Willow trees and beaver

A few days ago I spent some time to protect my willow trees from the beaver(s) at the river bank.  I had seen the beavers were active on some of the willow trees.  Time to do something.

First, I discovered the beaver had dug under a fence protecting a willow tree.  I went and got some extra wire to use as a fence where the beaver had dug.  When pushing the dirt back in place I discovered under some dirt some small wire I had previously used as a fence at that spot.  The beaver had taken the wire off the fencing.   The new wire I added should be able to stay in place.   I'll see...

You can see the willow tree where the beaver got to.

Here you can see where a beaver climbed above the wire around the lower part of this willow tree to get at the willow tree.

Here is another willow tree where a beaver climbed above the wire surrounding the tree to then eat off part of the willow tree.  I added sections of wire to make another fence around this willow tree.  Maybe this new fence will keep the beaver away from this tree.

Tractor problem

After I had removed the net-wrap from the baler's roller last Tuesday, and as I started to bale, I noticed my baler had trouble baling the hay. The baler would slow down as if the hay was coming in too fast.  Therefore I had to drive in the lowest gear to move slower.  Also, I usually bale at 20 to 22 rpm.  I now ran at 24 to 25 rpm to make the engine speed and baler rotation faster.

I was able to make two bales successfully, though slowly.  On the third bale, when the baler reached "60" it would then start the net-wrap.  The feeding of hay was slow and the baler was slowing down off-and-on.  I wasn't sure the baler spun enough for the entire bale to be net-wrapped.  So I then used the baler's monitor to again net-wrap the bale.  When I unloaded the bale I found only part of the bale was net-wrapped and the bale, as it rolled out of the baler, partially unrolled.    Great.  Just great.

I continued on to make another bale.  But the baler struggled to turn as it started to make another bale.  I had to unload that small bale and was unable to net-wrap it. 

During my second hay cutting in 2020 I had a PTO clutch problem on the tractor.  The John Deere dealership was able to adjust the PTO clutch back then to get the clutch back working for me, but they mentioned that in the long term I most likely would need to replace the PTO clutch.  To do this they would need to split the tractor to get to the clutch and this would cost many thousands of dollars.  They recommended to do this during the "off season" when they weren't so busy.

The clutch worked for me so I didn't do the repair work since then.  

Okay... if my tractor's PTO clutch was messed up when the net-wrap roller wrap earlier stopped the baler's belts, let me try my older baler.  It takes me more effort to use that baler, but less tractor PTO power is needed to turn that baler.  Ah... but it turns out my tractor's PTO struggled to turn that empty baler. 

I did notice that when my PTO was 80% to 90% engaged it had more power.  Later talking to Jack at the John Deere dealership he said that is how the PTO usually works.  The most power is at the 80% to 90% range, not the 100% level.  So I tried to bale my hay at the 80% to 90% range.  I was able to do better, but I still couldn't make a complete bale, only a small bale. And even then I couldn't net-wrap it.  This partial bale I unloaded at my stack of bales outside the hay barn.  Rain was in the forecast and I didn't want to unroll the partial bale.  Maybe later I could lift it using my bale spear and then hand wrap some twine around the bale to hold it together.

Yes, rain was in the forecast.  Maybe late Tuesday.  Most likely Wednesday and Thursday.  My cut hay was starting to get brown already as it has been some days since I cut the hayfield.  I didn't want the hay to get soaked and have to wait many more days to bale it.   I would not be baling my hay as fixing the tractor PTO clutch would take along time, especially now when the dealership repair shop is extremely busy due to all the repairs that come in since other people are doing their second hay cutting or grain harvesting now.

What am I going to do?

I need someone else to bale my hay.  I asked Chris.  He was busy harvesting grain, and also had 70 acres of hay to finish baling that day.  If he could, he would try to help me later that day, but the odds weren't looking good.

I went around the nearby area and talked with a few other people with baled hay.  I left a note on a guy's house door as I didn't have his phone number.  No luck.

When talking to Chris he also asked me if I had seen a few red heifer cattle the past few weeks. A cousin of his lost a few head of cattle a few weeks ago and they were spotted heading towards the road I live next to.  One of the heifers was killed when it crossed the highway.  I hadn't seen the cattle but when asking about hay I also asked if the other people saw the cattle.

