Hefting Haybales: 52 Ancestors 2021 Prompt “Strength”

 Weightlifting the Farm Way: Haybaling in the 1960s and 1970s

Juhl Peterson: 1917-2001

 

“Strength” made me think of muscles and weightlifters, but I didn’t have any gymrats or Mr. Americas in the family tree. However, I did have generations of farmers—men who toted, stacked and even tossed fifty to seventy pound haybales with ease. They didn’t need dumbbells to build their muscles. They built them through the hard work of farm chores, including baling hay.

Threshing on the Peterson farm in the 1940s--more hard work that produced straw

My father had a couple fields of alfalfa when I was a child in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Alfalfa was good fodder for his herd of beef cattle. A couple times a year, the alfalfa was mowed with a big tractor-driven mower, and then raked into long windrows. My father would nervously watch the weather, praying the rain stayed away until the alfalfa was dry enough to be baled. He would also mow the grass in the road ditches that lined his fields; the grasses and weeds weren’t as nutritious as alfalfa, but were still an important source of cattle fodder.

When it was time to bale, he would hitch up our red baler behind the tractor, and would hitch a hay rack behind the baler. The hay racks were pretty long, and the baler had a chute at the rear where the rectangular bales would chug along leading up to the rack. The total length of the equipment was pretty impressive.

Similar rig to my dad's

I liked to ride along on the hay racks during baling. The alfalfa smelled so sweet and fresh, and from my elevated perch I could spot small animals as they darted away from the tractor wheels—the rabbits, mice, voles, gophers and snakes kept me interested.

Dad used a twine baler, which bundled the hay into rectangles that were probably about 40x20x20 inches, and were held together by two pieces of twine which the baler wrapped around the hay bundles, and then tied and cut off somewhere deep inside its mysterious, clanking innards. Baling required at least two people, one to drive the tractor and one to stack the bales on the hayrack. My dad would often recruit his brother or nephew to drive the tractor (Oscar and Roger lived just across the road maybe a quarter of a mile away), and dad would take care of the stacking. When my brother got old enough to drive the tractor, he was dad’s partner.

It was hot, miserable work; baling season occurred during the height of summer in southern Minnesota. Temps were often in the 80s and the humidity was high. Dad would bring a huge orange cooler jug of water to drink. The hay was dusty, and his skin and clothes were quickly covered with dusty leaf fragments and dirt. He had to wear leather gloves to protect his hands from the bite of the thin twine. The twine was made of sharp fibers that could give you splinters, and the stalks of alfalfa were sharp and pointed. His arms would get sliced up as the hours went by.

Depending on which hayrack he was using, he would stack the bales four to six bales high (some of the racks could handle more weight than others). My brother and I would climb up atop the stack and would rock along as the equipment rumbled over the rough surface of the field. I was a fanciful kid, and imagined I was riding atop an elephant or in a litter carried by men like I’d seen in movies about Cleopatra and other historical figures.

The work didn’t end once the hay rack was full. The rack would be unhitched from the baler and driven back to the farm with a second tractor. The bales would then be hauled into the haymow of our huge barn, or stacked outdoors in big square stacks that would reach the height of a second story window.

I loved watching the bales get loaded into the hayloft. First the big hayloft door was opened—it was gigantic and folded down the face of the barn on huge hinges. A pulley system ran the length of the haymow right along the topmost beams of the barn roof. The pulley was used to both open and close the loft door, but also attached to a hayhook contraption that could sink six huge metal claws into 6 haybales, and then the pulley would pull the bales up off the wagon, up to the level of the hayloft, and would send the bales sliding along the pulley into the center of the loft area. At that point, someone down on the ground would give a yank to a rope attached to the hayhook, and it would suddenly release, sending the bales tumbling down into the hayloft. I remember that the hayhook contraption was painted red and yellow, and I can still remember my dad and Uncle Oscar stomping on the hooks with their heavy-soled boots to make sure the hooks took hold—sometimes a bale would fall off as the pulley swung upwards, crashing down on the hay rack. The men had to watch closely to avoid get hit with a 60 pound block of hay.

Similar pulley and trolley rig to the one in dad's barn

The noise of this whole process was deafening. The pulley system was run with a tractor engine. The big bale spike had to be stomped and pounded down into the bales before the pulley was activated, and as the bales rose, their twine groaned and squeaked, the pulley ropes groaned, and the falling bales made huge thuds as they hit the floor of the loft, followed by a whoosh of dust and debris. The men had to shout to one another to be heard over the noise, even though they were standing within a couple feet of one another.

Dad often had to climb up into the loft to shove the bales around once they’d been dropped. Now that I’m an adult, I’m amazed at the strength of that old barn, pummeled repeatedly by hundreds of pounds of hay bales, and then holding up some 200 or so bales once the process was complete. It’s quite amazing to think about. I wonder what the animals in the pens below the loft thought as the bales thudded down and the haymow floor shook.

Dad, Juhl Peterson, on the right

I am amazed at the strength and endurance my dad and other farm relatives exhibited. Haybaling was one of the most strenuous jobs they dealt with, but every day featured work that was nearly as backbreaking. They were truly men of strength—not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well.