The Life of a Custom Mowing contractor

[scootr]

We had a saying painted on the wall at the lineman's bull pen that said
"If it can happen it will happen".

Add to that ..."at the worst possible moment" and you have a rendition of Murphy's law

 

[Hay Dude]

I’m officially declaring myself “The first farmer shot by his tractor”. lol

 

[BackRoad]

...You and Trump - glad you're both still alive!

 

[Hay Dude]

Cloudy and freakishly cool today (68*).
Gathered up and stacked a bunch of bales.
If you look in the bottom left corner through the tractor glass door of the photo, you can see a rock I marked there in the grass.

Here’s a couple 1,800 pounders down near the swamp. Looks like one has a broken 6th string….

I tried to get a better picture, but failed. Here’s a doe with 2 fawns if you look closely. Rain’s comin…

 

[EddieWalker]

Another crazy thing happened today! While mowing with the Massey 7495, I encountered a large branch, fallen from a tree, at the edge of the field. I stopped the tractor, pulled up the emergency brake lever, but left tractor & both mowers running.
I exited down the steps to the field and walked around back of the tractor to pick up the limb. As I was walking behind it, I heard a loud “pop”, like a gun, and immediately a projectile hit me on the side of my schnoz, right below my eye! Then I heard a loud hissing (air escaping) noise. My nose hurt bad and I was kind of stunned for a moment. I went back in the tractor and shut down the mowers and kicked her down to idle.
The loud hissing still going, I exited the tractor again. I thought a tire exploded, and it kicked up a rock at my face.
But here, what had happened was a air brake valve at the back of the tractor (for hooking up a trailer with air brakes) had blown its’ tip or end off at me with quite a bit of force. Its a valve next to the glad hands valve.
No blood or broken nose, but a decent welt. Grateful I didn’t lose an eye.

That was the freakiest of accidents I’ve had in a while.

The air stops leaking once the emergency brake is off, so I just need to find a threaded metal cap to block it off. Then I will have use of my e-brake again.

Just think of how lucky you are that it hit your nose. If that didn't happen, you might not have known there was a problem until it was worse, and maybe more expensive!!!

 

[Rustyiron]

Sometimes a "close call" is a good safety wake up.
This was a freak, capital F accident that has more to do with your lucky stars!
I'm glad you're stars were lined up just right HD!

 

[Hay Dude]

Down went another 45 acres today. Strange weather continues…. wet this morning, then scorching hot this afternoon. Now chance of T-storms. I know, I know….it’s called “summer”, but this has been a weird one.

Cloudy & cool to start…

Looks like I have a tree to push out of the way. I don’t know if you can see the estate home in the woods off in the distance. I have to cut over there, too.

Down below, you can see another patch. Its about 20 acres. I’ll be cutting that about 1 hour after I finish this patch.

Now I’m in a nice open spot. Long, staight double passes are nice, but you start to get sleepy.

Down in that lower 20 acres now. Been at it for 8+ hours. It’s 90* now and you can see my temp gauge is climbing.

And done (for today). Driving up the hill through the woods, back to civilization.

 

[EddieWalker]

How many gallons of diesel do you go through in a day like that?

 

[LHF2019]

Down went another 45 acres today. Strange weather continues…. wet this morning, then scorching hot this afternoon. Now chance of T-storms. I know, I know….it’s called “summer”, but this has been a weird one.

Starting a custom job here for baleage since no dry hay weather. It is very localized rain this year. Makes it hard to know when and where. Got a few sprinkles at home but he had water running down the road from heavy rain. Just the type of year. Worst part is the day of it is changing whether for the better or worse. Not like 4 days out so you know. That's what makes it hard. Everything is last minute decisions.