I had no one else at that point to ask about baling my hay but I remembered a guy down the road had some cattle.  I had never talked with the guy.  I decided to go ask him about the missing cattle in case they went his way.  When I arrived at his place I saw he had a tractor and a large round baler.  Wow.

I introduced myself, asked about the cattle (nope, he hadn't seen them), and then asked if he could bale my hay.  Yes, he could.  And was happy to do so.   He and his wife drive by my place all the time and liked how I take care of my place.  They knew me as "the rancher who rides a bicycle".  I have found many people don't know my name, but they know me as a rancher and a bicyclist.

Because rain was in the forecast he came immediately to bale my hay after 8 pm. (8 pm - I had been spending hours trying to find someone who could bale my hay.)  He had a big newer tractor and a new baler he bought this year.  The tractor and baler were quiet when they ran.  Initially I told him I told him when he was done I knew what I wanted for Christmas. Then I learned the baler cost him $70,000.  Okay... maybe the baler is too expensive for my small place.  It took him a few hours to bale my hay as his big machines ran and operated fast.  It was dark when he was done.

So my hay was baled before it rained a little bit on Wednesday and Thursday.  The guy with the new baler is a great guy and meeting him my luck went from bad to good.

You can see how long my cut hay lay there.

Thursday late and Friday I moved the hay bales from the hayfield over to be stacked outside my hay barn.

My two small hay bales.

The guy's new baler made the balers up to "63".  My hay baler is a little off and the "60" setting makes bales around 4.5 feet wide and not 5 feet wide.  The "63" setting makes bales a little over 5 feet wide.  The smaller lighter bales are some of the bales I made last year.  I try to feed the cattle those bales first.  The smaller dark bales are bales I was able to make during the second cutting this year before my baler and tractor quit working.

I definitely have more bales that can fit in my hay shed.  After I took this photo I put some of my temporary green corral panels around the hay bales.  That will protect the bales later when I let the cattle back into this NE pasture to eat grass.

I am happy to finally be done with the hay cutting this year.  Yesterday I spoke with the John Deere dealership about my tractor's PTO and I plan to take my tractor there next week.

The rest of the baler repair work

Last Sunday I worked more on removing the net-wrap from the baler's roller.  I finished removing the net-wrap at the second belt location. 

I saw that the fourth belt's lacing was where I could work on it to remove the lacing's pin, and I did.  I unrolled the belt from the net-wrapped roller.  Then after I moved the third belt over to the second belt's location I could then work on removing the net-wrap from the third and fourth's belt locations at the same time.  That meant I only had to go around the roller once, and not twice.

The lacing pin

As time went on I found I had a different knife I could use, and it was easier to use and sharper than many of my other knives.    Curtis's burning tool melted some net-wrap, but as time went on the melted net-wrap turned into pools of melted plastic and the burning slowed down as the melted net-wrap pools would harden.  And the tool couldn't be used for a long time as it would heat up and the handle would get hot.  I also used a blow torch a few times. There were locations and times I could use a blow torch for a short period to melt the net-wrap and the pools of melted plastic.

You can see the small flames (lower left) in the following photo from using a blow torch to melt a split in the net-wrap.

I got slowed down for a few hours on Sunday as it began to rain and I had to stop removing the net-wrap.

Also on Sunday I removed much of the net-wrap from the fifth belt.  I'm spending more time working on the removal and was going faster.  Maybe I can finish on Monday.

On Monday I finished the fifth belt.  I then did the sixth belt.  Two belts left.  But the net-wrap was thicker under these two belts.  The first six belts had lots of net-wrap but the belts were not wedged against other metal and I could work on sliding them over to another belt's location so I could work on removing the net-wrap.  These final two belts were wedged and what had caused the overall belt system to stop.  I could not slide these belts off the net-wrap.

I then had to use a drill with a 1-inch bit to drill out the net-wrap between the roller and the nearby metal piece.  You'd think drilling the net-wrap would be easy.  No!  The net-wrap is hard.  Part of the net-wrap turned to dust, just like drilling wood.  But then part of the net-wrap tore and then would wrap around the drill bit.  The wrapping around the bit would cover the cutting edges so I would have to stop and then unwind or pull the net-wrap off the drill bit before drilling some more.

