OWASCO - They were making hay in the haze at the Ward O'Hara Agricultural Museum Saturday morning as the sunshine didn't quite get through. It was the seventh Draft Horse and Hay Day presented there by Charles Minturn, of Sennett, one of the museum's 14 commissioners.

A number of town historians from Cayuga County were also on hand to explain their exhibits in the museum.

The first demonstration at 11 a.m. took about two hours to complete. At least one more demonstration would be made before the day ended at 4 p.m.

Two of six Belgian draft horses pulled the hay wagon as part of the hay baling demonstration. Others were coupled to a hay rake and a wagon to give families a ride. A seventh horse, Hallett's Chance Fancy, a yearling, will be raffled off by the New York State Draft Horse Club this year.

Minturn, a member of the Draft Horse Club, owns 15 horses (four riding horses). He supplied horses, wagons, and some of the hayloading equipment. Jeffery Herrick, of Sennett, provided his 1929 tractor attached to the bailer.

To begin the demonstration, one of three large, round, 3,000-pound bales of hay was rolled out and pulled apart, then spread out with a tedder in the field as if to dry. A horse-drawn hay rake piled it into rows, then a hayloader moved the loose hay from the fields to a horse-drawn wagon to bring it to a hay press baler. The baler makes 100--150-pound square bales secured with three hand-fed wires.

"These are the old-fashioned bales that everybody put on boxcars to ship out," Minturn said.

"It's hard to load hay with a pitchfork," he said. "We fork it into a plunger operated by a drivebelt attached to a pulley on the tractor." According to Minturn, hay was baled this way up until the '40s and '50s.

Read the full report in Sunday's edition of The Citizen.