AKfish,
Here are some pictures of the mower. A couple of things I learned:
First, this was not the year to try and make hay in Northern California. If it looks thin, as in Photo D, mowing and raking doesn't help make more.
In the really light areas getting the cut oats off of the sickle bar was hard. I wound up tilting the bar up so they would fall off the back. If I didn't they would lay on the bar and clog the teeth so the uncut oats would not make it to the cutters and just get pushed over. Down side was that I was loosing 3-4 inches of oat stock. Thicker areas I could keep it level and the oats would lay over and were heavy enough to stay were they fell.
Our field was still too dirty with rocks and root burls. It is a big improvement over were it was three years ago, but too many obsticale for the mower and hay rake. I also need to thin out some of the trees, just too hard to get around them
The John Deere 350 worked great. Well try again next year as I'm sure it's going to be a really wet year.