The last hay-eating animal that lived in our barn died nearly 10 years ago. Still, occasionally on a hot August day I’ll catch a whiff of new hay out there, and in the way that a smell can trigger a memory, I see us all up in the loft, heaving scratchy, unwieldy bales into neat stacks under the low roof. We’d started with a couple of goats, but quickly traded up to a single cow. Molly was replaced with Wanda, who was succeeded by Daisy, then Sugar, and maybe one more I’m not remembering.

 After a few years a Shetland-Welsh pony named Cocoa arrived. He was a working pony, and came complete with heavy harness, as well as driving harness and a clever little sulky with a plastic chair for a seat. We used to drive up around the corner and down the Canaan (now Ducktrap) Road and over Slab City in it, but as traffic increased we gave it up. Cocoa was not pleased when our oldest son tried riding him, promptly bucking him off and breaking his arm. No other O’Brien boy dared try his luck after that. Maybe he didn’t like boys, because he was perfectly well-behaved when the Scott girls, living up at the corner, rode him. But then they grew up and left. Cocoa lived out his days, sharing our pasture with the cow and eating the hay we stockpiled every summer.

 We got our hay all over town. Generally in late June, early July the first cutting would be ready. Each year we’d find out who had hay for sale in the field; thirty-five cents a bale was the going rate. We’d get a call in the morning that so and so was baling that afternoon; we’d follow the tractor around the field with our pick up and our little boys. We got hay from Howard and Ruth Bryant in a field on Atlantic Highway, from a field off of Masalin Road, from Clarence McKinney at his farm on Dead Man’s Curve, and for years, from Taylor Mudge on Van Cycle Road, today’s Ararat Farm.

 The whole family got into the act, even when the boys were small. A little kid could roll a bale near the slowly moving truck, while the bigger ones tossed them up to their father, building the load in the bed of our little pickup. By careful stacking he’d fit 45 of the rectangular bales to make a load, the last couple resting on the roof of the cab. I drove through the field, around and around until we’d picked up all the truck could hold. (We’ve had a bit of a disagreement about who drove the truck home; he insists he did it, but I settled things by reminding him that as the writer, I get to tell the story.)

 We needed 250 bales to get both pony and cow (sometimes a calf as well) through the winter, and that’s about all our barn loft would hold. That’s at least five loads, swaying, unstable loads driven slowly over Lincolnville roads, sometimes racing thunderclouds that threaten to soak our precious hay on the way home.

 Of course, we didn’t make the hay. The farmer or the guy with the tractor made the hay. Mowed it, raked it, baled it. And in the years before balers when hay was put up loose, scythed it, raked it, loaded it, treaded it. Raymond Oxton, who made hay all his life, told me about the little dog he had who treaded the hay for him. That’s what you do to pack down the loose hay on the hay wagon; little children did it, and for a guy working alone like Raymond, his dog did it. Ava Athearn Jackson tells a harrowing story of a runaway hay wagon, and she the little girl helping her parents tread the load when the horses bolted up Heal Road, across Main Street and on up Belfast Road, heading for home.

 Making hay was an event, like most agricultural harvests. It was a way for kids to earn some money, helping out with the hay. Often summer people got into the act, folks who were visiting their Maine relatives in July. One family, the Pattisons, came to their place on the shore near Ducktrap and used their Cadillac to pull the hay wagon. Son Abbott and his sister Priscilla had a pony in the summer; perhaps the hay was for its winter keep.

 Anyone who has ever hayed knows how you feel at the end of the day: itchy, sweaty, achy, thirsty. And satisfied. Well satisfied at the sight of a barn full of sweet smelling hay.

Town

Libray News

 Ken Cleaves has offered to open his garden, Shleppinghurst, located off Belfast Road, for a guided tour to benefit the Library on Saturday, August 13. The Japanese-inspired garden covers 1.5 acres and features lush evergreens, extensive bedrock, a beautiful granite quarry, a small pond, and meandering walking paths. Ken said all these elements make it a garden that is beautiful year-round.  

Blueberry Wing Ding

Plan to eat breakfast this Saturday on the shores of Penobscot Bay,  delicious blueberry pancakes, bacon or sausage, juice and coffee. How often do we who live here do this, actually sit out in the morning air overlooking bobbing lobster boats and sea birds, eating our breakfast?

The Lincolnville Improvement Association’s Blueberry Wing Ding Pancake Breakfast is this Saturday, August 13, 7:00-10:30 a.m. at Rick McLaughlin’s restaurant on the Ferry Road. You might even be one of ten winners of the great raffle that includes $100 gift certificate to the Cellardoor Winery, a one night stay with breakfast at Inn at Oceans Edge, Belfast Breeze Inn and Bayleaf Cottages, $50 gift certificates to Chez Michel, Whale’s Tooth Pub, Lobster Pound and Andy’s Brew Pub, and Youngtown Inn, and two $25 gift ceritifcates to Copper Pine. Tickets are $5 each, 6 for $25; get them at the breakfast or from any L.I.A. member. The drawing will be held at the breakfast.

Indoor Flea Market

More Nostalgia

Jan Shandera, writing of her large extended family’s recent visit “home” to bury and remember siblings Dot Santi and Swiss Hardy, remembered other childhood visits: “For all of us, there was the realization that we, my siblings and cousins, are now the older generation, with a charge. When we grew up together in Maine we played in the ocean, hiked favorite paths in Camden hills, and swam in the lakes and ponds. We went fishing. I still have a treasured “fish bubble” which is an air bladder from a catfish, that my grandmother gave me after cleaning fish for dinner years ago, not to mention tiny eggs that the hens sometimes laid. Martha and I were enchanted with those. We watched Grampa dig clams for dinner. We helped lift heavy hay bales onto the truck, we watched the milk poured into the big cooler in the milk house after the cows were milked, and helped herd them in and out of the barn. When I was really little Grampa had an especially gentle cow I was allowed to milk. We collected and graded eggs, sorting them into boxes, point down (which I still do with our own eggs). We played in the haymow, where my cousins had made tunnels under the dusty hay. We played house in a small converted shed out behind Gram and Grampa’s house. I remember the fresh sawdust floor and the collection of clay figures we made from clay my cousins were able to dig out of Megunticook Lake at a certain spot. We helped snap green beans for the freezer, and helped Mom’s cousin Hope assemble small Maine scenes for tourists to purchase in town. Each day we were allowed to have one of Gram’s cookies from the coffee can where she stored them. I usually got mine after supper, and ate it as I raced back down the hill to play with my cousins.

Many of those activities are gone now, but not all. When Tom and I moved to Maine we set up a small farm, and continued the legacy, with a smaller collection of hens, plus ducks and geese, and a big garden. We loved having our nieces and nephews visit, and sharing the magic of Maine with them. Tom often got them up on our tractor, driving it around the yard in slow speed. They hiked, harvested, swam, and kayaked on the pond. Now they are grown, and many have their own children. We have the privilege of recreating the magic of Maine all over again for them. We want them to love Maine the way we do.”