In order to be able to collapse the net-wrap between the roller and the nearby metal piece I had to drill a number of holes.  Making things harder is the belt is 8 inches wide.  

Finally I drilled enough that I could collapse part of the net-wrap and then slide the belt off the rest of the net-wrap.

At the end of Monday I had removed the seventh's belt's net-wrap and started to drill holes in the eighth's and finally belt.

Tuesday morning I finished drilling holes in the net-wrap and was able to collapse part of the net-wrap and slide the belt off the net-wrap.  Now one would think that for the final net-wrap I wouldn't have to spent so much time cutting and burning the net-wrap from around the roller, and just have to cut and burn the net-wrap to split it.  But no...  the end of the roller had a "groove" where it was attached to the baler's metal side and this groove was filled with net-wrap.  Around the roller I had to work.

Finally all the net-wrap was removed.   

This is only around half of the net-wrap that was removed.

I noticed that under the seventh belt where I had to initially drill the net-wrap, I also drilled against the roller for a bit.  I didn't notice until I removed the net-wrap.

I put the fourth belt back around all the rollers and put the pin back in to hold the lacing together.   At 12:30 pm I was finally done.  Time to eat a full breakfast.

At 1 pm I was ready to bale my hay.  As I started to bale my next disaster hit.  The disasters don't end.

Pickup problem

Let me try this again.  Rascal my cat stepped on my computer's keyboard and deleted all that I had written. 

Last Saturday I planned on doing lots of work to remove the net-wrap from the baler's roller.  First I had to do my grocery shopping.  When I tried to start my pickup after the third and final store the pickup ran like it wasn't getting enough gas.  The fuel tank was almost half full.  The engine ran up and down for four or five times before the engine quit.  After that the engine would not start.

I don't have a cell phone so I used the store's phone to call my neighbor Curtis.  I left a voicemail message.  Later I learned his Sabbath had just started, and also he doesn't tow vehicles as he once got a ticket for towing another vehicle.

I called my insurance company's roadside assistance.  That was a mess.  The automated virtual assistant had trouble understanding me.  It put me on hold so I could talk to a person.  After a wait, they hung up on me.  I had to re-call.  This time after the automated assistant had trouble understanding me and put me on hold to talk to a real person, someone answered.  I explained my problem and they said they would send a towing service to tow my pickup.

I sat in my pickup.  It was now after noon and the temperature was near 90 degrees.  I got hot and began to sweat so I then moved to the store's sidewalk and sat in the shade there.  After a while I fell asleep.  When I woke up I went inside the store to see what time it was.  An hour and a half had passed since I first started with roadside assistance.  The store employee said customers told her that it looked like a homeless man was sleeping on the store's sidewalk.

I called roadside assistance again and was told the towing service would arrive within 38 minutes.  What?  38 more minutes?   They also gave me the towing service's phone number.  I waited a half an hour and then tried to call the towing service.  Their phone number asked me for an access code.  What?!

I called roadside assistance again and they told me it would be another 90 minutes before the towing service would arrive as they were busy.  What?  It was a quarter to 3 pm.  That busy at that time?  I was getting annoyed and the roadside assistance transferred my call to the towing service after I told roadside assistance the phone number they gave me earlier didn't work.

The towing company told me they were busy as this was Kalispell after all.  And they thought they had to deliver parts to fix the pickup and not tow my pickup.  I corrected him and asked me a tow.  He said he would contact one of his drivers and they would call me back.  After 10 to 15 minutes they never called me.  I called my neighbor Jan to ask her to give me a ride home and I would then find someone to tow me.

I got home at 3:40 pm. My frozen groceries were no longer frozen.  My ice cream was all liquid.

Donna's brother was participating in a drag race event in SW Montana.  I was going to attend with Donna but then my baler problem happened and I canceled out.   Donna showed up after 6 pm to see how my baler repair work was going.  I had her tow my pickup home using my other pickup.  Donna never drives over the speed limit, but apparently because she had been driving for hours on highways with a higher speed limit, and also driving my stick shift pickup which is not usual for her, the next I knew we were driving a few miles over our lower speed limit.  She didn't realize that.  I got her to slow down and drive slower when towing me.

My mechanic is busy and I haven't towed my pickup to his shop yet.  Next week.

