Haying in winter

Work and pray, live on hay,

You'll get a pie in the sky when you die.

- Joe Hill (Joseph Hillstrom)

The Preacher and the Slave

I've written a number of times about the changes in ranching that I've seen. The most dramatic is the sophistication of the mechanics involved in putting up the hay. The introduction of the round and big square balers, plus the swathers changed the summer ritual of haying from 30 – 60 days of frenetic activity by eight men or more to just a few weeks with a three-person crew.

The winter chore of feeding cows was changed even more with the bigger equipment. In an average year, most ranchers start feeding their cattle around the first part of December and turn the cows out to pasture in May. That's six months, compared to the 30 or 60 days dedicated to putting the hay up.

Before the hydraulic forks fixed on tractors came on the scene, every ounce of hay had to be handled twice – once to load on it the rack and once to pitch it off the rack to the cattle. On a good day the chore took until noon and often later – especially when there was a haystack to be opened because another was used up. Depending on the number of cows being fed, this could be once a week or so. And if the conditions were wrong, it was vicious, exhausting labor.

After a wet fall the hay on the top of the 30-foot stack could be frozen a foot or so deep. And if it was a stormy, windy winter, sometimes the snow was three or four feet deep or more in the stack yard, with drifts clear up to the top of the pile of hay.

The tractors we had were tiny, weighing less than a cow, and a drifted stack demanded that all the snow be shoveled over the hay panels so the hay rack could be backed in next to the stack. On bad days with a blizzard, we sometimes had to shovel ourselves in and shovel ourselves out.

During deep snow winters we fed the cattle toward the next stack we had to open. The little tractors couldn't manage much snow, so we fed the cattle toward the new stack, making a little bit of packed snow road every day until we were at the new hay.

After intense effort to shovel one side of the stack clear and pushing the rack in with the little tractor, we had to get on top of the stack. We rarely had a ladder, so one person would take both forks, use them to scramble and crawl to the top, then he passed or tossed the forks to the other man, who did the same, all in heavy and awkward clothing and boots.

Then, after a couple hours of shoveling the stack yard, the real work began. If we had experienced a wet fall followed by cold weather, the hay was often frozen a foot or so deep under hard, wind-packed snow which had to be carved off in blocks.

We usually took crow bars, axes, and even hand saws to cut and pry our way down to dry hay. The chunks of ice, snow and hay had to be dropped onto the rack and hauled away, because for lack of room they couldn't be left in the tiny stack yard. Many times they were so heavy they cracked the boards when we slid them off of the stack.

The process often took all afternoon in the wind and blowing snow. And then the other side of the stack yard had to be shoveled. Of course this was the side with the most snow, all to be tossed over the hay panels using the old, steel scoop shovels which weighed a ton.

The long, rank timothy had to be taken out of the stack the way it went in, so until the loaders with hay forks arrived the entire thing had to be opened. If not, the feeders had to drag each forkful of hay from one side to the other before it went onto the rack. After the tractors got larger, we could sometimes slide the entire top onto the ground, then drag the pieces out for the cows to gnaw on.

We were always wet to the waist after crawling around in the snow for an entire afternoon. We knew that all the haystacks in front of us would offer the same challenge until it started thawing, maybe in March.

Now, both haying and feeding have been eased, hardly requiring gloves in the cabbed and heated tractors. The radio is nice, also.

They say that hard work won't kill you, but I don't think it's worth the risk.

- Unknown