Chuck Hassler

The most striking memory I have of putting up hay in the Big Hole country of Montana more than 50 years ago is that of the towering wooden structures called beaverslides. They were a part of the landscape in western Montana along with the sawdust burners that resembled a giant shuttle cock.

The beaverslides were picturesque and old timey and still the best way at that time to put up loose hay. I think they may still be in use.

Everything was picturesque about that summer. The country was beautiful. Trout streams in every bottom. The ranch was authentically western. We lived in a bunkhouse featuring cold water showers and ate at the cook house. I still remember the plenitude of food and how the cook and her helper were both pretty husky.

The rancher’s daughter, on the other hand, was really cute, and we were told to stay away from her and the ranch horses.

I can see the tractors, a row of six red Farm All Super C's, arrayed across the field in a staggered formation, sickle bars clattering as they mow sweet smelling wild timothy hay.

In another field, my buddy AJ is driving a buckrake pell mell down a windrow till he gathers a rake full of hay, whence he heads for the beaverslide where I am waiting to run the hoist, which will send that load of hay to the top of the beaverslide and into the stack we’re building. The stackhands are waiting for me to deliver the load where they want it. If I do my job well, they don’t have to do much other than compact the hay. If I don’t, they yell at me. If they yell too much, I can dump the load right on them.

Our first night away from home as wide eyed 15-year-old kids we were asleep in our bunks when the stack hands came in drunk from a trip to the bar in Wisdom. I think they were headed to the military or coming back from the military. They were loud and smelled boozy. We didn’t utter a peep.

The mowing crew consisted of all older guys recruited out of the bars in Butte. They were inclined to head to the bar in Wisdom or Wise River if they had any money, so I don’t think they got paid till we were done. Otherwise they were pretty nice old guys with hard luck stories. Dreams dashed and loves lost.

The rancher favored me and AJ because we didn’t go to town, and we worked hard. I loved driving the old WW II bomb carrier.  The hoist was mounted on when moving to a new stack. I had to pull the backstop section of the beaverslide. The old Army surplus rig was a giant ATV. I drove it through bogs and across rivers. It would go anywhere the D-4 Cat the rancher moved the beaverslide with would go. As we progressed across the ranch we left what looked like large loaves of bread strewn across the land.

By the time we were done haying, I had learned how to accurately place the hay where it needed to go in the stack. The first set of stackhands had been run off and replaced, and AJ was a whiz operating his buckrake, flying through the fields like the wild boy he was.

We were invited back for the next season, but never returned as we found more lucrative work at home. But I have never forgotten that long ago summer on the Big Hole.