[wdfifteen]

Haying was my favorite task on the farm, as I had a lot of responsibility for a kid of 9 or 10. Dad had me get up early and mow with our 1950 John Deere B and mounted #5 mower in order to get the hay down so it would start it drying as soon as the sun came up. After I cut the hay I got to use our “big” tractor – Dad’s John Deere 520 (power steering, live PTO, and 33 hp!!) – to run the crimper over the cut hay. Then I used our Ford 2N and Massey Harris side delivery rake to rake the hay that had been cut the day before.
Especially with the first cutting of hay for the year the mower would get fouled and you had to stop it and clear it. The “B” didn’t have a live PTO and if you just pulled the clutch when the mower got clogged the mower would stop running before the tractor stopped rolling and it would really get clogged. So I put a long screwdriver in the shifter quadrant and when the mower clogged I would kick the screwdriver and pop the transmission out of gear. That way the tractor stopped but the mower kept running and sometimes it would clear itself before I had to get off the tractor and do it by hand. When dad figured out what I was doing he was furious and put a stop to it.
Raking was slow easy work on the second and third cutting of hay. By then the hay was almost all alfalfa and dad didn’t want me knocking any leaves off by beating the hay around, so he made me go really slow. I nearly fell asleep on the tractor more than once.
One year I was running the John Deere 14T baler, which was usually Dad’s job so being in charge of the baler was big stuff. I was trying to beat a thunderstorm. Getting wet greatly reduces the quality of the hay if it doesn’t ruin it. It seems like we were always trying to beat a thunderstorm. I was pushing the baler hard, probably had the 520 in 4th gear, and the “hay hand” loading the wagon was complaining about how hard he was working. I was really popping the bales out of the chute. The hay hands were always a problem because they were 16 years old or more and I was their 10 year old boss. I pushed things a little too hard and sheared off a shear pin, which disconnected the PTO to the baler. The shear pin was just a ¼ inch bolt about 4” long and when it sheared it left a 1” piece and a 3” piece on the ground somewhere under the baler. The hay hand was really happy, figured we were done for the day, but I got him to get down on the ground with me and look for the 3” piece. He complained the whole time but we found it. He kept saying, "You're really going to get into trouble if you don't just go back to the barn." I stuck it back in the flywheel backwards, started it up, and it held. We finished the field in time and saved the hay and I was the proudest 10 year old kid you ever saw.

Funny I can remember the make and model of the farm machinery we had 60 years ago but I have to look up the year and body style of my Toyota truck every time I schedule service.