wachusett is still the big boy in the area, and Marlborough's town operated hill stopped years ago. but for those of us nearby, it really is a fun little spot.

SO: You don't post much: What does this have do with Haying..?? Just wonderin. :look: NB

SO: You're correct, I don't post too often. You're also correct (nice streak you've got going there...), I guess it has nothing to do with haying... Merely a reaction to the prior poster's comments.

Look for a PM from me NoBose, I'd like to contact you off-list. Sometime the written words done quickly in a forum environment get misinterpreted, and I sure don't want to be part of any of that.

And... Ward Hill both uses AND grows hay ( so maybe a tiny little tie into the thread? )

The farmers in western Jersey where I live were "making hay while the sun shines" last weekend. Tractors and hay wagons were running up and down my road constantly.


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Local Haying
 

Recent weather suspend local haying

http://laconiadailysun.com/index.php...gged-13-haying