View From The Cab

By David Tollefson, Columnist

My column of Sept. 9, 2024 titled “Making Hay Through the Years,” generated several comments from readers.

First of all, my cousin Paul Olson, who worked for my dad on this farm during his high school years, commented, “It brought back memories of exploring areas of the hay mow in the barn when I was on the farm.” (We teenagers then had cleared a small area of the loose hay so we could play basketball up there. Would you believe it might have been a bit dusty?)

A fellow who is married to a gal that was a close friend of my late wife Aileen, offered this comment: “I so enjoyed your description of hay handling over the years and it brought back to mind the changes we also made in handling hay on my family farm at Lake Crystal in Blue Earth County. Midway through that scenario I left the farm to go to college. But handling hay was work, and an experience which through the years I have always treasured.”

A long-time reader of my column from Rapid City, South Dakota named Don Konechne, a cattle rancher, weighed in with his trade-mark neat hand printing: “I read your article on your converted dairy barn—very interesting. We owned an accumulator that was fastened to the John Deere baler, and we had a Farm Hand Stacker with the hay head that picked up 8 small square bales at a time—worked great.”

At the end of his letter, Don went into some detail going back to the late 1950’s about the hay mow where he and his dad stored square bales of hay. At some point later, he heard some snapping sounds under the hay mow, and quickly stuck in some timbers to prevent a collapse. Later on, he and his dad moved the bales around, and thus prevented the hay mow from collapsing onto the sheep that were having their lambs.

A gal who grew up a few miles from my place, is now co-owner with her sister of the farmstead where they grew up. It has a beautiful small lake, a nice house for vacations back where she grew up, as well as a nice barn and silo that was used as a dairy barn by the sisters’ parents. She says, “Your recent column about making hay brought back so many memories. We never got to the large round bale stage while I was still living at home. But I remember well baling, stacking, and storing those small rectangular bales. And the smell of freshly mowed alfalfa was always wonderful.”

She also sent a poem contributed by her aunt who died in 1999, entitled “In the Hayloft,” by Thelma Paris. Here’s the relevant poem:

I climbed into the hayloft

For a slumber undisturbed,

Heard the crickets gently singing,

Heard the cowbells softly ringing,

Heard the pigeons homeward winging,

Cooing praises heavenward.

I listened in the hayloft,

(Pushing slumber from my mind),

To the mother hen go calling,

To the small calf sadly bawling,

To the raindrops gently falling,

Making this a precious find.

The rafters in the hayloft

Held a treasure undefined.

Here were busy hornets working,

Not a single one was shirking,

As if there were shadows lurking

In each tiny insect mind.

I slumbered in the hayloft,

And my thoughts went heavenward.

Seemed that life at last had crowned me,

Songs of nature floated round me,

And the music gently bound me

In my slumber undisturbed.

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How do you all like the drier, somewhat cooler, less humid weather?

It’s funny how we can go through such a wet summer in June and July, and in August and thus far in September, just about totally shut off. August here began with a two-day rain of 1.44 inches, then .4 inches on August 15, .5” Aug 7 for a total August rain of 2.34 inches. 

There has been no measurable rain in September here, only a few drops that got my deck wet a couple times.

On the bright side, the reduced rain has resulted in dramatically less lawn mowing here. And the soybean and corn crops have been really pushed along with the warm, dry weather of the last month. However, I believe that my bean crop will be smaller than expected due to smaller kernel size.

When we get to my corn, the drier than normal weather may reduce the test weight somewhat. Time will tell, I guess.

This week (Sept. 22-27) has seen considerable soybean harvest in the county. Silage chopping is essentially over, with the dry weather making for a rushed harvest for some farmers to get the proper moisture content for ideal storage.

As I write this, there is a significant hurricane named Helene affecting the gulf side of Florida as well as areas north of there into Georgia and North Carolina. There are a lot of fall crops in those areas, and I’ll bet they’re working 24 hours a day to get their corn, soybeans and maybe cotton out of harm’s way.

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Please contact David Tollefson with thoughts or comments on this or future columns at: adtollef@hcinet.net