I love my hay rake

I used my hay rake today.  It works great.  I love it.   The only negative is that it is difficult to back up.  I only had to back  up twice today due to the small size of one field.  Each time I ended up unhooking the rake from the tractor and pushing it back by hand.  The front wheel is too twitchy when driving the tractor backward.

17 second video of the rake in action: https://youtu.be/eBNp5gfoN3I


So I was almost done raking the hay when my joy turned to sorrow.  In one of the last windrows I had cut yesterday I found a dead cat.  A beautiful black and orange long haired cat.  Why it remained in the tall grass and did not run away as the loud tractor and haybine approached - especially as the house and buildings and tall grass near them were so close - is a mystery.   I don't know if the cat is the property owner's cat or a stray cat.  It doesn't matter.  I am upset the cat was killed by the haybine.

The raked field

I expected the grass to dry quickly.  But I thought: cut one day, rake the next, and bale the third day.  But the grass was already dry so I baled it all today.  The sooner the better as the weather is predicted to change on Friday.  Rain and cold.

I was probably thrown off by the dead cat as I had problems baling the hay.  One problem is that I made the "wrong lever" mistake.  Instead of pushing the 'twine wrap lever' I pushed the 'open the door' lever and the bale started to come out.  This time I didn't compound the mistake and let the bale go out instead of closing the cage to try to keep the bale inside.

So I had a bale with no twine around it to hold it together.   What I did is unroll the bale across the field.  Initially I used the tractor's arms to push and roll the bale.  Once the bale was smaller I got out and pushed on it to roll the bale and unroll the hay.

Messed up bale.  I unrolled it to this point using the tractor.  The rest I did by hand.

Once the bale was unrolled I used the baler to suck in the hay and create a new bale.

A bunch of wasted time due to a stupid mistake.

For the next bale the rope broke when I pulled on it to cut the twine.  The rope is old.  I tied the two pieces of rope together.  For the bale after that I forgot to secure the back tractor window and the rope slipped out.  Half the rope was sucked into a bale.  After that I had get out of the tractor each time to cut the twine using of the short bit of rope left.  And cutting the twine when the bale is not spinning had the effect of the twine for the next bale shrinking back inside the feeder tube which meant I had to take time to feed the twine back out.  *sigh*

A couple of times the bale's start was touchy.  I had read about problems starting bales.  Apparently if the hay is too wet or too dry, with this model baler the hay doesn't like to wrap solid and start a good core.  While the hay was dry I didn't think it was over dry.  I think my problem was a combination of the grass being dry and being all grass but not super tall grass.  My field is grass and alfalfa with the grass growing taller. This field had a different variety of grass than the smooth broom grass in my field.  I had no problems forming a core for the bale from hay in my field.

The two times the bale's core struggled in the beginning I ended up with extra loose hay left in the bale's cage after I wrapped and unloaded the bale.  It was difficult to clean as I was not going to go inside the baler cage and I didn't have a long handle broom to reach inside.  I had to work on removing the loose hay from various points outside the cage, which took time to do.

The day had started so well with my new hay rake.

I got six and a half bales.

Then in the evening when I went to get my first bale to bring home I drove to the furthest bale in the field.  Out beyond the bale I noticed something back and white.  Paper?  Garbage?  ....Daisy?

No... not Daisy.   Not way out here far, far from home.

I called out.  Yes it was Daisy!  She had laid flat to the ground as my tractor approached the hay bale.  When I stopped the tractor and called for her she got up and quickly slinked over to the nearby fence to the north.  Then she waked along the fence in the other field towards the buildings and tall grass.  All the while keeping an eye on the tractor.  She is a smart cat.  She knew to get on the other side of the fence for safety.

I was shocked to see her so far from home.  She was probably hunting.  In addition to the dead cat I found in the morning I also found a dead mouse in a windrow.  There are mice to be hunted.  And Daisy is quite the hunter.

After I moved all the hay bales to my NE pasture I parked the tractor in the pole shed.  After I turned off the tractor and got out it here I found Daisy sitting in the yard waiting for me.

She pretended she was here the whole time waiting for me.

"No... that wasn't me over at the neighbor's field.  I was here all the time waiting for you.  That must have been some other cat."

Oh, Daisy.  What am I going to do with you?!

Yet another broken fence

Yup.  Another broken fence.  But his time Buddy didn't break the fence.  I did. 

