Haying at Uncle Warren's

Sarah Walls (now Sarah Montgomery, CFO and Director of Customer Service at Woodpro Cabinetry) on a tractor similar to Uncle Warren’s Ford tractor. In this photo Sarah was helping put up hay in the early 1980’s on her Grandpa (Lloyd) Walls’ farm outside Cabool. 

Photo by

  
Margaret Walls  

Written by 
LeRoy Walls 
CEO 

The sun was out and soon began burning the dew off the hay. My cousins, Dennis, Dean and Gary had mowed their alfalfa field the day before with their Ford tractor and mower.

I had eaten an early lunch and got up to Grandpa’s about noon. Grandpa and I both laughed as the tune, “She’ll be comin’ ‘round the mountain” drifted from the field near the mailbox over to us. I’m sure Dennis didn’t know he had an audience several hundred yards away. He was singing loud enough to hear himself over the tractor. But, I’d be sure to tell him!

I said “hi” to Grandma Walls as we went inside to listen to the noon weather report. Although I had hoped for rain—C. C. Wilifred of KWTO Radio said there was no rain in sight. It was 1958 and the weather related decisions of whether to rake hay or not were now sometimes being made by Dennis, Dean and me. In the past, these decisions had always been made by Grandpa and our dads and uncles. Dennis would be a high school sophomore in the fall. I’d be a freshman, Dean an 8th grader and Gary in 6th grade.

Grandpa had finished sharpening and replacing broken sections in the mower sickle so he asked me to drop it off at the mower up past the barn. After taking a couple of sugar cookies that Grandma offered, I was on my way. I got to Aunt Edna’s with barely enough time for a piece of her delicious butterscotch pie—my favorite. She obviously knew I was coming.

Dean went over to finish raking so Dennis could eat lunch. Gary and I gassed up Dad’s Case tractor and our old wire tie baler.

The baler was a big old critter with a four cylinder air cooled Wisconsin engine. It was often a cantankerous contraption but when it was working it made really solid bales. It deserved most of the names it was called but despite Dean’s strong arguments I’m not really sure it was the antichrist! We did all agree that it was certainly a beast.

The baler was hand tie rather than automatic tie and used wire rather than twine. It had its own motor rather than using power from the tractor power take-off, and it required three operators instead of one. But otherwise it was a pretty normal baler. I’m sure Dad selected it for its attractive price rather than for its labor-creating features!

Dennis and Gary rode over to the field with me as I took the baler. We got there just as Dean was finishing the raking. He drove the rake out the narrow gate. Gary would then take it over to the barn area and swap it for their big hay trailer. After a drink and brief rest for Dean, we fired up “the beast” and with Dean driving and Dennis and I in our appropriate positions the hay baling began.

Dennis operated the “smart” side where the wires were pushed through, and I was in charge of the “dumb”. After only a few minutes sitting in the "dumb" seat behind the hay feeder and tying the wires, I'd be covered with dust. There was a cloud of hay chaff and dust that puffed out each time the plunger packed the hay.

Despite my comments about “the beast” it was still an amazing machine compared to putting up loose hay using a team of horses and lots of man and boy power as we did prior to getting the baler.

I was always impressed by the rhythm and sounds the old baler made. Our small Case tractor pulled it along slowly so that the raked windrow of hay was fed in and augured over to the bale chute. Then the powerful plunger pushed the hay through the chute. After enough hay for a bale had gone through a measuring thing-a-ma-bob would trip and Dennis would shove through a metal channel with two wires for the bale. This was done between strokes of the plunger when the hay wasn’t so tightly compressed.

I didn’t always appreciate the noise and power as I absently-mindedly tied the wires. Yet, when Dean gave me a change of pace as I went to load up bales, I could appreciate it more. Hearing from a distance the powerful “ca-shunk” of the plunger hammer followed by the automatic governor on the motor kicking in more fuel and the rumbling surge of power that followed was pure music to a farm boy’s ears. When everything was working right, “the beast” was as close to poetry in motion as farm machinery provided on our farm.

From my earliest days of toddling to the field when water was taken to the workers, I liked being part of the haying action. For Dennis, Dean, Gary and me the action in those earlier days was often chasing baby rabbits when we were about finished mowing a field. Once, we were the ones chased as we ran the other way when a pair of blue racer snakes came out instead of rabbits.

Our family and Uncle Warren’s family always helped each other put up hay. A few years earlier, this also included Uncle Floyd’s family when they still lived on the farm. Despite the hard work and the “dumb” jobs I had to do, I loved putting up hay and especially being with my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

Teaming up has plenty of advantages. Woodpro Cabinetry self-directed teams don’t bale any hay but they do work together to plan and perform their work. And based on building cabinetry to order quickly with a high fill rate, I believe we definitely understand the concept of “Making hay while the sun shines.”

12/31/1999