Making hay while the sun shone

It’s funny how certain smells can transport a person to different times and places.

The sweet scent of freshly cut hay wafted in through my open car window the other day to take me back home to Minnesota and the warm summer days of my childhood that were anything but leisurely.

There’s a reason for that old adage, “Make hay while the sun shines.”

In a fairly humid climate where thunderstorms and impromptu rain showers can spring up at a moment’s notice, dry afternoons are a coveted commodity.

It was always curious to me how my father could tell just by feeling a swath of cut alfalfa if it was ready to bale. “Nope, still too tough,” he’d announce and we’d get a short reprieve from the rigors of field work. Most of the time, though, it was “Let’s get going.”

I was 9 when I first got to drive the tractor that pulled the baler and wagon. Dad gave me a quick lesson on how to put the International Harvester Farmall H into gear and back into neutral and we were off.

It probably was pretty mundane work, but I was thrilled to be at the helm of the baling team. I was in control, though Dad was just a few steps away on the bale wagon if anything had gone wrong.

For those unfamiliar with the routine of baling hay, our setup back then involved “The H” pulling a baler that gobbled up the swaths of dried hay and spit them out in small square bales in back, where Dad or my oldest brother would stack the bales on the wagon. In later years our farm converted to a more automated system that made big, round bales. I was long gone by then.

We had names for various parcels of the farm — The Eighty to the north; South of the Lake for a patch of land that was south of a big slough; Cuba, named for its shape and the fact it was kind of a peninsula of farmable land down in our swamp.

South of the Lake fields had the most appeal for me because they had gentle slopes that added some variety to the tractor driving. My mother, who grew up on the flatlands of Northern Minnesota, was always worried it was too hilly for me to handle, but thinking back, there was no way that tractor ever could have tipped over.

That particular patch of land was set along Hay Creek (appropriately named), and in the days before the state took it over for wetlands protection, there was an old wooden bridge over the creek. It was a magical place and just as picturesque as it sounds.

In the days before iPods, air-conditioned tractor cabs and automated baling systems, haying was hot, grueling work. Each wagonload of hay had to be off-loaded onto an elevator that took it up to the enormous hayloft in our barn. Then it had to be restacked.

There was something about the drone of the tractor and the rhythm of the baler that was very mesmerizing, though, and I loved being alone, so to speak, with my own thoughts.

The baler and wagons were sold long ago, but “The H” still sits in Dad’s old garage. Quite a few years ago he restored the old tractor and had nearly finished the bright red paint job when his health failed.

Dad’s gone now, but Mom has vowed to finish painting it before it’s sold — if it’s sold.

We have an estate sale planned in September to whittle down an accumulation that spans 120 years on the old homestead. Parting with those old tractors — the models H, M and an even older F-12 — may be difficult. We all have fond memories attached to the now antique machinery.

For me, “The H” will forever be a sunny day in a hayfield, and not a cloud in sight.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com