I was pulling Wyatt's haybine with my tractor when I snagged my hayfield fence.  Why was I pulling Wyatt's haybine?  My neighbor John changed his mind and now said I could cut his pasture.  Back when I was doing my first cutting I wasn't sure I would get enough hay off my field and since John hadn't had horses in his pasture for a number of years now, or cut his field ever, I asked if he wanted me to cut it.  He only had five to ten acres, not worth a professional hay cutter to come over and cut.  At that time John waffled back and forth before deciding to not have it cut.

Fast forward to last Friday morning and he called me asking if I wanted to cut his pasture.  Great. After I returned Wyatt's haybine after I finished my second cutting.  Well... What the heck. While I believe I have enough hay for my cattle this Winter... a person can't have too much hay can they?

I wasn't able to get Wyatt's haybine until late Monday night.  Today I cut John's pastures.  Part of the cutting was pain as he had sectioned parts of his east pasture for snow fence and/or to rotate horses.

Because Wyatt's field borders my south pasture I drive the haybine back and forth across our pastures so I can avoid the road.  Pulling a haybine on a narrow road... it is too easy to take out a bunch of mailboxes.

The problem today when I went to return the haybine was that Mama cow decided to walk the river and she was now laying in the south pasture by the gate to Wyatt's field.  The rest of the cattle were across the fence in the hayfield.

And Mama was smart enough to realize I was planning to open the gate to drive my tractor through.  And she didn't want to leave the gate area.  She wouldn't move and would shake her head at me when I tried to herd her away.  I didn't have my sorting stick so I decided to use the tractor to herd Mama.

It was working until Mama decided to walk along the hayfield fence in attempt to get around the tractor.  I cut her off then heard the sound of the fence being ripped up.  I forgot I was pulling the haybine and the leading front corner of it when through the barb wire and broke off an old wood fence post and was now threatening a metal t-post.

I untangled the barb wire from the haybine and backed the haybine out of the fence.  I ended up ripping a section of barb wire from the fence as it somehow got inside a metal spring on the haybine.  I had to break the barb wire and use a hammer to spread the spring to get the wire out.

Cattle are not dumb.  They immediately saw the open hole in the fence when I backed away and they came pouring through the fence into the south pasture.  Fine.  That's not the end of the world.   My goal was to get the tractor and haybine through the gate into Wyatt's field before the cattle came to the gate.

And I was able to do so.

*whew*

By the time I went out to repair the fence the cattle were slowly making their way back into the hayfield.  Once they checked the south pasture out they realized the grass was greener in the hayfield.

The cattle - especially the calves - are fascinated by the plastic bucket.

Checking out the new t-post.

What is in that bucket?!

Buddy breakout

A little after 8 am this morning I heard the shrub outside my bedroom window rustle loudly.

I got up to see once of the black cattle rubbing against it.  I immediately went outside and ran to close the driveway gate.  After that I then saw the only cattle in the yard was Buddy.  The rest of the cattle were off in the pasture eating and oblivious to Buddy.  That didn't last long as the herd noticed my interaction with Buddy and came running over to the fence.

I noticed the broken fence was near the road so to keep the cattle from coming up and noticing the broken fence I tossed them a bag of apples into the hayfield for them from the back yard.

Buddy came walking around the house to see what I was up to in the back yard.  I attempted to keep him moving but he then saw the many bags of apples in the patio.

Uh, oh.

Buddy insisting on walking over to the bags.  He grabbed one plastic bag full of apples with his mouth, lifted it, took a step back away from the patio and then shook his head all around.  Apples flew all over the place.  Once there were only a half dozen apples left in the bag he dropped it and began to eat the apples on the ground.

I used more apples as a bread crumb trail and Buddy walked along eating them and then followed me and another bag of apples into corral.

The rest of the cattle had eaten their apples by now and were mooing up a storm.  Once they settled down and Buddy ate the apples and checked out the corral, I got him to come through the gate to rejoin the herd in the hayfield.  Of course when I opened the gate for Buddy to walk through the herd got up from their siesta and came over to stand outside the gate.

Here is a 15 second video of Buddy in the back yard.  Of course when I started recording the video most of the cattle shut up.  Only one moos.

https://youtu.be/6c4W_wxHyHE


Once Buddy was back with the cattle I went about repairing the fence.

