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ORRINGTON – Ken, 68, a Northeast Occupational Exchange volunteer, knows how to make hay while the sun shines.
He also knows how to put an antique hay wagon back together again. When he’s not busy as a volunteer caring for public gardens such as Zoidis Park and on the Bangor waterfront, he’s at the Curran Homestead museum working on the hay wagon.
“The hay wagon is about 16 feet long with 30 stakes 4 to 6 feet long all around the sides. It can haul a ton or a ton and a half of loose hay,” Ken said.
Ken ought to know. He grew up on a dairy farm in Waite and remembers haying with a similar wagon. His family had 50 acres of hayfields which they mowed with horse-drawn mowers and scythes.
“We always mowed the orchards with scythes,” Ken said.
He also remembers riding to town in his family’s hay wagon pulled by the family’s horse.
“We didn’t have a car,” Ken said, “and it took a half a day to go to Princeton.”
Part of the work on the hay wagon involves scraping paint and cutting the stakes for it. Pam, who also volunteers at NOE, and NOE occupational therapist Lee Marville are helping with that task.
“Pam and I cut the stakes and whittle the bark off,” Marville said. “We sit on little wooden stools and whittle.”
“When it’s all done,” Ken said of the hay wagon, “it will have wheels with metal bands and wooden spokes. We have the front wheels, but we need to find some back wheels.”
The wagon also is missing its whiffletree, or spreader – the part the horses are hooked to. Ken said he hopes to make that part of the hay wagon.
“Ken comes alive at the Curran Homestead,” Marville said. “Copper, the horse, is his best friend. He knows how to talk to horses and the horse talks back.”
Ken hopes to have the hay wagon restored by October – provided rear wheels for the wagon can be found by then.
“I enjoy it,” he said of working on the hay wagon. “I love that type of work.”
To learn more about NOE, or if you know where to find a set of rear wheels for a hay wagon, call Marville at 942-3816, Ext. 263.
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