Donna's hay

It has not been going well for Donna's hay.  It took me three days to cut it.  An extra day because it rained one day when over half the field was cut.   Then yesterday it rained again.  Donna hadn't planned on raking her hay before baling it, but today she spent five hours raking the rows over to make sure they were dry.

Donna has an old baler that makes small square bales.  She doesn't trust her baler.  Last year when she made a few small bales for me from my second cutting, one of the knotters initially wasn't working.  After a few resets and attempts it started working.  When Donna started baling at 5 pm I walked behind her baler to watch the knotters when they tied the twine on a bale and then reset the twine on the knotter.  The first five bales were knotted correctly.  After the fifth bale the left knotter didn't reset properly.  So we had to reset the knotter mechanism.  Then set in motion the knotting sequence.  But the left knotter wouldn't reset.

We tried a number of times.  Failure.  Donna had me run the tractor while she watched the knotter.  Then a bolt sheered on the flywheel.  So we had to figure out how to correctly put the bolt in the flywheel, and figure out why the bolt was sheared.  The flywheel brake was on.  Why was the flywheel brake on?  Because the needles were not fully extended.  I extended the needles and then we were back to why the knotter wasn't being set.

Maybe if I rotated the flywheel by hand it would go slower and we could see what the problem was.  I tried rotating the flywheel by hand but when it was time for the needles to go up and through the hay and to the knotter I couldn't turn the flywheel to get the needles through the hay.

Plan A:  I knew a guy, Larry my neighbor, who knew New Holland balers.  We drove down to talk with him.  He didn't know why the knotter wasn't working.

Plan B: Donna's neighbor has a small baler and Donna planned on hiring him to bale her hay so her daughter can come get the initial bales tomorrow.  We found the neighbor was out of town until this weekend and his wife didn't know how to operate their baler.

Plan C: Just before I went down to help Donna I saw my neighbor Wyatt had started to bale his hay next to my pasture.  Wyatt was busy, but Wyatt knows New Holand balers, and we were desperate.  We went over to ask him a question.   He had baler problems and was back to his garage.   He had ideas of things we could try to figure out the problem.   Wyatt knows he knows more about balers than both Donna and I and he decided to take a few moments and drive over to look at Donna's baler.

He had a crowbar that we could use to rotate the flywheel enough to cause the needles to go through the hay to the knotters.  Wyatt watched as I forced the flywheel to turn.  The needles got the twine to the knotter and it was set.  Why did it start working now?  Who knows.

So Donna and I went back to baling hay.  A bale was made.  The left knotter then was not set.  What?  Donna and I cut the twine and then had the baler try to reset the knotter.  This time it did.  We made another bale.  The knotter was not reset.  What?    We then saw on the bale the twine was tied but not knotted correctly.   We couldn't figure out why that was.

Wyatt was busy with his baling.  But he said he could look at Donna's baler in the morning before the dew dries and he gets back to baling.  So Donna and I took her baler down to Wyatt's place to make it easier for him to look at her baler in the morning.

So we'll see what happens tomorrow.