A few pics from today’s square baling

[ljjhouser]

Thanks you guys. What great pictures. I never farmed, but I had college roommates who were from farm families. Seem there was always one of the roommates kind enough to invite me to their home (farm). When it was time to put up hay. We called it "working for food." We worked, we got fed. Not a bad arrangement. Seems to be an new concept today. Terrific pictures. Thank You.

 

[lman]

Even the smaller 70# bales are now managed by equipment. The most common buyer around here are people with horses. The baler can be followed by an accumulator that organizes them into a single layer group of 8 to 12 bales and lays them on the ground, then that group can be picked up by tractor with FEL and hay grapple which lays over the group and picks them all up in unison, then places the group on a trailer/truck.

My hay is baled and collected that way, unfortunately my barn is not set up to be stacked with the grapple. You guessed it this old fart is still stacking hay in my barn. I've got 200 bales on my trailer waiting to be unloaded and stacked by hand.
Anybody want to buy some horses. My wife has a 37 year old horse and I think it's just about history.

 

[ljjhouser]

My hay is baled and collected that way, unfortunately my barn is not set up to be stacked with the grapple. You guessed it this old fart is still stacking hay in my barn. I've got 200 bales on my trailer waiting to be unloaded and stacked by hand.
Anybody want to buy some horses. My wife has a 37 year old horse and I think it's just about history.

There is a science involved in stacking hay bales. It has been my limited experience that a 70# bale actually weights 100# after lunch. So the science of stacking tells us it should be done in the morning, before lunch, not in the afternoon. Hope that helps! Best wishes, Larry

 

[lman]

There is a science involved in stacking hay bales. It has been my limited experience that a 70# bale actually weights 100# after lunch. So the science of stacking tells us it should be done in the morning, before lunch, not in the afternoon. Hope that helps! Best wishes, Larry

Oh, I guess it's too late today then. There's always tomorrow. I've got to work at a real job Wed.-Fri. so I can recover then.

 

[JWR]

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

Many a dump rake was converted to tractor pull configuration as the horses were phased out !! We did exactly as pictured here using a MH Pacer to pull with in the 1950's. I was riding the 10ft rake at age 10 when we ran over the biggest black snake I ever saw with both rake wheels... i.e. more than 10ft long ! I was perched up on top of the seat with both feet by that time. The good old days ! I still have the Pacer AND the crank handle if I can still find the handle...

 

[JWR]

It can get dicey when 2 tractors are passing nearby in fields (collision), connecting/disconnecting PTO shafts, hot/sharp metals, fall from baler, eye injuries, etc. I know a guy who fell off a square baler and broke his back. Plenty of families around here with dead sons or fathers.
Farming is incredibly dangerous career and sometimes I think I should quit.

I have lost several friends who died from a tractor rolling over on them while bush hogging -- Bob Mendez, Tommy Stout to name a couple. Another was crushed underneath a baler he had crawled under to work on. Another friend who was big in FFA in the 1950's (Worthy Hall) lost an arm reaching into what was then a new tech hay baler. They sewed his arm back on and he is using it today in his 80's. You better betcha farming is inherently hazzardous ! I won't quite say "dangerous" because if you stay alert and avoid doing stupid things you convert "hazardous" away from "dangerous" to "almost safe."

 

[ljjhouser]

Oh, I guess it's too late today then. There's always tomorrow. I've got to work at a real job Wed.-Fri. so I can recover then.

Ha Ha still laughing! Great! And, if the forecast is for rain in the next 3 days, You won't have to cover it because past experience has also shown us, that rain will not happen. You should have 2 weeks to wait for a good morning.

 

[JWR]

Post up more pics!
Here’s some feed hay in one of my many leaky, creaky condemned hay sheds. I swear by plastic pallets to reduce bottom spoilage.

View attachment 709692

Here we are making some 4x4x8 big squares and some 4x5 round bales in the background


View attachment 709697


Typical 1500 pound bales

View attachment 709699


Setting up to bale another field

View attachment 709700

I was just going to ask what those big square bales weigh ! I tossed a lot of hay bales as a teenager but not 1500lb ones ! Also I note the power lines cohabitate with your work. I just had 1/2 mile of 140 ft wide right of way put across the middle of my farm a few years back -- 138,000 volt lines on 100ft tall twin wooden braced together poles. In WV.


Hey thanks for doing this thread -- so many nostalgic pictures and reality to see sompared to the crazed world around us these days !!!
Enjoyed it.

 

[Budweiser John]

I do miss haying but in a way I don't must be age thing,

Let’s just say 30 years ago when hay season rolled around and small square bales were the norm the anticipation of a barn full of green sweet smelling hay was almost as good as making love ( note the term almost), we had an inventory of willing young Teenagers mostly striking for that first string football team And willing to flex their muscles in completion with one another to get the crop under cover and beat the rain.
Then it happened, the internet, Facebook, and helicopter parents. Finding hay labor took as much time as harvesting the crop. Those young bucks willing to sweat and grow a few blisters were usually on the hook for some type of court ordered Restiration or were in need of a few bucks to fuel their addiction to whatever was popular at the time.
I sold my hay equipment 20 years ago and bought hay on the open market for probably another 8 to 10 years before bowing out of livestock after nearly 45 years.
Golden memories…….

B. John

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Glad my kids got to experience it