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Issue #1016
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From Russ

From Nova Scotia Sus

The Ontarion

Hi All,

Russ’s columns tend to be pretty darn interesting and entertaining I think you’d agree. And, the past few have triggered some very old memories in some of us who have somehow become disturbingly aged and seem to find ourselves catching up with the generation thats ahead of us. I’ve got memories that go way back to when I was embarrassingly young. (Not my fault, I started out embarrassingly young). Most of them I’ve managed to suppress but a few are worth hanging on to, and they contain some of the items Russ has talked about. And, they were formed from episodes and adventures up on the Hockridge farm. Haying is the central theme of several of them. So, I’m going to reminisce on this page about helping bring in the hay, the old fashion way.

My grandfather farmed with horses but by the time I was able to be of any help, he had switched to using a Ferguson tractor, a TO 20 or TE 20, not sure which model it was. By this time his horses had become too old to be of much help although I can still remember them in the horse stable. However, the neighbor across the road still used his Clydesdale team, Major and Dainty. To a small kid those two very gentle giants were the size of mountains. So, the tractor was used to pull the hay wagon as it was being loaded and the horses then pulled the loaded wagon to the barn. The small grey, 4-cylinder tractor pulled the wagon which in turn pulled the hay loader, an old contraption that forked up the hay from the wind-rows and elevated it up a primitive conveyor belt from which the hay dropped onto the wagon where a man with a pitch fork placed it and tramped it down. Of course the hay had to first be cut, left to dry, then raked into those wind-rows. That was done on grandpa’s farm using the tractor with a hay mower attached to the 3-point hitch, and the mower was powered by the tractor’s power takeoff, a gear driven shaft that stuck out of the back of the transmission, between the big back wheels. Over at the neighbor’s, the mowing was done using a pull mower that the horses pulled. Incidentally, the hydraulically operated 3-point hitch was the invention of Harry Ferguson and that went on to revolutionize the whole farm and industrial tractor industry. The hay loader was powered by it’s own wheels that had cleats on them and as the loader was pulled, the wheels turned the mechanism, the tines that picked up the hay and the conveyor. The conveyor was made of a very heavy canvas material with wooden cross bars and leather straps holding it all together. It worked well but had to kept dry in order to preserve the canvas and leather. So, lets back up a bit.

When the hay fields were ready to be mowed, my grandfather would spend a fair amount of time sharpening the mower blade which was made up of a strip of iron with a whole lot of iron teeth bolted to it. Each tooth had to be hand sharpened. The hay field would then be mowed. That took a lot of time given that the mower blade was not more than 6 or 8 feet long. Once the hay was cut, and dried by the sun, the hay rake had to be pulled around the field, raking the hay into wind-rows. If drying was slow, the wind-rows would have to be turned over so the hay could dry better. Somehow there always managed to be an uncountable number of mice and snakes under the rows of hay. Once dry enough, the loader was brought out, gone over and made ready to load the hay. The hay wagons would also be made ready, including installing a sliding gate. The back half of the wagon would be loaded first and then the sliding gate would be pulled forward to the front, leaving the back half of the wagon empty and ready for more hay. That way the man handling the hay needed to only deal with half a wagon at a time. The loaded wagons were pulled to the barn and up onto the thrash floor where a big hay fork would be lowered down and shoved into the loose hay on the wagon. The fork was on a rope system that would then be pulled, by tractor or horse, raising the bundle of hay up to the top of the barn where the fork would then travel along a track until it was over the hay mow. A trip rope that was fastened to the fork would be pulled and the fork would release it’s load and the hay would fall into or onto the mow where it would be placed and tramped by a man (or young boy). An important lesson….never be underneath the load of hay when the fork dropped it. That, like so many other things on a farm, could be very dangerous. Many of us kids, very young at the time, did our first driving during haying. The bigger, stronger people were needed to do the hard labor and that left the smaller younger ones to drive. I can remember being so small and light that I had to stand on the clutch and pull up hard on the steering wheel of the tractor in order to push the clutch pedal down, and grandpa did not tolerate letting the clutch jerk when it was being released.

