Things I learned baling hay...

[DIYOrangeDave]

I used to raise goats and I got my hay for them in exchange helping my neighbour farmer put his hay up. I worked 12 to 18 hours (2 days) and I had bedding for a year. Not so much interested in working that hard now as it is always in the heat. Great times!

 

[Egon]

Small square bales; the introduction of the hardest method of putting up hay.

The best hay bale Size is shown here. All done from a climate controlled cab!

 

[zzvyb6]

I've been putting up hay for over 30 years and don't need too, but I love the machinery involved. Mowing gives me the unique smell of freshly cut hay. Raking gives me the challenge of trying a different technique every year and never figuring it out. Baling lets me contemplate the almost instantaneous motions of the knotter drive system. I now use a NH Stack Liner to pick them up. Then the fun would stop, trying to get them up into the mow with an elevator and no help up there, so run 15 up, then scramble to stack them before a jam occurs. Then, the callers in mid-winter that need hay TODAYView attachment 671678 30 miles away and they only drive a convertible Mercedes. I never needed the money, just wanted the experience, satisfaction, and my property looking good.

Now, I've acquired 2 hay customers, work in the medical field (RNs), tired of city & suburbia and bought an old farm that was recently part of a golf course. They always wanted horses and now have them. On Baling Day, they arrive here before the stacker has started picking up, they've learned how to back up a trailer, they figured out how to tie tiers of hay on a trailer and put 60 on a pickup truck.

One of these gals wanted to learn to weld so I taught her to fab and repair using my equipment, Then she bought her own Miller Thunderbolt. I have a collection of 12 old farm water pumping windmills. Today we are going to look at one that needs some work and parts, and should be standing up on their property by a new garden and operating a shallow well pump drilled way back in 1900 or before.

All of this has restored my faith in a few aspects of the future. Not for the USA, but for a few younger people living far away from St Louis, Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, Rochester, NY City, Buffalo, Boston, Detroit, L.A. and Ann Arbor. These poorly lead areas will have to be reclaimed by wildfires: flaming and smoldering. Meanwhile, those escaping their own created version of ****, are moving in droves to my neck of the woods and bringing along their terrible characters, wants and needs, and 'demands'. Kinda fun making them suffer. Can't clean their gutters, fix the lawn sprinklers, have iron in their water, saw a coyote in their yard, their JD L120 won't start, can't speed on a gravel road, lost their designer cat (see previous coyote entry), and have a weed in their driveway.

But haying at 72 is fun again !

 

[nybirdman]

Nobody does small squares anymore around here;too labor intensive and all the small dairy farms have shut-down.My BIL used to do about 15,000 back when he was in the business.We ran a few beefs years ago and put up a couple thousand with an old baler with a Wisconsin engine and 8N's.Don't miss any of that.

 

[Jstpssng]

Most of the bigger farmers here put up a combination of round and square bales; the latter for those of us who need mulch hay.
Years ago I did a stint with a landscaping service. Among other things I drove a C-60 with a rack body and hay mulcher. We would put out several hundred bales per day. When I got a real job I thought I wanted to work haying after hours. On my way home one night I met a pickup loaded with hay so I followed it and when they arrived at a barn I offered to help. I soon found myself standing on the tailgate shoving bales up over my head, through a hole in the barn ceiling barely big enough to let the bale through.
I was already hot and tired from cruising timber all day, and by the time we got that truck unloaded I was beat.

And that was the end of my haymaking career.

I also was about 1/2 the age that the OP is now, so he is doing better than I did.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I had a charactor of a neighbor/farmer. He would go around to the new city slickers and recruit help for his haying. Not knowing the rules here in the country, some just thought it was their duty to help. Then there was the story of getting German students over for the summer and he engaged them in slave labour. I remember the one guy escaped and showed up at my place on foot. He announced, in a heavy german accent "I thought we could drink some beer". Funny though, he wasn't carrying any. lol

 

[5030]

I used to be a lifeguard, so nothing but a speedo. Now I keep the lights off when I shower.

Understandable....lol Either that or keep the missus out of the bathroom. No need to be embarrassed ��

Back when I square bailed, I always wore a long sleeved shirt no matter what the temp was. I don't run small squares anymore. In fact I'm about to sell my square bailer that I bought new. Only rounds now and for the remainder of my hay days.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Small square bales; the introduction of the hardest method of putting up hay.

Said someone who never put in loose hay.

When dad bought a used square baler in the 70s that made it so much easier. Just wished we would have gone round bales much earlier that around 4 yrs ago.

 

[CobyRupert]

(Let me beat my macho chest) IMHO, when it comes to square bales, what separates the men from the boys is:
1) Stacking the wagon when the baler has a kicker or thrower. I prefer the kicker as the bale only drops out of the sky onto your head when you don’t time it right, or you catch it at the peak of the arc, whereas the thrower just launches it into you like a cannon ball. It’s like playing dodgeball for keeps on a bouncing wagon.
2) Being up in the barn hay mow trying to stack. The fuller it gets the hotter, darker, dustier, and less ventilated it gets...and there’s no way to tell the people at the other end of the noisy hay elevator to slow down because you’re getting buried.

 

[turnkey4099]

Small square bales; the introduction of the hardest method of putting up hay.

The best hay bale Size is shown here. All done from a climate controlled cab!

View attachment 671675View attachment 671676

Nope, not hardly. We had 6 cows on average and in the early years 6 horses - dad was deetermined to stick with horses way past common sense (1945 or 6). Every stalk of hay was done with a pitchfork. Hay nets spread in wagons and filled, pulled to the barn, hoisted up and dumped. My and my brother were in the hay mow untangling the 'dump' and "mowing it" back against the eves. Many, many tons every year. We didn't use a bailer until 1953.