Getting the lumber home for the new hayracks was the easy part. It was a great way to spend time with Dad and to travel a day in the northwoods of Minnesota.  The work was building the hay racks.

These were not going to be your standard hayracks.  These were going to be giants.  Standard hayracks are normally sixteen feet long and hold eight to nine bales across.  Our racks were twenty four feet long, could hold twelve bales across, and ate cats for protein (that last part isn’t true…though the number of cats on the farm did decrease once we built them…I’m just saying…).

For the undercarriage, we had two Minnesota wagon frames, solid, sturdy, and built by prisoners of the Minnesota penal system, extended a bit with the help of some extra steel.

These things were solid.

On top of the extended Minnesota undercarriage, we had to have good, solid stringers.  On our old hayracks, we had some long 4 x 12’s.  We couldn’t find the 4 x 12’s for the stringers this time around, so like good farmers, we improvised.  Using a series of 2 x 12’s, we made our own.  And we did it well…perhaps even, an overkill.

First we glued them together.  And I mean glued.  Big gallon jugs of industrial strength wood glue were used to hold them together.  Then, we nailed them, careful to make sure that they didn’t stick out the otherside.  Finally, for good orders sake, we bolted them together.

Those stringers were not going to break.

Once those were in place on the undercarriage lengthwise, two on each side, we started placing the rough lumber across the rack, equally spaced, thanks to a block of wood, each of the boards were nailed down to the stringers.  At least two nails for each stringer, so a total of four nails per board…at a minimum.  All day long, we hammered away at the bed of the hayracks, over thirty boards per hayrack, measuring, cutting and nailing.

Once the stringers were in place, the beds nailed down with a careful one inch spacing in between them, we capped off the ends, so horizontal with the stingers, and perpendicular to the bed, we capped off the rough ends of the rack with an end board, bolted onto each board on each end, this made for a nice finish, covered any poor cuts, and made for a good sturdy rack.

Finally came the back.  Each rack needed a back to ensure that the hay stayed on and didn’t fall off the back, with our system of making hay, it also helped getting the loader tractor lined up right too.

The back was eight feet high by eight feet wide and consisted of four vertical boards and four horizontal boards.

These racks were sturdy and built to last.

There was only one last thing that needed to be done, protect them.  With paint brush in hand, we pained each rack with linseed oil, to provide a good finish and protection from the elements.

The racks were a lot of work, but we took a lot of pride in them.  As hard as it was to build them, making hay with them was no easy chore either.