July 17, 2008
In recalling summers past, one would be remiss not to include the practice of "making hay" that took on huge, community-like proportions in the month of July.
At the risk of sounding antediluvian (old-fashioned, antiquated, or as in one who lived before the Biblical flood), I feel compelled to explain "putting up or making hay" for those too young to know the terminology.
Haying was a vital, communal, and social event in the 50s and 60s. The world stopped when it was time to "make hay."
Incidentally, you can't "make hay" when it is raining. Grass must be cut and left to dry in the sun because it is next to impossible to cut wet grass and if you bale the dry grass when it is raining, the hay will rot. Farmers would try to cut the grass when it was likely that the sun would shine all day and continue shining for a couple of days more.
Timing is everything because baling hay is a race against Mother Nature.
Mowing too soon right before a big rain can ruin the crop. Typically, the hay is baled in mid-day when the sun is blazing.
Thus, the term "make hay while the sun shines."
Putting up hay (meaning putting hay in the barn) required long days and grueling work under the blistering sun.
Dinner was before noon so that crews could get started when the sun was its hottest.
Women and children always ate after the men, no exceptions. Heavy dinners of fried chicken or steak, potatoes and gravy, homemade rolls, and pie or cake were the typical fare. Iced-tea, sweetened with what seemed like 5 pounds of sugar, was dipped from a 5-gallon bucket.
Farmers shared equipment, tractors and wagons. They worked each other's fields and no money was exchanged. Only the boys on the crew were paid.
Joining a hay crew became a quick lesson in life for them, too.
The young guys were offered a choice of pay, $1.25 per hour or 2 cents per bale. Since 2 cents per bale did not sound like much, novices often opted for the hourly wage, but they only did that once.
In four hours, a crew could load 1,000 bales and earned $5.00 if paid hourly.
If they opted for the 2 cents per bale they would make $20.00.
Doing the math, it figures that if a small crew put up 1,000 bales a day with each bale weighing 50 pounds, they would be lifting nearly 50 tons a day since they had to lift each bale twice, once on the wagon and once in the barn.
It was good exercise and good money in those days.
But by the mid-70's, farmers could not find enough young men to work the hay crews, so they began opting for new technology, round balers which produced the big round bales one sees in fields today.
Farmers could manage the baler alone effectively ending the need for hay crews and the community of people it took to put up hay.
So when our kids hear, "You had better make hay while the sun shines", they rightly assume "act while conditions are favorable".
We baby boomers, however, could be remembering this instead--better get that hay put up before it rains.
It was another time.
