Greetings to the Madison Co. list Forgive me if this is "off topic" but this list is usually open to memories. I've been thinking about haying after reading about the familiar cow stanchions. One of the most fascinating aspects of haying in the early 1950s (for me, a pre-teen girl) in Madison County, was being around the hay barn as my dad brought wagon loads of hay down from the fields. He would drive the tractor into the barn with the haywagons hitched behind, rev up some kind of engine/motor just outside the barn doors, and carefully set huge hay prongs into the hay on the wagon. Then the engine/motor would grind and complain as the prongs carrying their load of hay would ascend into the heights of the barn, magically carried along on ropes and pulleys. Sometimes I would get to manage the motor's clutch, but it was pretty dicey. At the precise moment, the long rope would be "tripped" (sometimes I got to do that too) and the hay would fall into the hayloft with a thwampf to be spread around at a later time. It was magical to me, but probably not to my dad. I was only 12 or so when I started driving the truck with the hay rake hooked on behind.....and later I drove the tractor with the baler while my dad stacked the hay bales on the wagon....we used the same pulley system to carry the bales into the upper reaches of the barn......it didn't leave much time for fun. ~Deb