The thing I hated worst was being the 'big kid' who got to catch and secure sheep for my great uncle to shear. Haying was dirty work, but not near so bad, and I didn't mind it, nor planting/cultivating/cutting/spearing/hanging/stripping tobacco. Crabbing, (trot line and crab pots), digging clams, fishing, tonging oysters, hunting deer and waterfowl were just putting food on the table.
I wish I could give my grandkids the same opportunities I had as a kid, but my childhood was long ago and far away.
Haying was hard work, but it paid well. I think that I remember logging with my uncle more fondly than it actually was. He had a great stand of hardwood on his farm and we'd put up all of the family's firewood. Would take a weekend in the winter to fell it, limb it, and twitch it out, and a couple of weekends in the late summer (you know, the time between "haying" and "getting the last of the harvest in" to cut split deliver and stack.
But I think that I'd still give my left arm to have one more weekend cutting and splitting, and listening to his stories.
The farm is still in the family, but it isn't worked too hard anymore. The land is rented out, someone else does the haying. They do raise some blueberries on it, though, and home grown firewood is still the cheapest heat in town. I make sure my kids get up there every summer, and I suspect that when they get bigger, they'll learn how to swing a splitting maul and use a two man buck.