Favourite farming childhood memory

At age 5 or 6 watching the grandfather twisting the sugens on cocks of hay and dragging them in with a heavy grey cob.

I saw drills of potatoes opened and closed with him too. The hairy engine

Collecting cut straw into a trailer on a hot summer day and then unloading it in a barn. Still remember the smell of warm straw and the rough dust all over me from lifting bundles of straw with a pitchfork over my head.

Feeding piglets! The enthusiasm with which a bunch of small squealing piglets run towards the trough when food was being poured was a joy to see.

Stooking bales following the neighbours square baler before a bad rain in the 80's, knots bottom and out if I remember correctly. I was 9 years old and the neighbour said "you've a good on there" to my Dad. The head on me swelled after that. Hay was a big event back then. We'd often comment on a man that had his in hay cocks done in May as we travelled back to and from mass on a Sunday, amazed he could make hay every year in May.

Fencing with Dad, cutting back hedges, laying flat, slash hook and a bushman saw, pulling barbed wire, all by hand. Best part was standing under Dad's oil skin long coat when the showers hit. Never to this day have I felt safer.

Sawing and splitting a tree. "Keeps you warm nine times". Dirty bits in cow dung, grass over gowning it, the smell of it all, warming hands on a cold day off the exhaust of the chainsaw.

Falling asleep as a child with the rocking motion of the square baler and the sounds of it in my bed still pulsating through my body.

Picking blackberries, rooting out the ones with maggots in them and finally stirring the juices through a cloth on the upturned high stool into the waiting cream coloured bowl that we all had back in the day to make blackberry jam, often used for the sandwiches for school lunch. Spent many an evening doing this with Mam as she tried to make ends meet during the hard times. She and my Dad worked hard to provide, endlessly. Mam was selling home baking, flowers, cheesecakes and even made pizza from scratch at farmers markets forty years ago, long before it became fashionable.

Thankfully no serious accidents happened on the farm or house, there by the grace of God...Know of others that weren't so lucky in their childhood. Not all of us are so lucky.

Camping out in the fields after the hay was cut was something we always did as kids and I do it with my kids now. I find it's a good way to make up for some quality time otherwise missed in the good weather.

The old square bales made better camp seats though.

Hopefully they will have similar fond memories.

Great stuff so far. Nearly all those experiences i identify closely with.

There's a few that are specific to hill sheep farms that I will add later.

I wrote a description of going to cattle and sheep fairs in the late 70s/early 80s in Kenmare a few years ago. I've lost it but I'll rewrite it here when I get a moment.

Pure gold so far in a short thread. There's actually some important first hand accounts which should be archived like was done with the National Folklore Project back in the 30s and 40s - a project driven by Sean "the Master" O Sullivan from my own parish and first curator of the UCD library folklore collection.

That's a memory you can smell and feel.

Our haybarn was right beside the plum trees, we could pull in the top branches and feast on the plums.

Have a distinct memory of driving an old crystal in the low gear range around a field with a trailer to pick up square bales of hay, far too young to be driving probably only about 6 or 7 🙈. Wasn't able to stop even if I wanted to as my feet had no hope of reaching the pedals. 😂

That is very well written . The sadness of the quietness of the hustle and bustle of harvest being over for another year.

My own memories include what seemed like massive quantities of loose hay being saved, most of it on outside farms so it had to be forked onto a trailer and been brought to the home hay shed . When the shed looked full and you hoped you wouldn’t have to climb up to take in more trams , it would be let settle and more forced into it .

Later on, saw the double chop silage harvester being weighed down with a barrel of water to keep it close to the ground. The army being fed close to the pit etc etc

Great days !!!

Sitting beside my father for days on the fahr combine. Must have been around 10. My job was to turn on and off the unloading auger when the trailers pulled along side.

The meitheal arriving in dribs and drabs to the haggard for the threshing. Setting up the mill between the two big ricks of corn. The big long canvas belt to an old Fordson Major belching black smoke now and again when under pressure. The TVO? driven elevator to take the straw away to a big rick. Our job was the most important one as we had the keep the chaff away from the back of the mill- the barley chaff was a bastard, it would stick to everything. We were made up when we progressed to cutting the sheaves on top of the mill. The knife tied to the wrist with binder twine. Finding a ciotóg for the left side as the knife had to be away from the feeder. Large bottles of warm porter aplenty, and us going around afterwards draining the bottles. Some of the men would leave a good inch or two in the bottle and as an 8 or 9 old it didn't take much to get tipsy. How there was no serious accidents I'll never know. Could go on late into a September evening, finishing up with the tractor lights on. Then all into the kitchen for a feed of spuds and bacon and more porter. The accordion player would be roped in and sing-song would go on till late. School would skipped I even remember being taken out of school to help with a neighbours threshing once.

Less is more.

It was just that back then they couldn’t choose more so had to settle for less. Which made them by accident, happier.

Scientists call it the paradox of choice. The more choices you have the less happier you are.

Remember being maybe 4 or 5 when land was being drained. Handing down the wee clay pipes to my dad in the shore as he laid them. I’m sure I was a nuisance and in the way

have a particular memory if it in the field where I’ve built my house and some came up as groundworks were done. I fell into the wee river at the bottom of the field that day and got drenched. He hung my clothes on the hedge to dry and we worked on.

3 or 4 of us riding on the back of the horse 'float' as wynds were brought from the fields into the two column haybarn, the timber pillars of which were often rotting at the base and were periodically replaced; the hay ould often project two feet outside the roof line.

Also being sent to the house (half mile plus) for tea in a one gallon sweet tin, milk added, plus raspberry jam white bread sandwiches; on very hot days while doing so would be sent to the pub with two lucozade bottles for porter for the uncle and his workman, newspaper twisted to seal the top.

The horse drawn slide (steel) or the tumbler (wooden) brought the hay to the point where wynds were constructed.