The sweet smell of summer hay
Published 2:06 pm Monday, August 12, 2019
Star Photo/Larry N. Souders Twelve year old Kody Austin drives a tractor pulling a hay tedder as he works the fields on the old Bill Nave farm in Siam.
Star Photo/Larry N. Souders Kody Austin takes a break from mows the fields on the old Bill Nave farm in Siam to talk with Susie Hamilton about when they would start rolling the grass up into hay bales.
Star Photo/Larry N. Souders Kody Austin takes a break from mows the fields on the old Bill Nave farm in Siam to talk with Susie Hamilton about when they would start rolling the grass up into hay bales.
Star Photo/Larry N. Souders With Mike McKinney walking along side, 12 year old Kody Austin mows the fields on the old Bill Nave farm in Siam. They will be gathering up the hay bales later in the week.
Star Photo/Larry N. Souders Kody Austin, an eighth grader at Happy Valley Middle School, spend one of his last days of summer vacation rolling hay bales on the old Bill Nave farm off Siam Road.
Star Photo/Larry N. Souders Kody Austin, an eighth grader at Happy Valley Middle School, spends one of his last days of summer vacation rolling hay bales on the old Bill Nave farm off Siam Road.
Star Photo/Larry N. Souders Kody Austin, an eighth grader at Happy Valley Middle School, spends one of his last days of summer vacation rolling hay bales on the old Bill Nave farm off Siam Road.
Star Photo/Larry N. Souders Happy Valley Middle School student Kody Austin, a rising eighth grader, takes a break from his morning of rolling hay bales at the old Bill Nave farm off of Siam Road.
Star Photo/Larry N. Souders Twelve year old Kody Austin drives a tractor pulling a hay tedder as he works the fields on the old Bill Nave farm in Siam.
The hand sickles, scythes, and pitchforks are all gone, but the smell of freshly mowed hay fills the summer evenings in the Siam valley, where this week Mike McKinney, Susie Hamilton, and Mike’s 12-year-old grandson, Kody Austin, have been busy cutting hay, raking, and baling it for winter feed for their cattle and two or three mules they have scattered around on their individual farms.
Tuesday, the trio was busy cutting hay on the Bill Nave farm in Siam. Hoping to beat the rain forecast for the week, they were back at it again Wednesday, raking the dry grass into windrows for more drying. The hay was then baled, either into round rolls or into square bales, tied with twine and spit out across the denuded fields. Finally, the bales will be collected and stored for winter feeding.
Although Susie is relatively new at farming, Mike has been at it for years. Mike owns his family’s farm on Gap Creek and Susie is the owner of the Nell Treadway home in Siam, which includes the old O.F. White store building and mill and some adjoining farm acreage. “I enjoy living on the farm,” said Susie, who works in real estate financing. In addition to their own individual properties, they own and farm the old Bill Allen farm in Dogtown, also known as the Cardwell farm. “We put up 300 to 400 rolls of hay at a minimum each year to feed the 100 to 125 cattle we have,” said Susie.
“Farming is hard work, but it’s mind-soothing, and at the end of the day, it’s a nice accomplishment to look back over the hay field and see the results of your work,” said Susie. Did she ever think she’d be a farm girl when she was growing up not too far from where she lives today? “No, but life has a way of taking us down roads with turns and twists, and in my case, it has been good,” she shared.
For Kody, farming is a great way to spend the summer. While most kids his age spend their summer playing baseball, camping, or watching TV, not Kody. He enjoys working on the farm with his grandfather and Susie, and has already mastered the art of cutting hay, raking and baling it. “He can drive that tractor like a pro,” said a proud Mike.
Both, Mike and Susie agree this has been a good hay year. “It’s good if you can get two cuttings of hay from a field in a summer, but it looks like we may get three this year,” Susie said. “We can probably keep the cattle feeding in the pasture until the first of October before we have to start giving them hay.”
Most of their hay comes from alfalfa, orchardgrass, fescue and clover. Mike’s recipe for good hay is to make sure you mow it at the right time — not before it gets ripe, but don’t wait until it gets too ripe. Let it lay a day, tedder it (fluffing so it will dry out better), rake it, let it lay another day, and then roll it. “You have to watch the weather, you have to mow it at the right time, and you have to rake and bale it at the right time,” Mike warned.
In addition to their cattle, Mike is a horse and mule lover. Although he doesn’t have any horses now, Mike has two young mules, which he hopes to break and make into working mules. Also, Kody has a mule, Norman, which he and Papaw Mike purchased in Amish Country in Sugar Creek, Ohio, three or four months ago. “Kody has a love for the outdoors and farming and he not only spends a lot of time with me on the farm, but with Allen Goodwin,” Mike shared with pride.
Mike, who now devotes much of his time to farming, was formerly a builder. “I built a lot of houses, and made some money, enough to buy some farmland and cattle. I am semi-retired now,” he said.
Tuesday as the sun beamed down on the pastureland, Kody and Mike on tractors made round after round in the field at the Bill Nave farm, slicing the tall grass and laying it flat on the ground. The long cutting blade stirred up insects, evicting them from their blades of grass and destroying their camouflage. Overhead, crows and swallows made a sweeping flight over the field. Soon they would help themselves to some of the fallen grain. Not only was it a good day for the birds, but it had been a good day for Mike, Susie and Kody. Hopefully, they would beat the rain, and get the hay harvested and stored while the fields remained dry.
Siam has long been known as farm country, especially dairy farming. The VanHusses and Allens had dairy farms as did the Naves. Farm land in earlier days made up much of the valley.
The O.F. White farm, which was sold a few years ago at auction, also has a rich history. It was one of the few country stores left in the county, when it closed. It was a place where people went to not only buy groceries, but to get their winter’s supply of coal and to contract spring plowing by Percy Bowers and his team of horses. The store’s front porch was an inviting place for farmers to talk about the weather, their crops, and just to meet up in a neighborly way.
Susie Hamilton not only remembers those days, but she now enjoys a small part of that rich heritage as the O.F. White home is now her home, and she has added farming to her business resume.
