Haytime - Mowing grass with horses - Working with the scythe - Carting hay - Sledging hay - Harvest - Tumbling Tam - Tumbling Tam Demo

The action of a Tumbling Tam haysweep

John Gate:

"That's an old tumbling tommy sweep. I've used yin o them many a time. You've nobbut about five tines in it. This bit here was a bit of heavy wood, and shafts or handles to it, and your chain to each end of it. It used one horse - you could put two to it, but geyly much just one. It was a long stretch was that [from you to the horse]. Faster a horse went, better it was to sweep. But you'd fast hev it full o' hay, being at horse's heels, so you had long plough chains, with an extension at heel. You'd to have geyly long cords, to drive, because you were a long way behind.

"You always had to sweep the way it was mown. The stubble - if you were mown say that way round, well that's how you rowed it up, because if you were going rather again your stubbles, the hay didn't slide along as good. When you got to where you wanted to tip it all, you just lifted shafts up a bit, it just dug in and it would tip over, and it landed back upright. It was blooming marvellous. You just tipped it up and left rynes loose, and over it went. You walked round the hay and started again."