haying

Haying is not going smoothly

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It has been a long two days. I worked a 19 hour day between my paying job and the farm. The lights we installed last year are really helping. The weather was beautiful and I was able to use the rake while wearing short sleeves and even once the sun went down it never got super cool. I just kept going. Until I broke the rake. It has two legs off the back and square tubing that is bent 30 degrees. It broke right at the bend and this ended my raking at 2300 instead of midnight like I had planned. So now the new welder needs to get in play again and fix this issue. I want to be able to reinforce this angle and purchased some angle iron and flat iron to be able to make this happen. I am going to need to create a spot in the machine shed where I can store all of these scrap metal pieces to use for various projects.

Mr Professional has been out of service for the last couple of days and was returning to the farm today. I gave him the good news that I had broken the rake. But I wanted him to stay focused and just get the old John Deere 336 baler up and baling the hay I had rowed. We need bales made! he got it going this afternoon and in under one hour made 200 forty pound bales before it made a noise and stopped working. Turns out we need a new bearing. I had to come home early and take a nap and had enough time to run into the parts store. I was running on empty and could not keep going. I got a bearing, picked up a sandwich for us to split and headed home. The bearing looked weird but it was a part in hand. Mr Professional was already out in the field making round bales. I looked at the broken baler and broke out the repair manual. Come to find out we needed the gear box bearing seal. All of the oil had leaked out and according to the book we need to pull the entire transmission out of the baler! So this will not be a two hour fix.

I went out in the field just as Mr Professional broke the mini round baler. He took the covers off and the shear bolt was broken. The problem with this is he took the tool bag out of the canvas bag on the tractor. He violated the tool rule!! We both know that the tools have to be on the tractor, this is why we have a special bag with all of the correct sized tools to repair the baler. So we had to go back and get tools and shear bolts and then he left me to go work on the old John Deere Baler. I started in on it and kept getting both gears to turn when I turned the baler splines. The internal gear should be attached to the shaft which should be stationary as the tractor is not moving. The only reason it could move is if the same gear insert problem we just welded on the other side happened on this side. My gut said it was the problem. I was texting Mr Professional who kept telling me to just replace the shear bolt. Hard to do when the gears won’t align. I was saved by a call from work and I had to go into the hospital, problem was I am dirty and covered in grease. I went home, turfed the problem to Mr Professional and went and got cleaned up. Big surprise 30 minutes later he is pulling it into the machine shed. The exact same problem occurred and it needed to be torn down to expose the gear so it could be welded to the insert. I was called off of work but I was now clean. I ended up doing some dishes, putting away laundry, watering my plants and starting Roomba. I even took the time to work on the blog!! I want to get to bed before midnight and I will need to be working nonstop after work for the entire weekend to get the hay thing under control. I am hoping we can get the bearing tomorrow for the old John Deere. We made about 200 square bales and 25 round bales. The square bales are around 40# each and the round are calculated at 50# but probably weigh closer to 65#. We will need to weight some to get an accurate count. So about 4.5 ton are baled and the property owner gets half, we get the other half.

It only took Mr Professional two hours to tear it apart weld it and put it back together! It took 8 the first time on the other side. It is 2230 and he is out on the little tractor in the dark making round bales. I am going to go to bed so that I can get at it tomorrow afternoon and on into the night also. It is nice to work with someone who gets it.

Snoop, the alpaca, is so lazy he is laying down and eating baled hay off of the old baler!! That is lazy.

Haying nonstop

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Well, it’s been a long two days. Sunday we cut 18 acres of grass hay with a 25hp John Deere tractor and a side sickle bar. It took 9 hours to get it all done. We actually cut 19 acres by the time we were done. I even managed to get in an hours nap out in the field while Mr Professional cut for me. The only down side was waking up with a tick on my neck still crawling around, a little silver one. It was not attached but it sure does make me scratch and explore every odd sensation after that! It took me till dark to get it all completed. Now it just needs to be turned.

I had to go to work for a few hours Monday morning so Mr Professional came out, got the tractor cleaned off and full of fuel then went down to the school house and cut another 4-5 acres of hay! We have been getting it on the ground as fast as we can, pretty soon we are going to have to pick it all up!!

I got in another nap inside the house on the living room floor after getting the new weather station installed outside on top of the pole. It took longer than anticipated as it is sticking way up in the air. I need to dig a flat spot instead of balancing the ladder on a couple of rocks. I had to make multiple up and down trips on the ladder as I discovered that I needed some washers to add to the clamp to make it work as my pipe was smaller than the manufacturers designed. I did put the rain gauge out where the cows could rub on it so after some discussion with Annmarie I will need to move that closer to the house. We love having the weather station, I just don’t like maintaining it or repairing it. This is our third one and hopefully all that is needed now is a simple battery change. I was supposed to go pick up rock chuck carcasses. Wife shot three more two days ago, this heat is not going to make my job any easier. After she shot the first one with the 243 I showed her the 17hmr and said to use it. It was not more than 150 yards and did not need the 243. So to date we have dispatched 4 rock chuck just within sight of the house. Two of them were living under my lumber pile and making a mess on top of it!! It’s bad enough they dig out my rock cribs and make my fence lean, but to try and ruin my lumber is the ultimate insult.

