Product Description

Making hay has always been hard work, just about the hardest work on a farm. Spanning 150 years this book tells the story of the labour and heartbreak suffered by five families struggling to make the hay that fed their livestock, a story not just about grass, alfalfa, and clover but also about sweat and fears, toil and loss.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #705765 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 223 pages

From the Publisher
"My heart ached when I finished this book. Let’s say it’s about more than haying, more than farm equipment, more than the survival of five farm families. It is all of these, but what makes The Haymakers extraordinary is Hoffbeck’s compassion for the people he writes about combined with his storyteller’s ability to make the stuff of history come alive on the page." — Jim Heynen, author of The One-Room Schoolhouse

"Hoffbeck’s hay, like Whitman’s grass, surprises the reader by turning out to be a large metaphor for our history and its effect on American interior life. While hay itself remains a wonder—a miracle even—the machinery we use to harvest and profit from it grows into a monster that harvests us, both economically and literally. From the elegant introductory essay on the nature and lore of hay to the sad family history of the afterword, Hoffbeck has made a sound and intelligent read for his audience—which should include all of us." — Bill Holm, author of The Heart Can Be Filled Up Anywhere on Earth and The Music of Failure

"Steven Hoffbeck’s The Haymakers is a love story and a requiem. Imaginatively weaving material gleaned from interviews, diaries, and the agricultural press, he lovingly recreates the hard work and the tragedies of Minnesota farm families from the time of the Civil War to the present. During those years the technology of haying has changed dramatically. Hoffbeck brings the reader into the hayfields and haylofts to experience these changes. He succeeds in causing the reader ‘to feel the burning July sun and the noonday heat that made haying one of the hardest tasks of agriculture.’ More than that, the author tells the stories of the lives of five farmers, mostly immigrants or the sons of immigrants, their families, and the rural communities to which they belonged." — Allen R. Yale, Jr., author of While the Sun Shines: Making Hay in Vermont, 1789–1990

From the Author
"This is a book of remembrance, a book tracing the role of haymaking in the lives of five farm families [from the mid-nineteenth century] through the present. . . . This is not meant to be a detailed technical manual on haymaking. . . . Instead I have tried to tell the stories of families on farms and how haying was part of the seasonal rhythms of their everyday lives, the larger rhythms of life and death. Those of us who grew up on farms have only to count the number of farm deaths in our own communities to understand that every family will eventually suffer its own set of tragedies. . . . Wound around my memories of summers haying with my dad and brothers are deeper threads of mourning. Danger, both natural and mechanical, is woven into the fabric of farmwork. This book is a tribute not only to those who lost their lives on farms but, also, to those who hav endured despite those losses and continued to work their farmsteads."--From the Prologue

About the Author
Steven R Hoffbeck

Customer Reviews

The Haymakers: A Chronicle of Five Farm Families
This is a wonderful and well written book that will capitivate and hold your attention to the very last page. Readers of all generations would enjoy this book. The book is about haymaking, but also so much more. The illustrations and pictures help you to envision life on the farm. I will anxiously await his next book.

A lyrical testament
The previous readers already praised this book so beautifully in their reviews that I don't know if I can improve on what has already been said, other than to say that I found this to be a very moving and lyrical testament to a vanishing way of life--the family farm. I loved Hoffbeck's detailed descriptions of the five farm families, ranging from early settlers to his own experience, and I thought he very masterfully combined factual details with personal revelations and insight. Extremely illuminating.

Ya Sure Hay.
Using clear sentences, Dr. Hoffbeck has penned a lively and fascinating yet tragic history of haymaking in Minnesota. The book tells five ornately factual tales of farming from the vantage point of the predominant ethnic groups that helped settle the Land of 10,000 Lakes. The author's descriptions of agricultural life are so delightfully vivid that one can virtually experience the heat and humidity, feel the aching muscles, see the verdant pastures, inhale the earthy smells, and enjoy the indescribable feeling of satisfaction that comes from completing a hard day's work on the land. Far from being merely a fact-laden transcript of Minnesota farm trivia, the book is both a compendium of interesting rural data AND a deeply personal and sad account of the risks that are part and parcel of the agrarian experience, even in this technological age. One is left to ponder the bitter irony that farmers must face daily: the farms that feed our nation are modern, yet dangerous. Highly recommend.