On Thursday, Friday and Saturday I cut our 2nd cutting of hay. Cutting hay is only the beginning of making it because it will still have to dry out, then be raked and finally baled. Here it will be put into big round and square bales, but as a kid my grandfather baled his hay into little square bales. Then the bales were stacked into an old barn.

When he needed the hay for his milk cows, he would drop the bales through a hole in the floor to the "basement" of the barn where he milked and fed the cows.

As kids we would stack the hay to one side so we could get as high as we could before we would swing out across the barn on a old fat rope, which was one of my favorite activities to do at my grandparents house with my cousins. We would also re-stack the hay to make tunnels that we could crawl through, or make forts out of them. It was always sad when the hay was used up because then we would have to find other things to do.

Now-a-days the hay making process is all mechanized (and for good reason; moving hay by hand is hot, itchy, hard work). I guess kids now will have to swing from trees and make their forts from materials other than hay:)