So... my baler repair work.  I didn't get much done.  I almost got all the net-wrap removed from where another belt is located.  Using Curtis's heating tool mades the work go a little faster, but the removal still takes time.

Second hay cut. Roller wrapped

Once I fixed the twisted belt on the baler I went back to baling after 6 pm.  I successfully made and net-wrapped two bales.  The third bale - the net-wrap wouldn't stop.  So I turned off the PTO and then restarted the PTO.  The net-wrapping stopped. I unloaded the bale. 

The fourth bale - the net-wrapping also would not stop, even after I stopped and restarted the PTO a number of times.  So I unloaded the bale.  I then used a knife to cut the net-wrap at the bale.  Two times now the net-wrap didn't automatically stop. On the baler I noticed the cutting 'bar' and net-wrap's roll didn't seem to be in position.  I looked in the baler's manual to see if they talked about this.  I couldn't find anything.  So I decided to try to make another bale.

When the bale was getting close to half the size the baler's belts were having trouble turning and the tractor's PTO would struggle to turn the belts.  Initially I thought the windrow was too thick and coming in too fast as that can slow the baler.  I tried a couple of times then quit.  I tried to select for the bale to be net-wrapped but the baler couldn't turn fast enough to net-wrap the bale.  So I unloaded the bale.  Still the baler didn't want to turn the belts when the baler was empty.  I drove back to near my house.

When I was back near my house I noticed the irrigation has stopped again.  That was the second time this day the pump stopped.  It was after 7 pm.  I went and moved the irrigation lines to the next valves and restarted the irrigation pump.

Back home it was getting dark so I quit for the day.   That evening I google searched about this problem.  I found a mention and an image from the baler's manual about how to extend or retract the actuator.  The manual mentioned the actuator was for the twine wrapping, but I found it also affects how the net-wrap is cut.  The next morning I looked at the actuator and it didn't seem to be in the correct position.  I used the baler's monitor to test and extend and retract the actuator and got the actuator to where it looked like it should be.

Then I noticed net-wrap was coming off the net-wrap roll and across the belts at the bottom of the baler.

I better cut the net-wrap of the belts and remove the net-wrap.  I struggled to pull the net-wrap off the baler so I opened the baler.  Then I noticed the top roller was wrapped with net-wrap.  I got a ladder and climbed up to look.  

The roller was so thick with net-wrap that the small space around the roller for two of the eight belts was completely filled and this was what caused all the belts from turning.

Oh boy.

The net-wrap was between the belts and the roller.  Ideally I could unlace the belts so I could then cut the net-wrap off, but I couldn't turn the belts so the lacing would be in a position where I could remove the lacing pin from the belt.  This is bad.

I could wiggle and pull on a belt to move it over onto the next belt.  Then I could cut the net-wrap on the roller.  I had various knives, a saw and a hacksaw.  The net-wrap was several inches thick and harder to cut that one would think. I cut the net-wrap to find the roller and so I could 'split' it to remove it from the roller. But then I had to cut the net-wrap from around the roller next to the next belt, so I could pull the net-wrap off the roller.    And the net-wrap would expand after I cut it.

Late Friday Donna suggested that maybe using an extra curling iron she had may help me burn the net-wrap.  I asked Curtis if he had a tool to burn things.  He did.  An old tool - made in West Germany.  That old.   Curtis said he got the tool from a friend who would burn/melt styrofoam when the styrofoam was used in a building build project.  

Even using Curtis's tool at the end to burn/melt the net-wrap from around the roller next to the next belt, it took me Friday to cut the net-wrap from one belt location.  

I had 7 more belts to the cut the net-wrap from. Saturday I should get more net-wrap removed from my tractor.  But then Saturday I had another major disaster that took a good part of the day away from fixing my baler.

Second hay cut done. Belt twist.

Tuesday the baling was finished on my second hay cut.   The baling was finished - I wasn't the person who finished it.  Things had kept going downhill.  I was on a highway to Hell.

I had started baling the hay around 2 pm last Thursday afternoon.  If things had gone well I would have completed the baling on Thursday.  I had a problem with the first bale.  The baler should have net-wrapped the bale, but it didn't.  Instead the STOP indicator on the baler console flashed. I checked.  No, not net-wrapped.  I hit the manual net-wrap button.  No net-wrap.  The STOP indicator kept flashing.   Finally I figured out the problem.  After all these years of using the baler, this time when I turned the baler on, I moved the button to the 'twine' symbol and not the 'net-wrap' symbol.  This is the first time I ever done this.   Maybe it was due to my recent lack of sleep.

