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Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Hay Baler
Linda has been using the weed trimmer a lot this week to rid the farm of
weeds that we can't mow with the mowers. She even did between the trees
that we planted back in the 'holler'.
We've
been concentrating on getting the mowing done, because the mums were
delivered earlier today and that will take up quite a bit of time to
plant and water all 1,000 of those this coming weekend. We may have more
help than usual if Sabra and Jim come down from IN as is supposed to
happen. I had unhooked the bush hog from the Ford tractor and also took
the finish mower off the FarmTrac tractor in preparation for baling hay
later in the day. Leonard was raking the hay into wind rows and our New
Holland 565 Hay Baler was delivered a little after lunch. The delivery
guy told me a few things about the baler and then after about a half
hour he headed back to Glasgow. With a little help I hooked the baler to
the back of the tractor and pulled it over to the hay shed.
I
asked Linda to drive to town to pick up two more rolls of baler twine
and she went after those. I drove the FarmTrac pulling the hay wagon to
the other hay field with Stacey following me in the Mule to bring me
back to the house. I parked the tractor and wagon out of the way, then
rode back and we waited on Linda to return. Once she was back, we headed
to the hay field with me driving the Ford tractor pulling the hay baler
and Stacey driving the Mule with Linda. I pulled the hay baler into
position over a wind row of hay and engaged the PTO on the tractor. The
baler started spinning and I moved the tractor forward until hay started
coming out the bale chute. We had a problem, the bales were packed too
tight and it was busting the strings. Linda and I were worried we had
got in over our head as we looked through the manual and saw all the
things listed that could be wrong. I remembered what the delivery guy
had told me and started loosening the spring tension with the two hand
cranks at the rear of the baler. We started getting a few bales that
were tied. I stopped several more times and kept loosening the spring
tension. Steve Riddle drove up with Steve Anderson riding along. They
were ready to help with the hay baling. We hooked up the hay wagon to
the back of the baler and started down another wind row of hay.
Steve
R was catching the bales as they came out of the baler's chute and
passing them to Steve A and he was stacking them on the wagon. We
continued to have bales with broken strings and I kept loosening the
tension until the baler was making bales better. Steve was kicking the
broken bales off the wagon and Stacey and Linda would spread them out so
I could pull the baler back over and feed them in again. After a couple
of hours, we had the hay wagon filled and a few more bales on a trailer
behind the pickup truck so we headed back to the farm with our loads of
hay. I pulled the hay wagon with the FarmTrac and parked it in the loft
of the upper barn. I backed the truck and trailer in the hallway of the
barn and then we talked and rested a little while. Steve Anderson
collects junk metal, so I gave him some heavy pieces and paid him for
his work. Steve Riddle said I didn't owe him because I had helped him a
lot, so I thanked them both, then Linda and I went back to the hay field
and I drove the Ford tractor back to the farm and we put the hay baler
in the hay shed.
