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.
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