I set the button to the 'net-wrap' symbol and pushed the manual net-wrap button.  The baler spun the bale and then the console said the bale was net-wrapped.  I checked and looked through the belts.  It seemed like the bale was net-wrapped.  I didn't trust it.  I pushed the manual net-wrap button again.  Then after the baler was done I dumped the bale from the baler.  The bale was only partially net-wrapped.  As the bale rolled out of the baler the bale partially unrolled.  I then had to push and push the bale to completely unroll it.  Then I'll have the baler go over the hay again to make it into a bale to be net-wrapped.

First I had to bale the rest of the windrow as trying to turn around back to the unrolled hay would have messed up other windrows.   A few minutes into making the next bale from the windrow, the baler started slow down to lock up.  I looked at the baler.  One of the belts twisted around.  How did that happen?  How could that happen?

I had to dump the small partial bale from the baler.  Then I worked at twisting the belt back to the normal way.  I worked and worked and could not twist the belt back.  The space around this roller was too small to twist the belt.

Maybe if two people tried to twist the belt they could twist it.  I asked my neighbor Curtis for help.  We worked and worked on twisting the belt but could not twist it back to normal.  We then thought about unlacing the belt so we could pull part of the belt up through the twist out of the rollers.  Oh.. but wait a minute.  Where the lacing was located was at one of the few points in the baler where one could not reach to pull the lacing pin out.  And due to the twist I could not move the belts around the baler.  So we went back trying to untwist the belt by hand.  As part of our actions I tried to have the baler at times move the belts around.  Maybe our untwisting and the attempt of the baler to move the belts would work and the belt would untwist.  But no.  But after a while I saw the belts had moved a few feet, and now the lacing was where we could work on it to pull the lacing pin.

I was holding the lacing while Curtis worked at trying to remove the pin.  I saw the lacing was not flat so by hand I tried to flatten it.  Guess what?  I somehow broke the pin in two.  How?  Who knows.  The pin has to be strong special steel in order to hold the laces together.  And by hand I broke it?!

I then looked over and saw my irrigation had stopped.  While Curtis continued to remove the now two pieces of pin I went and restarted the irrigation pump.  When I returned he had the broken pieces of pin out and had pulled part of the belt out and untwisted it.  It took both of us - me on high and he on low - to rethread the belt around the rollers and rods.

Then I had to go to John Deere and buy a new pin for lacing these style of belts.  That meant driving 12 miles to the other side of town during rush hour as it was now 4:30 pm.  Fortunately the highway was 4 lanes when I had to pass a truck towing a large mobile home house.  Who tows a large mobile home during rush hour?!

I bought 4 pins.  I never had to replace any in the past, but it is better to have some extra pins if something like this happens again during the weekend, or after hours.

Curtis and I put the pin in the lacing and fixed the problem.  Now I was back to baling my hay.  I may not get it all done now on Thursday, but I should get a lot of it done.

But then things got worse.  Who would have thought.   But that description is for another day as it is complex and I'm still trying to catch up on my sleep.

I forgot to take a picture of the twisted belt, but here is a picture of the lacing before Curtis and I put the pin back into the lacing.

Raking and then problems with second hay cutting

I'm having major problems with my baler and haven't baled my hay yet. And I'm still getting up early to move my irrigation pipes.  So I am going to bed earlier and this post will be short.

Last Wednesday I raked my hay to turn over the hay for drying.  I raked two rows in one row to make it quicker and less work for my baler.  If I counted right I think I ended up with 21 rows.  I first had to clean my haybine Wednesday before storing it until next year.  So I got a late start to my hay raking Wednesday afternoon.  I finished the raking quickly early Thursday afternoon.

