Hay is baled

I got my hay all baled today.   I got it completed before the rain came.   Donna called me and woke me up before 9 am to let me know that the dew was almost gone and I should start baling my hay.   She said she heard the rain would come at 6:30 pm.   I was uptown at 6 pm and the rain started there.  When I got home the rain was starting.  Donna lives near the weather service monitoring site and that site said rain started at 6:30 pm.

I got an early start to my baling.  Around 10:30 am.  Things went well.  Early afternoon I figured I had about a half dozen bales left to make.  I decided I would try to adjust the baler's diameter's sensor.  That is because, though the baler's monitor is set to make the bale to be 60 inches in diameter, the bales made are 54 inches in diameter.

The baler's sensor.

Here you can see how the sensor is positioned close to the outside indicator of the bale size.   How they work together - I don't know.   Red indicates an oversized bale.

How to adjust the sensor?  I looked for a YouTube video.  The only ones I found were for the new version of the monitor, with new features.  I checked my manual.  Two different descriptions were found.  I went with the simpler description.  I found the monitor's channel's setting for the bale diameter's sensor to be 56.  I adjusted the physical sensor and the channel's setting became 60.  I made a bale.  It was an inch or so smaller.  Huh?  I checked the setting.  It was now 59.  I adjusted the sensor so the setting was 50.   The bale was an inch or so larger?  Huh?  I checked the setting.  It was now 53.  Huh?   I adjusted the setting smaller to 46.  The bale was about the same.  The setting was now 49.  I adjusted the sensor to 41.  This time when I made the bale, and went to netwrap the bale, the monitor said the bale was oversized.   I wasn't sure the bale was netwrapped so I manually selected to netwrap the bale.  The bale was netwrapped.  When I unloaded the bale the knife didn't cut the netwrap, so I cut it by hand.  The bale size was 58 to 59 inches.  This is less than the 60 inches that is suppose to be the max size.  Why did the baler think the bale was oversized?

The monitor setting was 43.  I changed the sensor so it was 45.   I made another bale.  But this was my last bale and it was a touch smaller even though I went around the north pasture to try to get enough cut grass to make a full bale.  I couldn't.  So I did the manual override to wrap the bale.  This time the monitor kept wrapping the bale and would not stop.  So I stopped the PTO.  The baler's actuator had not retracted to make the cut.  I tried to manually - through the console - retract the actuator, but it wouldn't - no matter how often I tried.  Even though the bale had lots of netwrap around it, I manually started the netwrap again.  This time it worked.  It did a little netwrap and then cut the netwrap and stopped.  Finally.

After I unloaded the bale, and before I started to clean the baler, I decided to try to adjust the baler's diameter sensor using the other method in the manual.  This method's steps were a little confusing.  And the setting that was mentioned was "173".  No idea why this setting.  It made no sense.   But I did it.  Now I won't know until next year when I make a bale if this works to make my bales to be 60 inches in diameter.

This done, now onto cleaning the baler.  Cleaning the baler this time was even more work.  Because of the roller failure and fix earlier this year, I hadn't cleaned the baler back then.  Apparently the rain and moisture since then hardened the dust and hay.  This made cleaning harder and slower as I had to brush and scrape stuff to get rid of it rather than just using an air compressor to blow it away.

I was partway done when I realized the time.  I checked my mail and the check from the livestock auction had arrived.  Haynes the bull weighed 2015 pounds.  I got 1.58 a pound for him.  My last bull that I sold in 2021 weighed over 2400 pounds.  I got the low end for a price.  Bulls back then were selling for upper 70s to mid-90 cents pound and I got 70 cents a pound for my bull.  This time the price I got for Haynes was in the mid-range for what the bulls sold for at this auction.  I got over twice as much for Haynes as I did for the previous bull.  My, how prices have risen.  Still, prices the auction charges have risen.  The cost charged by the auction for transporting Haynes, and then feeding him overnight until the auction, was a little over $50.  Still cheaper than if I hauled Haynes all the way to the auction myself.

Then off to the bank to deposit my check before the bank closed.  After that, and grocery shopping, it started to rain for the day.  We got .13 inch of rain.  That ended my cleaning for the day.  I hope to get it done tomorrow.  And then work on putting my bales into the hay shed once they are dry.  At least my windrows didn't get wet before baling.  During my drive home from the bank I saw another field of cut hay into windrows laying there were wet.  Not good.

I ended up with 35 bales.  This is the most bales I ever got from a second cutting.  Don't know why. Usually I get 26 to 28 bales in a second cutting.  My time between first and second cutting this year may have been a week or so longer than usual, but 7 to 9 bales more?    This is year is the first time I got more bales from my second cutting than from my first cutting.  In the first cutting I only got 27 bales.  Much less than normal.