First I noticed they had pulled the field fence off the caragana bushes I had loosely wrapped with the fence to protect.

The following board wasn't broken - just badly warped.  Since I was fixing the fence I replaced this board before one of the cattle could break it.   Notice - the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.

Buddy has knocked the middle board off also.  I took this photo after I nailed the middle board back onto the fence.

I put the warped board in the space between the new middle and bottom boards because I felt the gap would be too inviting for some cow to try to put her head through to reach the grass in the yard - and then the fence would break again.

Why did Buddy break the fence at this location?  Perhaps he was trying to reach the small walnut tree on the left side and then the boards came off the fence.

I am happy Buddy decided to come check out the house and back yard and did not go through the nearby driveway gate and out into the road.  Tonight I closed the driveway gate in case Buddy decides to test the fence again in the morning.

Bicycle upgrade

Today I finally fixed/upgraded my bicycle.  If you remember from last January and my collarbone accident my chain was starting to slip. It has only gotten worse wince then. I've had the new parts for many months now but always put off the upgrade. My bicycle still worked though not as efficiently as it could be.   I knew the upgrade would take much of a day, would be messy and greasy, and would be frustrating.  Yup.  It was.

I replaced:

• the chain,
• freewheel,
• front crank-arms and chain-ring, and
• the rear derailleur.

All were very worn out.

Because my bicycle is from 1983 none of the original parts are made anymore.  So I had to find replacements that could work.  While I had to make adjustments to get some of the new parts to work properly, it appears all but the front chain-ring was a good match.  The front chain-ring is different enough that my front derailleur only works with two of the three chain-rings.  It will do for now.

The hardest part was removing my pedals from the old crank-arms.  Steel pedals spindles into aluminum crank-arms can corrode and bond together more tightly.  Also the thread pattern is such that as one pedals it works to tighten.  That is why the right pedal is the normal clockwise to tighten, counter-clockwise to loosen.  And the left pedal is the opposite.  If the left pedal was the normal thread pattern the pedal would screw off the bicycle as one pedaled.

Since the pedals had been on the crank-arms for years (maybe decades?!), I had a hard time getting my pedals off my crank-arms.  I had to use a cheater bar on the wrench for extra leverage and a blowtorch on the crank-arm to expand the crank-arm slightly.  Then with effort I unscrewed the pedals.

The bicycle rides very nice now.  No energy is lost while pedaling.  I should have done this a while ago, but I then remember why I delayed the upgrade.

Corral gate replacement

I replaced a corral gate.  Buddy bent the other two gates in that location when I sequestered him from the cows each Spring.  This gate is so heavy duty and strong Buddy will not be able to bend this gate.

The gate is so heavy I had to place in the ground under the far end a railroad tie on which the gate sits when closed.  Otherwise the gate pulls sideways the railroad tie the gate is attached to as the railroad tie is in the middle of a fence instead of at one end of a fence.

The gate is 14 ft long - the same length as the previous gate.  But this gate is attached via plates that screws into the post - not via lag bolts.  The other end has a latch to lock the gate in place instead of a short chain.  Therefore the gate's footprint was a touch shorter than normal 14 ft gates. I had to add an extra post in which the latch catches.

Second cutting hay bale weight

Earlier I had posted about weighing a large hay bale from my first cutting.  That bale weighed 1180 lbs. 

Differences between the first cutting bale and the second cutting bale:

• first cutting hay dried longer before baling,
• it was over six weeks from cutting to weighing the bale, allowing for further drying,
• the first cutting was alfalfa and grass and the second cutting was mainly alfalfa,
• the pickup between weighing empty and with a bale had a change of a quarter tank of gas.

So today I took one of my second cutting bales to CHS to be weighed.  Harvest season is in progress so I had to wait in line among the grain trucks.  One guy let me in front of his truck as I was only weighing a bale and he was unloading grain.

After I weighed and then unloaded the bale I immediately went back to weigh the empty pickup.

My bale weighed more than I thought.  It weighs 1460 lbs.  This is 280 pounds more than my first cutting bale.

Wow.  I like the heavier weight.

Shakespeare's Richard III

It's that time of year again.  Once again Montana's Shakespeare in the Park traveling show stopped in Kalispell.  This year the play was: Richard III. A drama.

I have been losing my enthusiasm for Shakespeare's plays but since this was such a famous play - and one I was not familiar with - I decided to go.   Donna came with me.