This afternoon I gassed up the tractor once Mr Professional was done cutting and we swapped out for the hay rake. I went up into field two to rake. Field two needs some work! The center of the field needs about 3 acres killed, dished then leveled with the arena groomer, there are ruts ten inches deep and furrows and water damage out in the field from the flood that did not get repaired. It is truly teeth shattering to bounce around. I almost broke the water fire extinguisher twice, it kept leaping out of the tractor bucket. We need to rework the stand so it is attached to the tractor better. I also need to order new U joints, and a driveshaft cover and end caps to keep the hay from binding up around the shaft. if you get in the tall grass it binds up around the driveline and you have to stop and cut it off. It’s a pain and should not be an issue. I have no clue when it fell off the parts order needs to go in tomorrow. When I was going through the gate I forgot that the grass catcher was sticking out and bent it on the gate. The gate is a little dinged up but when I bent the catcher back it broke, this only shortened it by about 6 inches. I need to order a new bar. While I am ordering parts I may as well order the runner part for the sickle mower that fell off yesterday! Screwy part was we had been tightening all bolts and nuts first thing in the morning before starting any equipment. I managed to get all of field #2 rowed and the rest of field #3 done. There was still quit a bit of moisture in field 2, it had only been 48 hours. We should be up and baling by Wednesday. I will turn the 18 acres tomorrow after work. We can then start baling all of it on Thursday.

Progress on haying front

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It was a long and an actual productive day. Some days are just long and head pounding, but even though it was a head pounder we managed to get things going and got it done! I had the round baler hooked up and ready from the night before and had started up the tractor and was headed out to bail when Mr Professional showed up and wanted to work on the old John Deere 336 square baler we purchased the night before. I had plans on testing the weld job on the Italian M50 round baler. Four hours later after some blood, a lot of swearing, cleaning and grease application we had managed to get it move all its parts. Surprisingly it was in great shape and had obviously been serviced four years ago when it was sold last. The only thing left to do was to actually try and make a bale with it. I cut through the side of the fields but Mr Professional had to go around with the big baler.

I was able to make round bales! The weld held and I was baling the outer rows and the rows down by the spring. Mr Professional showed up and started to feed loose grass into the baler, it made a couple of squares but it was only tying one side. He had me stop and help, this was slowing production!! An hour later, a lot more swearing and yelling and finger pointing we had figured out how to adjust the bale tension, we had to turn a ceramic grommet that had a groove cut into it by the constant string flow, it was causing a binding point and breaking the string, we also had to adjust the string tension. More bales, less bale tension and now the big loud green machine was only tying one knot on one side of both strings, even worse than a single good string. More reading of the manual, much more swearing and finger pointing and interpretation with more swearing. Me finally telling Mr Professional to adjust it like the manual says and I am gonna go bale or we are not ever going to make hay. He made some adjustments to the tying portion, which is fairly mechanically complicated and was making bales!! I had to jump off once and adjust bale tension again. The first 50 bales are a little lopsided. We are pretty sure its from not having enough feed material to make the bales.

Mr Professional went down to field #3 to bale, I worked on the dregs in #2, I sheared a shear bolt and realized how much I hate relearning to change them out and dug out the jam. When it jammed in the same place again 6 minutes later I gave up, dumped the partial bale and went to get the sickle mower. I had to move bales on my way out of the field and spotted a very angry 3 foot snake curled up and ready to strike. It did not appreciate at getting ran over by the baler! We parted ways amicably but I was unable to get a picture, it kept sneaking under the grass clumps. I needed to cut anyways and the big green beast was chewing through the downed hay.

I cut the rest of field #2 and then moved onto the one small portion of #3 that I had not cut, about an acre. Unfortunately or fortunately, however you fill your glass, the grass is very tall! I was very careful to cut next to the spring runoff so I didn’t end up in the stream. The second pass though you drive on the already cut grass and I managed to get a little too close to the bank and fell into it with the tractor! I did not tip it over, it just ended up very sideways. Mr Professional came and pulled me out and I was back at it fairly quickly. Annmarie and Sarah came down to see my calamity, there was some discussion as to why I did not line each side of the stream with pecker poles like I did in field #2 (the one I buried the tractor in last year). I had marked a wide marshy area but not the running stream. The grass has never looked this good before!! I can usually tell where the stream is and avoid it. So now I need to buy some more poles and drive them in on both sides of the stream. Annmarie was taking pictures of my sideways action and discussing the poles when she fell into the stream. She didn’t see the edge!! Sarah and I did finally go pull her out!

I started cutting the neighbors field until 2200. We should get the rest of the field cut on Sunday.