As time went on, the old hay loader was replaced by a bailer, a Massy Ferguson baler to be exact. And that really put myself and my brothers to work. The hay still had to be cut and raked (which made for lots of tractor driving) but then instead of being loaded loose, it was bailed and stacked on the wagon. The equipment order was changed, the tractor pulled the bailer with the wagon hitched to the back of the bailer. The tractor powered to bailer via the power take-off. The hay was pulled up into the bailer by tangs and sent into the plunger chamber where it was packed into bales and tied up with bailer twine. The finished bails were pushed out the back on a chute, onto the front of the wagon where we would grab them, by hand, and stack them in ‘the right way’ so they would sit properly and not fall off. We could build some pretty good sized loads. It usually took two of us as a tag team to do this work as we were still kids (often Gary and I), and our grandpa or uncle would get the easy job of driving. Back at the barn the bails were unloaded onto a hay elevator which carried them up into the mow where we would stack them. Hard and backbreaking work, and we loved it.

By today’s standards, that old haying equipment would be considered relics of a long gone past, just like many of the items Russ talked about. But what an experience for my brothers and I and our sisters too. We have moved through time from when farming was done by horse power to when mechanizations was taking over, and that was all over 6 decades ago. That old farm never had or could afford the latest greatest equipment but it did the best it could and we are all the better because of it.

Sorry I got so long winded. Maybe I’ll do it again next week and talk about the ‘harvest’ where we brought in the grain.

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Just a heads-up in case you had forgotten… there will be an almost total eclipse of the moon on the night of Nov 18 and it will last most of the night. So, if you live where the sky can actually be seen, enjoy. I have no hope whatsoever of seeing anything but more of our non-stop rain which has been goin on for almost 3 months now so I’m probably out of luck.

And another heads-up….so far Carol and Sus are the leading contender to win the ‘sayings’ contest, given that they are the only ones to have submitted their ‘sayings’.

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Ok, this week I’ve put together a video for your entertainment. It’s another old PP&M song, at least I think it is. I guess I could do a bit of research to find out who wrote and or sang it but that would be too much work. So, here’s my video cover. Enjoy.

Last Thing On My Mind

doug

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From Russ

Something nice.

"If ya can't say somethin' nice - don't say nothin' at all", said Bambi to Thumper. Good advice.

Wearing a light jacket, as the Temp. was +7C, I stepped out the door for my morning ride - INSTANTLY it hit my nostrils!! An east wind was blowing from the farm above the hill where they are spreading liquid manure! Seems they always pick a nice day when we step out for some fresh air. The LARGE BOWL of porridge I had just swallowed was about to 'surface'. Do I do it on the deck, or try for the kitchen sink? - the toilet is out-of-the running! Down the 'gimpy-ramp' I hurry - I'll throw-up on the freshly mowed grass, or not. Swallowing hard, I keep it down. Jumping onto my 3-wheeler, swallowing hard - heading for the road - will do it on the freshly graded gravel - nobody will know! Stench so 'rich' - the ceiling so low, you could scoop-up the air by the cupful! Maybe I can out-run this shit - hanging a left heading into the wind- peddling hard - trying desperately not to breath/puke - 'pedals-to-the-pedals' I finally run out of the deadly aroma!

Seriously, this is the worst kind of "air pollution"! Those who 'spread' are required to bury the stuff as-they-apply it! They obviously DON'T! To whom do I complain? Certainly not to you. There are 3 smells that make me sick; burning leaves/feather pillows, public out-houses in a heat-wave, and liquid manure!!

I gotta ask - do they who spread wear gas masks - or are they "nose-dead"?

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And now, for something nice: It's been so warm and wet, the leaves are holding-hands and hanging onto their parents. The spring flowers are poking-up their dumb, little heads asking, "What happened to winter?"

Don't worry kids, it's coming, and by all signs it's going to be a "whopper"!!

Russ.

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From Nova Scotia Sus

We have been very busy getting ready for winter. I made a very long list of jobs to do and gradually stroking off one after another and then even adding more at times. The fun part is stroking off. Every fall we go to town looking for bags of leaves to spread on our garlic and asparagus beds and our compost. Since we pretty much have only spruce trees on our land we have to search out places that have hardwood trees that lose their leaves. Luckily we now have friends that let us know when they have raked and bagged their leaves for us to pick up. That saves us time and gas. They don't seem to mind doing all that work.

