Summer is here. For decades — well, forever — few warm and sunny days at this time of the year have unleashed enthusiasm for Maine’s precious and all-too-short summer season.

For many families, in recent years or a century or more ago, this was a time to plan for trips to the beach, nights at the drive-in theater, picnics, ball games and a host of other activities. For farmers, it meant more work as gardens and hayfields demanded more attention. Even those insistent agricultural obligations were welcomed because successful harvests meant security.

Summer memories of my early teenage years are centered on haying. It was hard, hot and uncomfortable work, but there was excitement in the urgency of getting the hay into the barn. Good weather never lasted long enough. Any vacation or day-trip plans were dependant on the haying options.

Our tractor was a John Deere with large rear tires and smaller front tires in tricycle position. There was no key or electric start. It took a strong man to stand beside the tractor, grasp an iron flywheel more than a foot in diameter, and give it a spin, often several times, to start the engine.

Even starting the tractor each day is firmly embedded in my memory. My father liked to make a game out of any work. The tractor’s exhaust stood straight up over the hood, and he would keep an empty soup can over the pipe every night to keep rain out. I loved to watch him spin the flywheel, and guess how high the first blast of exhaust would shoot that can into the air.

I rode plenty of miles around the Echo Farm fields those summer days on the iron seat of a mowing machine. Once pulled by a horse, the tractor was now the propulsion, and the rider on the machine had to raise or lower the long and heavy sickle bar to avoid stumps and rocks.

A sidekick rake turned the hay into neat windrows to dry in the sun, and the process often called for hand work with a pitchfork on the morning after cutting. My brother and I would join my father and grandfather in shaking the dew from the hay for a few more hours of drying. Then the old farm truck, a Ford Model A, hauled the hay loader up and down the rows, lifting the hay on a wide conveyor to drop onto the truck bed. My grandfather was a master “builder” of hay loads since the days of horsepower in the fields.

On some days, it was a race for the barn to beat an approaching thunderstorm. Putting wet hay in a barn was a common fire hazard from spontaneous combustion.

Antique equipment is still used for haying demonstrations, but there would be very few locations where my experiences of unloading from truck to hay mow in the barn could be duplicated these days.

The truck pulled in through the barn doors, and the tractor was driven to the rear barn doors for one more essential duty.

A heavy rope hung from pulleys at both ends of the barn’s roofline. One of the men would plunge the two tines of the hay fork deep into the load and set the hooks. At the back of the barn, a loop on the rope was slipped onto the tractor hitch, which slowly moved away, hoisting the forkful of hay nearly as big as an automobile. It traveled through the barn until a point where a trip-rope released the cargo to drop on a high floor between the side mows.

I had ridden the bumpy hay field equipment pulled by the tractor, but this part of the operation was my chance to drive the tractor, slow and steady, for about 100 feet to raise the load. Then it was necessary to back up and get ready for the next lift.

The hayfield memories aren’t complete without mentioning “switchel.” It’s a drink that was known as “haymakers’ punch,” and my grandmother would mix a big batch to bring to thirsty men out under the sun. I don’t know her recipe, but switchel is traditionally water, cider or vinegar, and ginger, and it packed a refreshing kick.

Dave Sargent is a freelance writer and a native of Auburn. He can be reached by sending email to [email protected].