Haying is going as expected, not well

Steve Hardin1 Comment

So the baler was not working yesterday. I came home and helped Mr Professional and we had all the moving parts doing what they were supposed to do in ten minutes. He put it all back together so it was ready to go first thing Friday morning. I had some dinner then went out with the mistress to cut more hay. Since the baler is back up and running we figured it was time to lay some more hay down. I did that until dark. Good old normal hay stuff, all is well.

The plan was for me to go into town early-ish and pickup our calf table that had just come in the day before and to pickup all of our TREX decking for the front porch Friday morning. I would come right home, Mr Professional was going to bale hay then we would switch out and I would bale while he starts picking them up. Naturally everything arrives when I need to do nothing but get hay put up. So now I will need to stack the TREX off into a safe location in the yard! I am hopeful we will get to this in a few weeks. I got notice today that our alpaca shearing blades have been sharpened and are in transit back to our farm. The calf table needs to be attached to a pallet top and bolted down so it cannot be knocked over. I have the perfect piece of scrap board we got last year and saved and using it on the wood pallet is a great use of it. So I am in town picking up TREX decking when an ongoing crisis at my paying job required me to go in. Now I am bummed I will not be baling when Mr Professional then starts texting me. The phone is blowing up. The baler bottom roller is not turning! This is the exact problem we thought we had fixed. Since neither shear bolt broke it was not an obvious issue. I finally just told him to drag it back to the machine shop and call the company, don’t waste time looking for the problem. They stayed on the phone with him for two hours and walked him through the problems and disassembly on the baler. Turns out someone in Italy thought that pressing a central shaft insert into a gear assembly with no welding was a good thing. They must think they have a side deal with a little known entity called friction. Mr Friction Fit failed! Who would do that? So Mr professional got the two pieces exposed and used my welder to merge them. The baler is back together and Saturday morning we test it out. This took most of the day to accomplish and I have more hay on the ground!!

One of my coworker/friends had recently told me about a baler for sale, I hunted it down and am now the proud owner of a very old John Deere 3360 baler. I have been unable to figure out yet when it was made. It does use string and not wire. Again on Saturday, Mr Professional will see if it works. We have the weekend to test it out for purchase. I had to go in Friday night and bring it home with the pickup. The unknowns and lack of stuff is a constant battle. Here’s hoping that Saturday is a perfect day.

Catch up

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It has been a long ten days! I had plans on blogging over the weekend but I was tired and busy and it just didn’t get done. I find that it is surprisingly hard to keep after it some times. I have a goal, 8 posts/month and I do my best to make that happen. Sometimes I make it and sometimes I don’t but I have learned to just get back up to the desk and write. My single biggest motivating factor is I like to occasionally go back and remind myself that stuff is actually getting done and jobs are really not multiplying, they are merely setting us up for success in the future.

Mr Professional got the tractor back up and running. It of course started to rain because we had cut hay. We only managed to get about 1 ton baled before the rain came. We have turned the hay twice and attempted to bale again three days ago. Mr Professional hit a clump of wet sodden grass and jammed the roller baler. He spent a couple of days digging it out off and on till he got tired of messing with it. He had the thing torn apart when I came home this evening. Within ten minutes we had it up and going and then he had to put all the pieces back on. He went out and turned the hay one more time and we will start baling again tomorrow and cutting again. I have about another 6 acres that needs cut and baled then we are going to move across the road and start cutting and baling. We will be at this for the next 3-4 weeks. It’s going to be a long month.

We have had two more calves. I was able to get pictures of one right after it was born, a few hours. Mom did not like me driving the tractor close but I told her she had to calm down. The babies are doing well. We have five calves now and one cow left to give birth. We need to be done calving so the bull can get turned loose with the mommas.

Doom and I went and picked up a wrought iron fence that Annmarie found on the digital classifieds. You never know what you are getting but it was indeed handmade, only about three feet tall but well worth the $300. It just needs to be cleaned up and then the posts cemented into the ground. We are going to use it on the side of the house. I am pretty sure that Zeke will be able to leap it no matter what we do but he has to slow down at some time as he is already over ten years old. Mouse won’t go over it and the fence will get a covering of small gage wire to stop Gizmo. It was well worth the trip, even if Doom drinks passion fruit tea instead of coffee at Dutch Bros. A person with the name Doom should drink coffee black and strong not passion fruit tea. Doom went home today and stated that he will be back sooner than later. It’s always good to see friends from far away, they come, they go, good friends.

The weather has been miserable. It just keeps raining. There is so much rain that our back dry hillside is greening up again! It only does that after about a week of steady rain and warm weather. Every year the rain comes no matter how late I wait to cut hay. Hence the reason I only cut some of it. I knew that the bad luck fairy was going to visit again. I did make a decision on the tractor. I am going to get a Kubota. I thought the change would be good, this one has a front snow blade that can be turned, it has a 3 point large bale spear, pallet forks, a bucket and a rear sickle mower. When I add that to what I have already I think I have most of the bases covered. I am even going to have some ballast put in the rear tires. I am hopeful this takes some of the tipping tendencies out.