2016 Hay season started for me.

cat fever · Jun 5, 2016

wmonroe said:
Sounds like a good first cutting.

For me, it's the best I've ever had. Since I don't have any water rights it will be the only cutting for the year. It will just get hot and dry until mid September. Not complaining though, I'm very happy how well it turned out.

CDennyRun · Jun 5, 2016

Yesterday I punched out 58 bales from my neighbors field, and got 53 today from a field down the road. All in all I'm really impressed with how well the Ford 1715 handles the baler. I know it's not the right tractor for the job, but it didn't seem like it was struggling.

cat fever · Jun 7, 2016

CDennyRun said:
Yesterday I punched out 58 bales from my neighbors field, and got 53 today from a field down the road. All in all I'm really impressed with how well the Ford 1715 handles the baler. I know it's not the right tractor for the job, but it didn't seem like it was struggling.

View attachment 471035

Nice, I sure enjoy seeing a nice green field.

I was able to get my bales out of the field and in the barn. I weighed a few and the average is 90 pounds. Yes my back hurts.:mur: next year they WILL be lighter. I ended up with 8.3 tons.
Here's a couple pics.

All put up.

wmonroe · Jun 7, 2016

Walking into a barn the day after freshly baked hay was put in....love that smell.

cat fever · Jun 7, 2016

wmonroe said:
Walking into a barn the day after freshly baked hay was put in....love that smell.

I agree, I spent a lot of time in there today just for the smell.

They should make an air freshener for trucks that smell like fresh baled hay.

mattv1 · Jun 7, 2016

i have about 10 acres down, cut yesterday. It's a mixture of fescue and brome, very strange. The brome heads were 4 or 5 feet tall, the fescue leaves were 2 or 2.5 feet tall themselves. Very thick, made the pickup reel on my swather slip a few times.

When I cut, the forecast was dry till Sunday. Now it seems there is a 40% chance of rain thursday night.

Field is in a lowland bordering a creek, it for sure won't be ready to bale tomorrow. Found a tedder for sale pretty close, first one i've ever seen on craigslist...going to try to buy it tomorrow so i can ted and have a chance at raking/baling on thursday.

blah.

CDennyRun · Jun 7, 2016

cat fever said:
Nice, I sure enjoy seeing a nice green field.

I was able to get my bales out of the field and in the barn. I weighed a few and the average is 90 pounds. Yes my back hurts.:mur: next year they WILL be lighter. I ended up with 8.3 tons.
Here's a couple pics.
View attachment 471211 View attachment 471212
All put up.
View attachment 471213 View attachment 471214

Those are some heavy bales. Almost three string territory! Will you really only get on cutting this year? Man I wish we could send you some of our rain.

wmonroe said:
Walking into a barn the day after freshly baked hay was put in....love that smell.

Yup, it's a wonderful smell! It's so much greater when you did the work and baled them yourself.

cat fever said:
I agree, I spent a lot of time in there today just for the smell. They should make an air freshener for trucks that smell like fresh baled hay.

I'd buy it:drink:

Chris

farmer2009 · Jun 7, 2016

Spent yesterday cutting. Ran one cutter mostly but did get second cutter put back together to cut about 5 acres so the other cutter could do a 7-8 mile move.
Dad finished cutting that farm today. I ran the Tedder over the thicker hay today.
Will start baling when the dew gets off tomorrow. I'm guessing around 100 bales.
Then back to cutting. Still about 250 bales to cut.

Cat. I use to like the 80-90lb bales. I had to handle fewer bales. Then we started round baling everything and I got to where I hate looking at square bales. But do like to keep a couple dozen around.

cat fever · Jun 8, 2016

CDennyRun said:
Those are some heavy bales. Almost three string territory! Will you really only get on cutting this year? Man I wish we could send you some of our rain.

Yup, it's a wonderful smell! It's so much greater when you did the work and baled them yourself.

I'd buy it:drink:

Chris

Yes, one cut. Take a another look at the picture (top right) you can see it's already turning brown. It just doesn't rain enough during the summer to keep growing. Of course those who have water rights are watering 24/7 right now and they might get 4 cuts.

cat fever · Jun 8, 2016

farmer2009 said:
Spent yesterday cutting. Ran one cutter mostly but did get second cutter put back together to cut about 5 acres so the other cutter could do a 7-8 mile move.
Dad finished cutting that farm today. I ran the Tedder over the thicker hay today.
Will start baling when the dew gets off tomorrow. I'm guessing around 100 bales.
Then back to cutting. Still about 250 bales to cut.

Cat. I use to like the 80-90lb bales. I had to handle fewer bales. Then we started round baling everything and I got to where I hate looking at square bales. But do like to keep a couple dozen around.

At some point I might get me a small round baler, just so I can use the hay spear/tractor to do all the heavy work. Currently it's my wife in the truck pulling the trailer and I'm loading the hay alone. To much work for an over 50 year old.:laughing: