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Picture of the day -
August 18, 2006
"Making Hay While The Sun Shines"
Click image to enlarge
A couple of days ago I featured a picture of an
antique
mowing machine and hay rake sitting in the edge of a field
beside the
Virginia Creeper Trail in
Abingdon, Virginia.
The process of mowing and storing hay using those implements was
quite a task that required long hours and plenty of sweat for man
and beast alike. Today, the process is a lot faster and easier -
especially for the beasts...
Back in May, Glen and Tonnie were out on one of their frequent
dune
buggy rides through the northeast Tennessee countryside when
they saw a farmer baling hay in a field that lay right beside the
road. They stopped and asked the nice man if they could take some
pictures showing the process of making a bale of hay, and he said
"sure". Glen drove the dune buggy right out into the field where
they
began snapping
pictures as the hay baler went about its business. Tonnie took the resulting images and created
the beautiful "scrapbook" page shown above!
As you can see, the days of "pitching" hay onto haystacks the
old-fashioned way are long gone, and the task of hand-carrying
rectangular hay bales to a moving wagon, then up into a barn loft
like we did during my childhood years is well on its way out as well. Today,
the hay is cut, raked and baled into large, round bales that are
easily moved around and loaded by a tractor with a long spike
attached to it.
Even though the entire hay-making process and most farm work in
general is now performed using powerful machinery, working on a farm still makes for a long, hard day.
But modern farm implements have made that day a lot more productive,
much safer and infinitely less exhausting - especially for the
beasts!
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