Unraked and raked rows

Also slowing my raking down is that the 90+ temperatures has caused my irrigation pump to turn off.  Now twice a day.  Around 4 pm and around 7 pm.  On my hay raking day and my first day trying to bale my hay.  Donna recommended since the weather forecast was for 90+ degree temperatures for a number more days I should just irrigate at night and turn off the pump during the day so I don't have to deal with the pump turning off on its own.  So I did. I still get up at 7 am to move the pipes for the day and then turn off the pump.  In the evening at 7 pm I only have to start the pump, not move the pipes.  The morning is cooler and less mosquitoes when moving the pipes.   Normally tonight would be the end of my irrigation for the year but now it appears it will be on Wednesday morning.  I am looking forward to the end of my irrigation work as getting up at 7 am is rough on me and I'm not getting my normal amount of sleep.

Finished second hay cutting, and more

On my second day of hay cutting, Monday, I finished cutting the hay in the hayfield.  I finished at 6 pm.   I then got the idea of cutting some of the grass in the pastures.  Wait. What?  Aren't the cattle eating the grass in the pastures?   Yes.  But what I wanted to cut was the tall grass.  Grass that is drying out and going brown and is stem-y and tough.  And grass tall enough that if it falls against a sprinkler can cause the sprinkler's clapper to stop working and turning the sprinkler.

Between all our Spring rain, and the cattle spending one to two weeks in my neighbor's Ruth's field, the grass in the south and middle pastures took off as the cattle wasn't in them early to eat the grass down.  Cattle prefer young, moist and tender grass to eat, not tall tough grass that is hard to eat.  They tend to avoid eating this type of grass.   I decided to set the haybine higher off the ground to cut the tall grass and leave the lower grass alone.  The cut grass will re-grow and be softer.  If the cattle want, they can eat the cut grass.  I've never had to cut the grass in the pastures before.

I have two sprinkler lines in the south pasture.  The active one, and the third line I use when I am moving one of the other irrigation lines.  I only cut the grass up to the active line, or half the field.  I removed a couple of pipes on the third line so I had room to drive around the irrigation line on each end.

It took longer than I expected and I didn't finish cutting the south pasture until almost 9 pm. Now that the pasture was cut down some I let the cattle come into the pasture.  If they wanted to eat some of the cut grass, fine.   The first thing the cattle did was run over to the tree that had broken off and fell to the ground a few days ago.  They surrounded the tree and looked to be eating the needles.  Really?  That's what you want to eat?

It was getting late to move irrigation lines.  I decided to only move the line that goes in the middle and north pastures as that line is a few valves behind the south pasture line.  First I had to move the pipes back into the third line so I could use it.   I also had to place the valve opener back on the valve.  That can be trickier when it is the last thing to do, not the first.  I was having trouble getting the valve opener back on the valve.  Then I got stung.  Then stung again.  I discovered a black wasp next was nearby.   I tried a few times to get the valve opener back on and got stung again.  And again.   I had to go home and get a can of wasp spray. The wasp spray slowed the wasps down and kept them away from me and I was able to get the valve opener back onto the valve.

It was getting dark quickly now.  No moon was out.   My line movement went slow.  Each time I moved a pipe I had to look for the line of pipes to get a pipe, then look for the line of pipes where I was putting the pipe.  After I moved all the pipes I walked back to the valve opener.  It was so dark I walked into the barb wire fence that separates the north and middle pastures.  Ouch.   After opening the valve I had to trust I moved the pipes correctly and the sprinklers were straight and not at an angle.  I couldn't see them.

Tuesday afternoon I decided to cut down some the tall grass in the middle and north pastures.  Again only to the irrigation line.  Two-thirds in the middle pasture.   In the north pasture I only cut the tall and dead grass in a third of the pasture.  The rest of the pasture was fine.  I didn't get done cutting until 8 pm.  I was able to move the irrigation line by 9:30 pm.  It was getting dark but wasn't dark.  So the line move went well.

Photos from the middle pasture.

Sprinkler line ahead.

Started second hay cut

Today I started doing my second hay cutting.  I wanted to wait for the grass and alfalfa to dry more after the irrigation.  It has been a week now.  I was leaning to wait a little longer but looking at the alfalfa most all of it has bloomed.  Generally it is preferred to cut alfalfa at 25% to 50% bloom.  Also, it is recommended not to cut alfalfa less than 4 to 6 weeks before the first killing frost so the plants can store up enough food reserves to survive the Winter.  So waiting longer to cut my hayfield is not ideal.

