When I was young I stayed alot with my Uncle Norris, Aunt Dot and cousins Sue and Linda.
We would go to the hay fields and sit under the shade of the trees and watch as they put up
the hay, Norris didn't have tractors or bailers, he put it up in hay stacks using horses and
sleighs or drags. One person would get on the stack to tromp the hay down while the others would
get the shocks [that's a mini stack where they have pilled it in the field], you would pull the
horse and drag up beside the shock and take a pitchfork and pull it onto the drag, most would get
half at a time but Dot would get the whole thing at once.
They would normally take dinner along because by the time Dot would have walked off the mountian,
fixed dinner then everyone else came off and eaten the day would have been shot, so it was like a
picnic most days. She did not have sandwitches, it was a full meal of beans, potatoes, cornbread or
biscuits, milk and more that likely some jelly or jam. Most was fixed at the house but sometimes she
would build a fire and fry the potatoes and warm the rest right there.
