Buck Rakes and Blowers

Did he say buck naked and blowing?  No, it was one way to harvest the hay and store it in the barn for the cattle during the winter.  Bringing in the hay was nothing but sweat equity.  A large number of the farms around our place were beginning to purchase balers and elevators to put the hay into the barn, Dad used the old ‘buck rake’ and blower method.  For those who are unfamiliar with a buck rake, I’ll try to describe one here.

Although most buck rakes were hand-made on the farm, some could be purchased as well. Dad made his out of an old car or truck chassis and basically it consisted of the wheels, frame, motor, dashboard, seat and steering wheel.  On the back he built a pickup cage, something like a fork lift, only with 8 or 10 forks made out of 4″ X 4″ X 12′ long pieces of wood, shaved to a point on the front end.  The forks were attached to a metal cross-piece and that in turn was attached to the car chassis with 2 large hinges, so it could be lifted off the ground after it was filled with hay.  There was a back stop to contain the hay, and a couple of side rails as well.  There was a power winch to pull the rake up off the ground.  The winch was hand-made, by my Dad, out of another old rear end from another vehicle.  It had a drum mounted on one axle to wind up the cable, and a brake on the other axle.  When the brake was applied to one axle, the other drum would turn and pull up the cable, which in turn through a pulley system, pulled the hay-fork off the ground for the ride up to the barn.  I’m getting a little ahead of myself, as the hay had to be cut a few days before to allow it to dry in the sun.   Most places had a hay mower powered by the power take off on the tractor, so only 1 person was needed to cut the hay.  We used an old pull mower that was powered by the wheels on it, so we needed 2 people to cut hay, one on the tractor and one on the mower.  As I said before, the hay had to dry out before you put it into the barn, or if it were damp, it could burst into flame in the barn with disastrous results.

Usually my Dad drove the buck rake, but my older brother also drove it as well.  He would go out to the field, let the rake down, and then by standing on the running board, would drive backwards to pick up the hay.  Once the rake was full, he would apply the brake on the winch, and lift the rake up off the ground, and then lock it in place.  Then get back into the seat and drive forward to the barn.  At the barn, we had a large blower set up, with a belt drive to the tractor.  It had about 30 or 40 feet of big metal pipes, about 12″ in diameter, to direct the hay up into the hay mow.   The blower had a big platform in front of it to throw the hay onto, and then it was pushed into the fan blades and propelled up into the barn.  Some what like a modern wood-chipper, only bigger.   Dad would bring the load of hay to the blower, then dump it onto the ground in front, then return to the field to get another load.  We kids would then speed up the tractor so that the blower was literally howling, then fork the hay into the blower.  No sooner was the last fork-full pushed into the blower, then Dad would show up again with another load, and we would repeat the process.   We were always happy when the farthest field was being harvested, as then we could get a minute or two of rest between loads.  After the days work, we then had to go up into the hay loft, and use the hand forks to level out the pile, and fill up the corners of the barn, so it would be ready for the next days hay blowing.  And as I said on the previous blog, everyone worked up a good sweat, we all got dirty and dusty, and we would all pile into the truck and race down to the river to cool off and clean up.  It was all physical labour, but it had to be done.  To-day, if you asked the current generation to do a job like that, you would be told in an instant where to get off.  It was a never-ending job, but I don’t remember complaining about it.  It wouldn’t do you any good anyways!  Press on, more to come.