For the Hodnett family, making hay was more than a summer chore. It was one of the jobs that kept our 320-acre dairy farm running. In the 1950s and 1960s, our farm along the Black River supported about 35 milk cows, young stock, pigs, crops, a big garden, and all the daily work of a family-run operation. There were no hired crews—just family, weather, machinery, muscle, and the knowledge that winter would come whether the haymow was full or not.
Our Hodnett roots in Longwood, in northern Clark County, date back to 1877, when the family came from Maine, drawn by work in the Wisconsin Pineries and later by the chance to make a homestead on cutover land along the Black River. Dad, Harold Hodnett, was the third generation to farm there. His grandfather Henry had been a lumberjack.
By the time I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, farm life had changed from logging camps and horse-powered work to tractors, electricity, balers, and modern dairy practices. Looking back, I see the summer days of making hay as part of that larger change. The smell of fresh-cut hay—sweet, green, and dusty—meant summer and hard work.
Our machinery line was typical for a 1960s-era working family farm: John Deere Model 720 diesel tractor, John Deere Model A tractor, Massey Ferguson Model 35 diesel tractor, Massey Harris Model 701 baler, and assorted wagons, rakes, and mowers. The 720 Diesel and Model A tractors had deep, popping barks that carried across the fields, while the baler gathered windrows and tied the hay into square bales that dropped onto the wagon.
Making hay was family work in the truest sense. Everyone old enough had a job. The younger ones learned by watching, then by doing, until they took a place on the wagon or in the barn. You learned where to stand, how to grab the twine, how to swing a bale, and how to listen.
Dad Harold supervised and stacked bales on the wagon, Karen drove the baler, Allan hauled full loads, and Mom Eileen, sister Nancy, and Allan helped unload in the barn. In the haymow, the air was thick with heat, dust, and chaff. The bales in the barn had to be stacked tight and square so the mow would hold as much as possible and stay safe through winter.
Getting hay into the mow changed as the mow filled. Early on, the wagon could be pulled or pushed up the hill to the barn and unloaded by hand. When the mow was fuller, a hay hoist and bale fork lifted about 10 bales at a time by rope and pulley, then dumped them onto a pile to be stacked later by hand.
Plenty could go wrong. Rain could undo a day’s drying, wind could scatter windrows, and a hidden rock could damage the baler. The knotter on the baler could jam or miss a tie, leaving loose hay instead of square bales. Belts slipped, chains broke, tires went flat, and sometimes the machine simply quit. But hay waited for no one. When it was ready to bale, we had to be ready too.
In the summer heat, water mattered. Water tasted best from a jug in the field, and lunch from the farmhouse could seem like a feast. Haymaking was a race against weather and daylight. A dark cloud in the west made everyone move faster. If rain came before the hay was inside, it meant more raking, poorer feed, and one more worry for winter.
Looking back, I remember the hardship, but also the satisfaction. When the last load came in and the barn was full, the hay meant security. The cows would have feed through the cold months, the family had done its part, and another piece of the farm year was complete.
Today, hay is often made with larger tractors, round balers, wrapped bales, haylage, and equipment that covers ground faster than we could have imagined. But farming still depends on weather, timing, machinery, and people willing to do the work. In Clark County, where dairy farming shaped so many families, the memory of making hay belongs to a generation.