GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado—Leo Jammaron watched as the faded-green, John Deere tractor lumbered around his hay field, vacuuming up windrows of cut hay.
Every now and then, the tractor would stop and spit out a five-foot round bale, neatly tied with twine, packaged like it had been gift wrapped.
“It’s a lot easier work, nowadays, than it used to be,” Jammaron said. “The machinery makes all the difference in the world.”
If you ask the 76-year-old Jammaron about growing hay, he’ll tell you, “It’s a relatively simple process.”
Jammaron has been growing and cutting hay in the Roaring Fork Valley most of his life. His family moved to the ranch, which he still farms south of Glenwood Springs, when he was only 5 years old.
And he’s been helping with the hay production for more than seven decades.
Being involved in producing hay for close to 72 years, Jammaron has seen plenty of changes. Like so many industries, the advancement of technology has been the biggest difference.
One of the most memorable advancements was switching to mechanized equipment over the more traditional methods.
“You bet,” he said. “All the way from bouncing around on a horse mower to a $70,000 swather.”
A swather is a piece of equipment that cuts hay or small grain crops into windrows before baling.
“Early in my years of working, the horse probably knew more about what he was doing than I did,” Jammaron said with a laugh. “But we got along.”
Jammaron joked about how the operation has changed, but growing up, it was the work ethic and commitment to getting the job done that was essential to working in the field.
Jammaron explained how the process, now done by one person and a single piece of equipment, once required three people and a horse.
One person would handle the horse-drawn sweep rake, which would gather the cut hay. Another person would throw the gathered hay into a stack, where the “stack man” would arrange the hay into a well-balanced stack. Hay wasn’t baled back then, just haystacks, which would sometimes reach 15 to 20 feet high.
“The guy on the haystack used to have his work cut out for him,” Jammaron said.
Ranchers would then come by and take the amount of hay needed for feed for the day, Jammaron said.
Cutting hay back then was a physically demanding chore, and it was much more time consuming.
Jammaron still remembers the first time he used a tractor for production. Going from a horse and putting in plenty of demanding work, to a tractor was indeed a time to remember.
“It was quite a difference,” he said. “We got a lot more done.”
But even though the tools of the trade have changed, he still said it’s a fairly simple process.
Jammaron said haying season begins when the snow melts in the spring and the plants start growing. The first harvest usually occurs sometime in June. Typically, Jammaron said, he will get about two harvests in a single year. Farmers in other areas of the state where the seasons are a little longer will get as many as three, or sometimes four hay-cuttings a year, depending on what type of hay they grow.
The plant is cut and gathered into windrows where it’s allowed to dry for a couple of days. Then, the bailer gathers the hay into tightly packed bales, wrapping it in twine for storage. Most of the hay is used to feed livestock throughout the winter.
The single field Jammaron was working recently, about 15 acres, would have taken three people about three days to cut and stack. Now, using tractors and mowers, it takes less than half that time.
“It used to be a lot of hard work,” Jammaron said. “But I survived it.”
