Round hay bales

I got all my hay for the year.  Cross my fingers as something often changes and I need more hay.   I have 9 to 10 tons of small hay bales already in the barn and today I got 24 large round bales.  In the past Dan said his friend produced bales that weighed 1600 to 1700 lbs each.  If 1600 lbs - and these bales look like they weigh this much - then  I got a little over 19 tons of hay.  At 1700 lbs I would have a little over 20 tons.  All in all I should have at least 28 to 29 tons of hay.  This should be enough hay so I don't have to scramble to find hay next Spring.  We'll see.

Dan delivered the hay from a guy Dan knew.  With Dan's flatbed truck pulling his flatbed trailer he could haul four bales total.  If I used my pickup I could only haul three bales on the trailer.   Dan's friend with the hay brought out one load of eight bales so I could get all the hay today.

Why the rush to get all the hay today?  Think of how hard it is to move a 1600 lb hay bale.  I can barely push a 1200 lb bale.   To make unloading easier and quicker I talked to my neighbor Jamie.  He has a tractor but it is smallish and I learned it can barely move the 1200 lb bales he has.  But Jamie - a logger - has a good sized skid steer with a bale spear that he let me use.

The skid steer saved the day.  I hate to think how hard it would have been without its use.   Jamie needed it back by Saturday so that was why Dan and I tried to get all the hay done Friday.  I even canceled going on a hike to Stanton Ridge that I wanted to do for some time.

I got the skid steer on Thursday in case Dan could bring a load Thursday night.  Nope.

Daisy of course had to give the skid steer the once over.

Since I had my arms crushed while operating a smaller version of these back in 1980 I took running it slow.  And moving a 1600+ lb heavy bale also had me going slow.  I didn't want to tip over, even if wearing a seat belt (which is required in order to start the machine).

Since I have a a number of wooden pallets laying around I put the bales on them to keep them off the ground.  I placed the bales on higher ground than where I had the bales last Spring; but still I feel better having the bales off the ground.  They can't help but draw moisture from the ground.


The first four bales...

All 24 bales from above.

Four across...

Six long.

A pretty stout bale.    (The green spots are where the bale spear and two small prongs went in the bale).

While round bales shed water, still, it doesn't hurt to throw tarps over the tops of them.  I'll do that next week.  And I'll have to rake the ground.  Turning on a dime sure tears the ground up - especially when carrying 1600+ lbs.
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