For many years it's been just a nostalgic and photogenic piece of outmoded farm equipment, gently rusting away by our driveway. But there was a time--forty-some years ago, it was actually in use.
John and Pete and Molly (the mules) had mowed a small steep pasture and the next step was to rake the hay. It's an elegant process to watch as the curved rake drags along then gracefully lifts to discharge its harvest and slowly lowers to resume the work.
If memory serves, my friend Eleanor (visiting from Tampa) and I were watching this bucolic ballet, fully caught up in the moment when the mules bolted--probably because one had stepped in a yellow jacket nest-- and took off at a gallop with John trying to pull them to a halt and, more importantly, trying not to fall off. We'd heard stories of fellas caught and rolled over and over in a runaway hay rake and they never ended well.
Fortunately, this ended quickly when the mules reached the fence at the edge of the field and stopped. But talk about adrenaline!
We went on to finish the hay and pile it into an old-timey haystack--an art in itself.
But I think that was the last time we used the hay rake. Too much excitement.
Some years later we owned a farm in Tennessee where it was much flatter and John could make hay--with ease and with a tractor. The mules had become pasture ornaments--like the old hay rake.
