Hay Days

We made lots of Hay

We spent most of the last week making Hay. We Mowed, Raked, Baled, and stored about 180 bales of Hay. We still have half the fields to go.

It didn’t all go smoothly.

Day 1.

The rain stopped and we were not forecasted any rain for the next 3 days. It was go time. I got home at about 6 PM, hooked up the mower and got started. Things were going fairly well, until about 9 pm. Then suddenly I heard a noise and the grass was no longer being cut. The PTO shaft was still turning, but the mower blades were not.

I put away the tractor, put all the animals to bed for the night and then turned to my trusty phone for google. I figured out that it was a shear pin on the mower that needed to be replaced, but of course we did not have extras.

Day 2

The local hardware store did not have any shear pins in the size I needed, so I had to go into town – 45 minutes each way. When I finally got home, I could not for the life of me figure out how to get the shear pin into place.

I called upon my helpful farming neighbours. Lyle dropped everything and came to my aid. With his help, I was up and running again by noon. I stopped wearing my headphones so I could hear any other funny noises…

It was a bit scary because we have so many hills on our property. For the first time, I put my seat belt on while driving the tractor. We have one hill, we call the ski hill. The tractor could not pull the mower up the hill, so we had to do circles to mow the hill going down.

In other areas, I went back and forth across the hill, holding on and trying not to slide sideways off the tractor seat.

Then, in the late afternoon, the tractor engine started to overheat. I wondered if our tractor was not strong enough to operate the mower up and down all our hills during a heat warning… (32 degrees Celcius)

Once it the tractor cooled off, I checked the radiator fluid, which was fine. I mowed for about another hour before it overheated again.

This time I checked more carefully under the hood and found a broken belt. Back to Google – it looks like replacing the belt is something we can handle. (when I say we – I mean my daughter!)

Day 3

My daughter was starting work at 4 am, and due to be home by 9 am. She stopped in town on her way and managed to find a replacement belt. The tractor dealer was no help and didn’t have any in stock.

With the help of the U-Tube video I had found, the belt replacement was quick and easy. Melissa took over from me and finished mowing the section of hay that we planned for the week. It is about 25-30 acres, half of our total hay land.

Then we took off the mower and attached the rake to the Tractor. Melissa raked the area that I had mowed on day 1.

When we had a closer look at the mower, we found some additional damage… The top link had loosened off and the top bars of the mower had squished the housing of the mower motor. Fixing that can wait til my Son in law gets home.

Day 4

There was a really heavy fog in the morning, so we had to wait til the grass dried before getting back to work. I did the goat chores and Melissa looked after the horses.

Once things dried up, Melissa raked the balance of the field.

Then we attached the baler and she got to work baling hay. The baler is beyond my skill level, but Melissa has it down. It is a mini round baler.

When the roll of net wrap ran out, we had another u-tube video to demonstrate how to start the new roll. What did we ever do without google and U-Tube.

Melissa had to replace a shear pin on the baler. We realized that sometimes, the bale door doesn’t shut all the way. Then the horn does not sound to tell you that the bale is full, and the shear pin breaks. Luckily she knew how to do that from our trial run when we got the baler.

Just before 5 PM, both of the tires on the baler fell off the rims! I guess it doesn’t like our hills. I called the local tire shop and they agreed to wait after closing time for me to bring in the tires. They put tubes in the tires, hopefully that will help the tires stay on the rims.

Melissa stopped for the night when one of the tires went flat.

Day 5

Melissa went back to the tire store for a new tube to be put in the tire, while I did all the morning animal chores.

The baler was making a ticking noise. Melissa figured out that it was a pick up tine that needed to be replaced. With a bit us fussing, we were able to get the new tines in place and Melissa finished baling all the hay that we had cut.

The farmer was baling the neighbour’s fields with his huge equipment. I think he was laughing at us with our miniature equipment. Here you can see the difference in size, with one of his bales in behind ours.

There was a thunder storm warning, but luckily we did not get any rain.

We went into town to pick up my son in law. He was home for the long weekend. Then we tried to bring the bales in from the field to the barn.

Trevor managed to get the pickup stacked with about 16 bales. I drove from bale to bale, and Melissa thru them up to him in the box of the truck.

After 3 truck loads, everyone was exhausted and we quit for the night.

Day 6

Some friends came over with a trailer and helped bring in the rest of the hay. It felt good to be finished. AND so relieved that it did not rain.

We have approximately 180 bales of hay stacked up in our barn. Each bale weighs about 70 lbs. That is probably enough to get us through the winter, but we want a few more to be safe. We may try to sell some extras, but Mini round bales are not very common around here.

I’m not sure when we are going to start over to do the other half of the hay fields…