A few pics from today’s square baling

[Hay Dude]

US Bureau of Labor says farming is twice as dangerous as law enforcement and 5 times more dangerous than fire fighting.

MoKelly

Yesterday, I was up on the square baler repairing a knotter and slipped on hay chaff. Almost fell 10’ backwards to the ground.

 

[MoKelly]

It’s dangerous for sure.

I’m not a farmer, but I do use ZTR’s, brush cutters and a 35 hp CUT for brush hogging.

Anytime around these machines there is danger. Moving parts and sharp blades.

In my opinion, the danger compounds as the day goes along. The work is physically demanding and mentally taxing. So, we get tired.

Working with dangerous equipment and being tired can be a bad combination.

Plus - you are typically in a remote place with no one around.

MoKelly

 

[fried1765]

US Bureau of Labor says farming is twice as dangerous as law enforcement and 5 times more dangerous than fire fighting.

MoKelly

An angry woman may actually be the most dangerous of all situations on this planet!

 

[Torvy]

Thanks for the memories! Grandpa had an old Alice. Pulled his small square bales and a flatbed trailer/hay wagon behind it. From about 12-16 I spent some time on the trailer pulling and stacking bales with a hook in hand. Then had to hoist them to the hay loft.
I was lucky, I had a bunch of close relatives who all did different types of farming. I spent 2 weeks on a dairy farm, but I was only about 8. Most of that work was getting eggs from chickens and fetching for my older cousins at milking time. Not a fan of raw milk, but I still get up early.

 

[deserteagle71]

I grew up on a Pennsylvania farm; haying every summer is still something I have fond memories of to this day. Probably would have farmed all my life if I hadn't been drafted and ended up in Vietnam. Here's a faded photograph from the early 50s...note the crank in the front of the Oliver. My dad on the Oliver and my cousin on the dump rake.

 

[Hay Dude]

I grew up on a Pennsylvania farm; haying every summer is still something I have fond memories of to this day. Probably would have farmed all my life if I hadn't been drafted and ended up in Vietnam. Here's a faded photograph from the early 50s...note the crank in the front of the Oliver. My dad on the Oliver and my cousin on the dump rake.
View attachment 709564

Thanks for your sacrifice and God Bless You.
THAT is a VERY beautiful photograph
If that’s a dump rake, were they still putting up loose hay?

 

[Hay Dude]

An angry woman may actually be the most dangerous of all situations this planet!

Preach to the people my brother!!

 

[deserteagle71]

THAT is a VERY beautiful photograph
If that’s a dump rake, were they still putting up loose hay?

Absolutely. That's me on that same Oliver, once my legs were long enough to reach the pedals. Mom and Dad are up in the wagon spreading out the hay that the "hayloader" was pulling up into the wagon. Note the date on the top of the photo and the steel wheels on the wagon. There was a "hay fork" that ran on a rail high up in the barn that you had to jam down into the loose hay. It would then hoist the hay up into the hayloft.

Don't remember the dates anymore but soon we had other tractors and went to baling hay. My job, until I went in the service, was always to grab the hay bales out of the baler and stack them on the wagon. When I came home on leave one summer I found I had been replaced by a "kicker" on the baler...no more stacking the bales. That's my brother on the David Brown.

The bales were then unloaded one by one into the barn. Someone was always in the loft stacking the bales - used to hate that job as it was always stifling hot up under the barn roof.

 

[Hay Dude]

Absolutely. That's me on that same Oliver, once my legs were long enough to reach the pedals. Mom and Dad are up in the wagon spreading out the hay that the "hayloader" was pulling up into the wagon. Note the date on the top of the photo and the steel wheels on the wagon. There was a "hay fork" that ran on a rail high up in the barn that you had to jam down into the loose hay. It would then hoist the hay up into the hayloft.
View attachment 709570

Don't remember the dates anymore but soon we had other tractors and went to baling hay. My job, until I went in the service, was always to grab the hay bales out of the baler and stack them on the wagon. When I came home on leave one summer I found I had been replaced by a "kicker" on the baler...no more stacking the bales. That's my brother on the David Brown.
View attachment 709572

The bales were then unloaded one by one into the barn. Someone was always in the loft stacking the bales - used to hate that job as it was always stifling hot up under the barn roof.
View attachment 709576

Those pictures almost made me tear-up
Beautiful. Your pop in the hat, your mom in the scarf, your brother handling the heat on the open station tractor.
Reminds me of when I was younger.

 

[Hay Dude]

Looks like your dad was a Ford man.