My journal entry for Saturday, July 20, 1968

[Soapweed]

My journal entry for Saturday, July 20, 1968

Just another day! I clambered out for breakfast, as I have every day all year long.

We worked around the shop until the hay dried off. Lloyd sharpened sickles, Doug sorted bolts, Dad fixed the leaky automatic waterer, and I filled grease guns and did other odd jobs.

Dad and I did the necessary preliminaries to the new mow tractor. Then I waited while he laid out a land between the ditches. I mowed all morning, and the rest of the crew, with Sandra raking, got up a stack or two before dinner.

During the noon hour, I conked clear out. Sybil went to the hayfield in the afternoon to rake.

I finished mowing the land. Dad said to quit when I got it done, even though it was just shortly after 5:00.

Mom brought out some refreshing iced tea. Dad had to go home once during the afternoon to pull a calf.

When I got the mowing done, I went over east and raked some. The rake tractor stalled out with a dead battery, so I just loafed while the rest finished out a "doodle" stack [not enough hay to make a full stack].

We got stacked up as far as we could. Mom, Dad, and the girls went to Gordon. Thanks to being four days behind in this diary, I stayed home.

Doug and Lloyd stayed for supper, and then took off for the week-end.

 

[LazyWP]

What is the most hay you put up in a day?
I think when I was working on a custom hay crew, back in about 82? We got up 26, 6 ton stacks. That was with a 656 Hydro, reversed and a F25 Farmhand on it to stack with. I ran a 530 Case, reversed, to sweep with. Gene had an old Minny Mo reversed to sweep with.
We had a 43 foot Rowse dump rake, straight raking, and a 36 foot Rowse scatter raking.
I can't remember what there was for mowers. Either a set of Kosch 7 foot trail mowers, plus 2 IHC 1000, balanced head 9 footers, or 3 sets of Kosch trail mowers.
I think we stacked about 500 stacks that year, but that is somewhat of a guess.

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

Got a question, How did they make the bunches? Do they rake them out of the windrows they made raking the field?

 

[Soapweed]

What is the most hay you put up in a day?

We only ran one sweep, one rake, one double-bar mow outfit, plus the tractor pulling the stacker, and the guy with the pitchfork in the stack. A complete crew was five people, and with much of that being "child labor," we never set too many records with any big number of stacks per day. If we could get eight or ten seven ton stacks per day, we were moving right along. I do recall a good week of haying when we got 60 stacks up that week. We were patting ourselves on the back, but were delinquent with our windmill checking. One pasture had 75 cows in it, with just one windmill. The pumpstick came apart, the tank went dry, and we ended up losing six cows. We'd have been a lot better off not getting quite so much hay up that week, and taking better care of the cattle.

Got a question, How did they make the bunches? Do they rake them out of the windrows they made raking the field?

Being mowed with bar mowers, the hay is laying flat. After proper drying time, a dump rake pulls the mowed grass into "windrows." The sweep is usually rigged up on a "reversed" tractor (with the big wheels on the "front" and the little wheels at the rear). The sweep starts on one end of a windrow and pushes it along until a "bunch" is formed. The bunch is pushed to the stacker head, and then pushed into position so it stays on the head while going up the slide of the beaverslide stacker.

This video shows the operation very well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U0f0Lj2vAU

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

They seem to have the bunches already made. :?
I would have thought it's logical to sweep the windrows.

 

[Richardd]

Enjoyed watching the video, beats pitchforking.
Now, how do you feed it?

 

[littlejoe]

just flip the differential over on a pickup or truck and you've reversed it---faster and cheaper than a tractor.

we always 'topped off' stacks by hand---stand up better and stand wind way better.

I've fed with teams and pictchforks, tractors with grapples, etc. they make a little gas powered grapple that you can put on a sled or wagon and feed with horses. J.C. Salmon liked to feed with Cats---just kinda doze and smear it around.

The classic place for beaverslides is the big hole---and a classic guy down there is jack hirschy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORQq97d3a8A

ps--Faster Horses---you ever get any help @ Steve logans---was it the moose? how about the pheasant? 4$ rib steak that would hang off your plate @ skeets? was they stayin' @ the metlin? any good buys @ Gracies? Twist off @ the fireman's ball @ Jackson?

