Hay-making Plan Derailed by “Bright Ideas”

It was a beautiful, clear blue sky, “hay-makin’” kind of a day about the middle of June in 1946.

By Matt Smith
Published on May 7, 2021
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The barn was a large cattle barn, 74- by 60-feet, with the mow going to the ground in the center and the livestock on the sides and in a shed across the rear. There was a concrete feeding floor to one side where the fattening steers were fed. The barn was set rather at the center of a flat farmyard between two corn cribs, a machine shed and the large farm house to the front near the road.

It was the Shipton farms, where my father worked. The hay was ready and Jim Wilson was there with his Case baler and three racks that were to be pulled to receive the bales as they were baled. The crew was bigger than usual: They wanted to keep up with Jim’s baler so he wouldn’t drop the bales on the ground. R.E., the elder Shipton who would be hauling in loads with the Model M, and a neighbor or two were working in the field loading bales behind the baler.

Getting used to a different tractor

At the barn, Dad was in the mow. He was strong and able to about keep up by himself. Sticking the hayfork was Bill Shipton, recently home from World War II. Bill served his country as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Air Corps, where he was a flight instructor. He was very athletic and a great guy who was a special friend to me and my brothers. My oldest brother, Ken, had the job of operating the tractor pulling the rope that ran through a series of pulleys through the barn and up to the track that carried the hay back into the mow.

The setup was like this: The hay rack with the load of bales, about four layers high, was parked close to the barn front under the large haymow’s open door. The hay rope came out through a door behind the rack at the front of the barn. A large loop at the end of the rope was passed under the rear axle of the tractor and placed over a bracket on the axle for the pull.

The thing that was different that day was the tractor being used on the rope. It was Harry Svendsen’s 1939 John Deere B. Harry brought the Model B because the Shiptons’ Model H was at another farm, miles away. My brother Ken was experienced at the task of “driving the fork,” but he had always used a Farmall with a foot clutch.

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