We have been very fortunate with our weather getting just the right amount of rain and sun and mild temperatures this fall. Our woodshed is now full so we are now ready for winter. The veggies from our garden are in our cold storage room that we built on the back of our house. Yesterday we drained and refilled the hot tub for the first time since setting it up in July. I wanted to do it before freeze up. Now we should be good till sometime in March. It all went well with no snaggs. We will enjoy it even more now that the colder weather is here. It didn't get much use through the summer, who wants to soak in hot water in the summer?

Doug i sure would like your CD and i am racking my brains for a slogan. I do remember Grandma (Emma) Brubacher saying "Too soon Old and too late smart" I also remember her saying it with a slightly German accent "Too soon auld and too late schmart"

I will keep trying.

Sus

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THE ONTARION REPORT

Hello everyone!

We’re getting closer and closer to Christmas! We’ve just passed Remembrance Day and with a little luck and help from Mother Nature, we managed to have some good weather here in Waterloo Region for the occasion! I managed to time my personal minute of silence while standing on the front lawn as two Harvard Aircraft flew overhead in a southwest direction. I imagine they were returning to St Thomas airport after doing a fly over of the regions several Remembrance Day ceremonies. The Harvard aircraft owners keep most of them at the St Thomas air field! Back in 1992 I purchased a GMC mini van from a fellow who lived in St Thomas and he happened to be one of the Harvard owners that flew in formations to celebrate Remembrance Day each year! I imagine he’d be long gone because he was about 60 years old at the time of our meeting! He offered to take me up for a flight in his Harvard some time if I wanted to have the experience. I never did get around to calling him to take him up on his offer but it would have been the flight of a lifetime I’m sure! I’ve always liked the excitement the thought of flying in small aircraft but never have gotten around to it in my adulthood!

When in High School, I had a friend that had his pilot’s license. His name was John Croth and we hooked off school a couple of afternoons and went for a flight in his dad’s small Cesena. It was a lot of fun, much more so than shooting pool for the afternoon! John’s dad owned his own insurance agency at the time so I guess he could well afford to own and maintain a small plane of his own! I also have a friend who was the chief Mechanic on the Fire Department with me and he has his license to fly. He’s also the mechanic that has repaired my vehicles over the past 40 years. He has worked on his days off the fire dept repairing vehicles at his home and he’s also made some spare cash by flying a local photographer over many Ontario locations to take photos to be used for advertising for many local businesses. He’s got his night time and instrument tickets as well as his twin engine commercial license! I don’t know how much flying he does now that he’s retired but he’s had some exciting stories to tell about his flight days and nights! I’ll have to ask him the next time we’re talking if he’s still flying during his retirement days!

When I was in about grade 6 I wrote an essay about wanting to become a helicopter pilot when I was out of school. I wrote to the manager of “Ontarion Helicopters” in Toronto and got some information about that subject and he invited me and my dad to their base in Maltin to have a look around for an afternoon. Unfortunately he didn’t take us up for a flight that day but all of the helicopters and their base of operations were busy that day. Oh well, it was a fun day and he told me to contact him when I had graduated from school to possibly take flying lessons from their Helicopter School. I never did happen to contact him once I had graduated from school and as you know by now, my life took a different direction from that point on! No regrets but it still would have been interesting and thrilling to have learned to fly a chopper for a living! One of my favourite TV shows back in the late 50’s and early 60’s was a show called “Whirlybirds” and of course you can imagine it was a show about two helicopter pilots that ran their own Chopper business and got into all sorts of exciting happenings in each weekly show!

Speaking of TV shows of those times, Some of my favourites were shows called “Cannonball”, “Rawhide”, “Lineup”-a police show, “Gunsmoke” and of course several other cowboy shows of those days! Roy Rogers was my favourite cowboy and my brother’s favourite was Gene Autry. There was also “Paladin” and of course “The Last of The Mohicans” and “Davey Crocket” as well as “Rin Tin Tin”!

I guess that’s enough reminiscing for one week folks!

Thank you for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report!

Bye for now … Greg

PS: Something To Think About>

What were your favourite TV shows from your childhood?

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Take Care And Be Safe
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The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.