 

[Faster horses]

ps--Faster Horses---you ever get any help @ Steve logans---was it the moose? how about the pheasant? 4$ rib steak that would hang off your plate @ skeets? was they stayin' @ the metlin? any good buys @ Gracies? Twist off @ the fireman's ball @ Jackson?

Sorry, I'm not sure what you are referring to. None of that rings a bell with me. We didn't go to Jackson, just to Cody and West Yellowstone and back again.

I have a wonderful memory, it is just that it is very short.

 

[Silver]

just flip the differential over on a pickup or truck and you've reversed it---faster and cheaper than a tractor.

Dad built a stacker out of an old 2 or 3 ton truck in this manner. He used a swather to cut, then used his contraption to first bunch the hay then sweep and stack it. The sweep had a push off. I remember it looked like a lot of fun (probably looked more fun that it was), as things happened at a very high rate of speed. I remember the sweeps would be so hot you could light a match by just touching the match to the sweep.

 

[Soapweed]

They seem to have the bunches already made. :?
I would have thought it's logical to sweep the windrows.

The people on this crew live not too terribly far away, and are friends of ours. I am guessing that a couple members of the crew spent the morning mowing, while a couple of the others did some raking and bunching. Then after dinner, the crew can get quite a lot of haystacks up pretty fast. You only want to bunch ahead of time if there is slim to no chance of rain. If a rain catches you with a lot of sweep bunches, it takes forever to get them dried out again so you can stack.

The reversed sweeps have some metal cowling mounted by the radiators. They tend to run a little warm because of pushing big loads with not enough air being sucked through the radiator. This cowling channels the air around and through the radiator when the tractor is pushing hay.

Enjoyed watching the video, beats pitchforking.
Now, how do you feed it?

Most ranchers in this area that still stack, use a front-assist-tractor and a chain stackmover with a hydra-fork to feed. Some still use four or six head of horses abreast to pull on part of a stack to feed, and many of the horse operations also use a hydra-fork driven by a small gas engine to pitch off the hay in the wintertime.

 

[littlejoe]

Faster--sorry, I thought you'd lived around Dillon.

Benny Reynolds had the Pheasant bar when I was in that country--steve logan had another, I think the moose--a well known 'boomer' hangout with a 'frisco circle' in the back. Steve's wife, Gracie, had a world class pawn shop---featured in nat geographic or some such, next door to it is the metlin, a classic old western hotel, also in Dillon. And Jackson is a little town in the big hole with some hot springs and the vol fire dept put on a dandy party/fund raiser there about dec.

Anybody going thru who ain't been in the big hole, it's worth a drive. mountains all the way around, bannack---a ghost town that was territorial capital of Montana is on s end. In the 'big hole' they turn their clocks back a couple hours in the summer--'big hole time'---makes meals and days fit haying better---they pretty much spend summer putting up hay and start feeding it the next week. Had a big battle with chief joseph/nez pierce back in the day.

When building buckrakes, a guy often mounts the radiator high, to get above the dust. And mount a reversed fan blade behind it, so you're blowing the same way outfit is headed. Last one we built outa a '49 Ford 3/4 ton, we put a dodge 318 with 727 auto trans---the push button one, which made shifting linkeage easy to mount. Got it up to about 75 on really long smooth hayfield. Gotta slow down on roads, rear steering is easy to over correct.

 

[Faster horses]

Faster--sorry, I thought you'd lived around Dillon.

Benny Reynolds had the Pheasant bar when I was in that country--steve logan had another, I think the moose--a well known 'boomer' hangout with a 'frisco circle' in the back. Steve's wife, Gracie, had a world class pawn shop---featured in nat geographic or some such, next door to it is the metlin, a classic old western hotel, also in Dillon. And Jackson is a little town in the big hole with some hot springs and the vol fire dept put on a dandy party/fund raiser there about dec.

.

Never lived around Dillion. Been there quite a bit, but don't know the places you mentioned. Benny Reynolds used to come and rope with us in Deer Lodge. He and his son, Rooster were great guys. If everyone were like them, ropings would be a great time. Our daughter used to go to their place when she was in high school rodeo. They had practice rodeos there. She and her girl team roping partner beat Rooster at the state finals one year.