A Big Hole haying crew
Montana PBS filmed the Hirschy Ranch crew gathering loose hay with buck rakes and carrying it to a beaverslide. The story records the Hirschy family, the people who returned to help each summer and a way of haying shaped by generations of experience. It also shows machinery built at Shepherd’s Garage: the beaverslide came from the Jackson shop, and the lime-green buck rakes crossing the fields were built by Rich and David Shepherd.
The last one David built
David Shepherd died in an avalanche in 2001, two years before the segment was filmed. His son Toby was driving the last buck rake David built. Toby described the machine as an operator would: power steering made it easy to handle, but when the rake filled with hay, the load made it difficult to see directly ahead. The footage preserves David’s final buck rake where it belonged—not displayed as history, but working in a Big Hole hayfield.
“Yeah, this buck rake, uh, my dad built, and he was really tall.”
— Toby Shepherd in the 2003 film
Built for this country
Buck rakes and beaverslides were practical machines designed for the country where they worked. The rakes gathered loose hay and carried it to the slide, which lifted the hay into a large stack without forming bales. Building that equipment required an understanding of the fields, weather, crop and people using it. Rich and David had that understanding because they lived here and worked alongside the ranchers they served.
Builder, operator and customer
Traditional loose-hay operations required people as much as machinery—ranchers, neighbors and young local hands willing to spend the summer in the field. Toby was one of them. Long before he helped lead Shepherd’s Garage, he was operating his family’s equipment beside the ranchers it was built to serve. The connection between builder, operator and customer was not a company message; everyone was part of the same community, racing the same weather to put up the same crop.
A history still at work
Haying equipment has changed, and Shepherd’s Garage changed with its customers. The company now supports modern agricultural and construction equipment through four Montana locations, but its roots remain visible in this film: a beaverslide built in Jackson, buck rakes built by Rich and David, and Toby driving the last one his father built. The machinery is different today. The connection to the land, the ranching families and the work is not.