Still working on my hay

I'm not done with my haying yet.   Tomorrow maybe?

Monday I took my broken universal u-joint in to the repair shop.  They thought it would be fixed on Wednesday and would call me when done.  No call today.

I also went to the John Deere dealership to buy another roll of netwrap.  I wasn't sure I had enough netwrap on the roll I had.  $297 for a roll of netwrap.   Good thing that I bought a new roll.  Eight or nine bales later and I ran out of netwrap. Sooner than I expected. I discovered I was close to be out of netwrap when the wrapped bales had a red band in the netwrap.  Four bales or so later I ran out of netwrap.

Why I thought I had more netwrap left.  I thought the tube the netwrap was around was smaller than what it was.

The new netwrap roll just loaded into the baler.

To start a new roll one must wedge the netwrap for a little, little bit between the rollers.

The new netwrapped bale had some of the netwrap from the old roll, then the netwrap from the new roll.   So the bale looks a little more netwrapped than usual.

The baling was going well.  I had a little over three rows of hay left to bale when the baler started acting up.  The baler wouldn't stop netwrapping the bale when it should have done so.  I stopped and restarted the PTO.  On the third try the baler then stopped the netwrapping.  So the hay bale looks more 'netwrapped' than usual.

The next bale netwrapped fine. The one after that one - the netwrapping wouldn't stop.  Even after I stopped and started the PTO four times.  So I unloaded the hay bale.   That meant I had to cut the netwrap by hand.  I was not going to make the same mistake as last year when I cut the netwrap in the wrong spot and then it continued on when making the next bale and ended up wrapping a roller and then stopping the baler suddenly.  I cut the netwrap outside the back rollers and then had to restart the netwrap by hand by wedging the netwrap between two rollers.  By doing so I discovered the actuator had not retracted.  It took some time and reading and re-reading of the manual to get the retract button to work.

The next bale... the netwrap wouldn't stop.  I played around with the extract and retract buttons thinking this would cause the netwrap to be cut.   Nope.  At least the way I tried doing it.  The baler then forgot about netwrapping the bale.  But it still didn't cut the netwrap.  So I pressed the manul button to netwrap the bale and everything worked.  An extra wrapping of the bale but it stopped correctly and cut the netwrap.

Ok... well maybe I can bale the rest of the rows by doing these extra steps and overrides.   But then the baler netwrapped the remaining five bales correctly.   Why it failed then worked again is unknown to me.

At least I got the cut hay baled.  I still had more hay to cut.

When I bought the netwrap roll at the dealership I also talked with Jack.  He was the repairman who fixed my tractor last year and he knows alot.  I mentioned my haybine problems and he knew about similar problems and he had suggestions.  One was that the blades/knives points must be in the middle between the rockguards when one tightens the knife head bolt through the bushing. Otherwise the bushing can get damaged.  I wasn't positive they were in that position when I tightened the bolt before, so I loosened - moved the sickle bar back and forth then to the correct position - and then retightened the bolt.

Another idea was if the blades/knives were sharp.  I think the are as they feel sharp to me.   Lastly, the rock guards can't be dull.  The rock guards?  Well, the knives point goes from one rock guard to the other when the wobbler moves the sickle bar.  The grass and alfalfa is cut by the sideways movement.  Alfalfa is easier to cut than grass.  The sickle bar stops when the grass stays between the knife and the rock guard.  I then had to pull the grass from each side of the knife.  And the grass gets wedged where the knife goes inside the rock guard.

Earlier I had taken one rock guard off the haybine.  I ended up with a strip of uncut grass.  The knife movement alone is not enough to cut grass.

The rock guard also had to be sharp?  Mine don't look sharp.

I looked at the rock guards on my old OMC haybine.  They don't look sharp either.

New rock guards?  How expensive is that?

In the meantime I had contacted Buddy, the guy who baled my hay last year when my tractor's PTO stopped working.  Buddy came July 4 and I paid him to cut the rest of my hayfield.  That way I didn't have to wait for my fixed u-joint and then try to finish the cutting myself.

Buddy has a brand new self propelled MoCo. A large machine.  The cut is 13 1/2 feet across.   He cut my field in a half hour.  Even when my haybine worked, it would have taken me hours to cut the field.

 I like Buddy's machine, but it is overkill for just me.  Besides, it costs $175,000.

Yesterday I cut the grass under the powerline towers using a hand scythe.   The day went by since I also did other things first.  I didn't get cutting until after 8 pm.  The grass under the towers is thick and tall and it took some time.

First I cut the grass around the legs on the tower I had cut around and under.  On the last tower leg I saw a brown animal as I was swinging the scythe to cut.  Close!  I stopped and looked carefully as I didn't want to scare it.  It looks like a turkey.  Why it didn't move when I was so close... was it because she was sitting on a nest of eggs?   I think I saw a little movement and the turkey was alive.   I stopped cutting at this tower and left her be.

Back when I was cutting hay a few days ago I had a turkey rooster leave the field.  A hen would run in and out of the grass in one corner of the grass to be cut.  I didn't want to run over it.  Stop running back into the grass!

Hours later, after I had fixed some haybine problems, a hen would run in the grass in the next corner of the grass to be cut.  This hen had chicks running in after the hen.  Stop!  I don't want to hurt you, and I can't see where you are when you run into the tall thick grass.   I never saw and bodies after I cut, and when I baled the hay.

I left the grass where this turkey was laying.

The other tower Buddy cut around.  His machine doesn't fit under the tower, so I had lots of grass to cut.

There was no rain in the forecast.  But the weather forecasters didn't know I had hay cut.  Eventually I had some rain raindrops fall on me.  Not bad, so I kept cutting.  When I was almost done it began to rain harder.  I was wet by the time I got to the house.  .05 of an inch of rain.  Annoying.