Yesterday I replaced a partially broken cutting tooth on my haybine.  The tooth's position on the sickle bar made it more of an effort, but I got it done.  This afternoon when I started the cut, nothing was cut.  I checked and the sickle bar was not moving.  After replacing that tooth yesterday I turned the drive shaft bar by hand and the sickle bar moved. So why wasn't it moving now that I hooked the haybine up to the tractor's PTO?

The flywheel turned.  That was run by a chain that turned a small wheel that turned the flywheel.  Also connected to this small wheel was another small wheel that had a belt on it that connected to another small wheel which then moved the sickle bar.    The chain's small wheel turned and then so did the initial small wheel with the belt on it.  But the second small wheel that moved the sickle bar did not turn and therefore the belt did not move.

I got a sledgehammer to pound on the sickle bar mover.  Eventually I got the sickle bar mover to move.  Okay... let's try cutting again.

I drove back out to the hayfield, set the haybine down to the ground, tested the sickle bar, it moved.  But when I started to drive to cut the hay the sickle bar stopped moving.  I raised the haybine off the ground and the sickle bar started moving.   Where I had started cutting was at the corner of the hayfield.  At that spot was grass and not alfalfa.  The cut grass would clog up the teeth and stop the sickle bar from moving.  That shouldn't happen.  My guess is that the grass was so full of moisture that is why it would jam up the sickle bar.  I moved forward a few feet to the alfalfa and tried cutting.  It worked.  The alfalfa could be cut.  Still, the alfalfa had lots of moisture so I would have to drive slower than I expected.  At least I could now cut the hayfield.

It wasn't until 2 pm that I was able to start cutting.  I cut non-stop as I have a lot to cut.  A few hours later I started to fall asleep while driving.  I'm still moving irrigation pipes in the pastures and not getting enough sleep.  To get more awake I turned on the tractor's air conditioner and closed the window to make it cooler inside.  I also went in the house and got the ear muffs Donna had given me to make it quieter.   The cooler temperature helped me stay awake.  Even though the ear muffs deadened the tractor and haybine's noise, I turned on the tractor's radio (loud) and was able to hear music while wearing the ear muffs, and that also helped me stay awake.

I was going to cut until dark or the dew appeared.  Instead a little while after the sun went behind the ridge for sunset, sections of the cut alfalfa and grass would lay on the haybine's teeth.  It didn't stop the sickle bar but covering some of the teeth mean the teeth had trouble cutting new alfalfa and grass. Even driving at a slower speed didn't help things. The dew had not arrived yet, but the lack of sun and cooler temperatures somehow made the alfalfa and grass seem more moist.  So I called it quit for the day.

I was able to cut over half the hayfield.  Unless something goes wrong tomorrow I should be able to finish the cut tomorrow.

Look at all those alfalfa blooms.

For much of the hot afternoon the cattle laid in the shade and watched me cut the hayfield.

Broken tree

Between moving irrigation pipes twice a day, and the high temperatures, my sleep schedule is messed up.  Today I went to sleep at 4:30 pm to catch up on my sleep.  I slept for almost two hours.  Apparently I slept hard.  At one point I kind of woke very briefly as I thought I heard some thunder.  When I got up later I seen the ground was wet.   Oh, it must have rained.

When I went out to move irrigation pipes I saw in the south pasture a top third of a large tree had broken off.   What went on when I was sleeping?

According to the weather service...

So that is why part of the tree was broken off.

As you can see the trunk is large.

I'm still irrigating this field.  So I now have work to do with my chainsaw.  Just what I need.

Morning dew

It hasn't rained here in weeks.  And the temperature has been hot.  Yet most mornings is very dewy.  Here is a view this morning after 7 am when I went out to move irrigation pipes.  Even the barn roof is wet from dew.  The sun is quickly drying the roof.  It takes longer for the dew to leave the grass.

Third tree stump removed

Earlier in July, before I had let the cattle back into the middle pasture, I removed the third tree stump this year.  It was a tree stump I had dug around in May of this year.  I was able to chainsaw the stump to remove it.

This was a stump I had kept for the cattle rub against.  They then broke the stump off.

Even though the stump was a number of years old, parts of it were solid and looked like they had some sap in them.

The stump was odd.  I found two sections, and a large side root.

Time to get the chainsaw out and see what it can do.  I was able to cut off the two sections of the stump.  I also was able to cut through the side root.  I just hadn't hauled off the side root before I took the photo.

Cut and done.