This year we arrived early in order to get a good and closer location in which to set up our lawn chairs.  We arrived 25 minutes before the play started and already the lawn was full of people.  What???!!  I hate to say it, but next year I will have to show up even earlier.   I ended up sitting behind a big guy who did not slouch in his chair.  And occasionally he would adjust his hat further blocking my view.  I had to watch the play on one or the other side of him depending on where the action was on the stage.

The play was good.  Maybe the program booklet's synopsis helped but the play was fairly easy to follow along.  Since some action usually occurs off stage in Shakespeare's plays sometimes I lose track of some goofy named or minor character who dies off stage.

Having such a strong villain helped the audience engage with the play.  And the company's actors did a very good job with the play.  The play was two hours long and the time passed quickly.

Richard III

Richard III proposing to the wife of the man he just had killed.

Richard III plotting a scheme to get the public to ask him to become King.

The public asking Richard III to become King.

Richard III accepting the offer to be King.

After Richard III killed his wife, he is asking this woman to convince her daughter to marry him after Richard III had her husband and sons killed.

Auction goodies

Monday was another online local auction.  This auction also had a number of tractor/farm related stuff.  Just up my alley.

Monday morning Donna and I drove to the auction place to check the stuff over.  I was interested in:

• hay rake
• pallet forks
• tractor back blade
• irrigation fittings
• several selection of twine
• valves
• Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck framed poster

Donna hadn't been interested in any items but then got interested in one selection of twine, colorful plastic chairs and a limited edition print of a painting.

After viewing the items I was still interested in:

• hay rake
• pallet forks
• irrigation fittings
• several selection of twine
• Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck framed poster

By the time the auction started the irrigation fittings were already much more than I was willing to pay.  One selection of biodegradable twine I let go when the price got high.  I did buy another selection of 5 rolls of twine.  I probably should have let this selection go too at I paid almost new price.  I got caught up in bidding which is uncharacteristic for me.

The auction place was near the John Deere dealership and after viewing the items I went over and talked with John, whom I had bought my tractor from.  I wanted to know more about the John Deere hay rake and pallet forks.  I was trying to get an idea of what they cost.

The pallet forks cost $1100 new.  I bought them at the auction for a little over $700.    I bought the forks for the times when I have to move irrigation pipes.  Today I realized another use for them: moving my corral panels.

On the internet I had seen this model of hay rake listed for sale at $2500 to $2950,  John said the rake was worth at most $2750.   I bought the rake at the auction for a little over $1500.

I bought the framed poster for a little under $20.

Donna bought the chairs and limited edition print.


This morning we went and got our goodies.  The pallet forks were much heavier than I expected and the auction helper used his fork lift to lift my forks into my pickup.   I hooked up the rake to my pickup hitch.  The hay fork is wheel driven and Donna knew of the button to push to remove a connection to the wheel.  No sense having the forks spinning while I pulled them home.  We had trouble getting the button to move and after some effort got it to work and the connection removed.  After we got home we discovered there was a lever that disengaged the forks.   No wonder the previous owner never removed the connection.

Enough twine to last me years.

The connection apart.

Once I got my rake Dona came down and got her rake.  Better get it quick before either I or the cattle break it again.  

Apples for cattle

Once again I am collecting excess apples from the neighbors to feed to my cattle.  While my trees are mostly taking the year off, their trees are loaded with apples and pears.

While the calves didn't know what to make of apples in the beginning they sure love them now.  They get in right among the big cows and fight for apples when I dump a bag on the ground for the cattle.

Some of my apples

2016 fair rodeo

Donna and I attended the rodeo at the fair again this year.  We went two nights: Friday and tonight.  Friday I forgot my camera but I remembered it tonight.


Each night before the rodeo started there was a lasso artist doing lasso tricks.  He also snapped whips.  I enjoyed watching him.  Donna wasn't that impressed and thought he was a little goofy.

Bareback riding.  12 seconds: https://youtu.be/CQJHkA3zSb8

Bronc riding.       12 seconds: https://youtu.be/0iJ9Cb4jFcI

Bull riding. 2 seconds as this ride was over real quick.  He just missed getting trampled by the bull:  https://youtu.be/N1vaAKPvXw4


Barrel racing.  11 seconds: https://youtu.be/XwE5Yv6t3r4

The Indian Relay races again were my favorite.  Chaos!  In the organization and the execution of the races.  

