Hay baling still not done, part 2

I am still not done baling my and Donna's hay.  After the bale fire on Saturday, on Sunday morning I talked with another neighbor, Larry, who knew something about baling hay, as to why the baler was having problems taking in hay.  He thought I was driving too slow.  I drove at around 16 rpm and Larry thought I should drive at 19 rpm.   He thought the baler should always take in hay.  I wasn't convinced going faster would solve the problem.  Larry also thought that perhaps the baler's clutch was slipping and that caused it to sometimes stop and to slow the hay intake.

Okay....

Sunday morning I cleaned the baler.   I removed all the hay residue from the baler.  Some residue was still wet from Saturday's soaking of the baler after the fire.  Then I began to bale hay.  I drove at 21 rpm, even faster than the minimum speed Larry recommended.  Several bales ago the baler began to slow at the upper 30s in bale size.  The last bale it began to slow by the mid 30s.  This morning it began to slow by 31 in bale size.  Going faster didn't make a difference.  I took a break so I wouldn't overheat the hay and cause another fire.  I tried baling another windrow.  Still slow going.  I took another break.  Tried again.  Still slow.  And later once again.  Still slow.  I had started with 9 1/2 windrows left to bale.  When I quit I had four windrows left to bale.

The baler was going slow even if it wasn't taking in hay.  I decided to wait for Larry to observe my baler trying to operate.  When I spoke with him in the morning he said later in the day, after his family get-together, he would stop by to observe the baler.  His get-together ended up lasting all day.

Observing the PTO as I had baled I was thinking the problem may be with my tractor's PTO clutch instead of the baler's clutch.  Monday morning I got Larry to observe the tractor and baler.   He agreed with me, it looked like it may be with my tractor's PTO clutch.

So a call to the John Deere dealership.  Their service department never called me back until Tuesday morning.  Bring the tractor and baler in and they will look at it.

First I wanted to take all the bales made so far off the field and stack them in the hayshed on wooden pallets.  If I left the bales on the ground too long moisture will be sucked up and into the bottom of the bales, and the bales have been on the ground for a number of days already.

Here you can see how after a number of days how the bale affected the grass.  And the bottom of that bale was slightly damp.

So I moved the bales and stacked them.  A few bales had partially torn net wrap when they unloaded from the baler.  So I tied a little twine around them to make sure the bale didn't start to come apart as I hauled it.

 Larry has stopped by to ask me if my PTO was a two-speed PTO.  No, I only have a 540 PTO.  The tractor doesn't have a 540 and 1000 PTO.

As I drove back to the hayshed I ran into another bale. Because the shape of some bales may not be straight all the way across, and some bales had torn net wrap, I planned to move the "perfect" bales last as I thought some bales would have to be stored outside the hayshed as the hayshed would be full.  So a few bales were here and there.  I would drive around them if they were in the way.  My mind was still on Larry's conversation and the John Deere's conversation so I forgot about extra bales until I drove into one.  The bale I was carried fell off the bale spear.  I didn't 'hurt' the bale I ran into, but the bale I was carrying fell.  That bale's net wrap came off and the extra twine I added.  The end result was that I ended up with only a half a bale I could move with the tractor.

The stacked bales.

At 3 pm I drove the tractor to the John Deere dealership.  The dealership is south of town and I live north of town.  Lots of traffic, some of who were not happy to follow a tractor and baler as I couldn't drive as fast as them.  But I made it to the dealership.  It was Tuesday afternoon.  They said they would get to working on my tractor or baler on Wednesday or Thursday.  As of today I haven't heard back from them.  The weather forecast has a big change.  A strong cold front will arrive last Saturday night and Sunday is suppose to be wet.  So hopefully the dealership get it all fixed by Friday as I still have four windrows, and then Donna's field, to bale.   What a disaster this hay baling has been.

Yesterday and today I spent time gathering up the loose hay that fell off some bales with bad net wrap, and the bale that has caught fire.  I ended up gathering three heaping pickup loads of loose hay.  I had a little area in the barn with no small hay bales.  As you can see, I filled it with loose hay.