The horses are very high spirited and just wanted to run.  It was hard for the riders to keep their horses from taking off when (somewhat) lining up for the start.  The flag waver usually lowered the flag for the start when the horses were generally near each other near the start.  Bad luck for the rider whose horse happened to be turning around when the flag was lowered.

Last night some teams had great transfers between horses, other teams did not.  One rider was heading out after a transfer when another rider was coming.  As the second rider was getting off his horse the first horse ran into the second horse knocking the second rider to the ground.  Later one horse was getting away during a transfer and a guy ran in front of the horse to stop it and the horse knocked him flat on the ground without missing a beat.  The guy got up but you could tell he was sore.

Saturday night the Indian Relay races were more chaotic in their organization.  First they had two flat out races around the track.  Then the women raced.  The woman's race didn't have an official start.  The first time when they were (somewhat) lining for the start two women took off and raced around the track.  So the officials tried holding the race again.  This time the other four women took off before the flag was lowered and the first two women racers were left at the start.  The officials gave up and decided to go with the second race and have a winner.

Saturday night was unorganized in how the officials ran the races; the relay teams were more organized.

Here is a 2 minute compilation of an Indian race and two Indian relay races: https://youtu.be/Ne_8SHeeaq0

Cattle into the hayfield

This morning I found number 7 in the corral.  She reached through the fence into the north pasture and the top wire broke and she went into the north pasture and then the corral.  When the cattle got up from their siesta in the middle pasture and headed to the south pasture number 7 started bellowing.  So I herded her into the middle pasture.  She then stood there and bellowed for her calf to come.  The whole herd came.  I got a few bags of apples and gave them to the cattle.  Number 7 did not go for apples; she stood and fed her calf.  Once the cattle ate all the apples they cried out for more.  My spoiled cattle.

Time for the cattle to go into the hayfield.  First I had to cattle proof some fences.

Extra posts and field fence otherwise the cattle will break this section of fence once again.

Protect the tree else the cattle will reach through the fence once again to eat the leaves.

Number 7

Number 7

Here is a 1 minute 30 second video of the cattle entering the hayfield:  https://youtu.be/rKvSYYDTgUU

Baling and cloud

I finished baling the hay today.  I waited until after 4 pm to bale the neighbor's quack grass.  Earlier I had found a few areas were still green (wet).  This was under large (heavy) windrows.  I flipped them over and in the hot sun they mostly dried.  Still, I baled this area last so it could be on the outer part of one bale in case it molded before drying.

I got five and a half bales from this small area.  My large hay field had produced six and a half bales.   I now have more hay than I predict I need, which is good.  Hopefully my spoiled cattle will eat this quack grass without complaining too much.

Baling went smooth.  The only 'hitch' was the rope I use to cut the baling twine while sitting in the tractor somehow got sucked into the baler.   I have one end tied to the cutter and the other end tied to my tractor seat,  The middle part of the rope somehow got into the baler's pickup and the rope broke.  I barely had enough rope left to tie together and still reach to the tractor cab.  When I was done baling I spent some time cutting and pulling the rope section out of the baler's pickup as when cleaning the baler I found the rope hadn't gotten tossed/sucked up into the bale.

It was dark by the time I moved the bales from the hayfield to my row of bales.  I'll get the quack grass bales tomorrow.


A chance of rain was forecast for this evening.   It appears this cloud was the closest we got to rain.  As it got dark lightning bolts flashed from the cloud as it moved east and over Glacier Park.

Raking and baling

Today I finished raking the windrows.  Merging windrows I ended up with less than a third of the original windows.  I spent four and a half hours today raking.

I put the rake away and hooked up the baler.  After eating a late lunch I started baling.   Three hours later I was done baling the hay in the hayfield.  Everything went smooth.  I finished before dark.

I had estimated that I will need seven more large bales to feed the cattle this Winter. I got 34 bales from the first cutting.  This second cutting... I got six and a half bales.  Less than a fifth of the first cutting.  The alfalfa grew nicely for the second cutting, the grass didn't.  That was the difference.

Tomorrow I will bale the neighbor's quack grass and that will put me over the amount of hay I estimate I will need this Winter.

The raked windrows

Drier part of the hayfield where the raked windrows are farther apart.

A raked windrow

The hay is dry. This time I baled it before it got bleached brown by the sun.