Hay bales and irrigation continued

Today my goals were:

1. Move the remaining 8 hay bales from the hayfield over to the NE pasture,
2. Cleanup the hay flakes left in the hayfield and re-bale the four totally broken hay bales,
3. Extend the mainline irrigation pipe across the hayfield,
4. Move the two sprinkler lines

What I got done...

I moved the eight hay bales.  It went well.  Only one bale flaked once.  I finished moving the bales by noon.

I cleaned up the hay flakes then turned my attention to re-baling the broken bales.  From the hay flake pickup I had about a fifth of a bale made.  I re-baled two broken bales and used a little from the third bale before I had a full hay bale made.  I know I lost a little hay in the re-baling from the broken and fine hay too fine to be picked up by the baler, but it wasn't that much lost.  I put down most of the 'shrinkage' due to the new bale being more compressed than the old bale.

It was now 3 pm.  It took me three hours to clean the field and re-bale two bales.  I went to work on the last two bales.  They were a challenge.  Once I finally got all the hay re-baled I had about a half of a bale.  More shrinkage.

I tried to wrap twine around the bale.  The twine would not go into the baler.  There was either too much loose hay in the baler or the hay to go into the baler was too fine.  I tried using some hay that had not been re-baled yet.  But then I used the wrong lever.  I started to open the back door and not move the twine tube.  I didn't open the door but I must have moved it just enough because the bale would no longer spin in the baler.   All the bales I made this year and this was the first time I used the wrong lever.

So I had to dump the bale.  But then it would not come out of the baler.  I had to use a long crowbar and pry the bale out of the baler.  Other than it really wasn't much of a bale but a collection of hay "glommed" together.  The bale came out in pieces.

It was now 5 pm.  I would have better off just using a pitchfork and loading the hay in my pickup to be offloaded in the barn as loose hay.  Because that is what I will have to do tomorrow.  In addition I will have to rake up the chewed up hay spread around the field as I attempted to re-bale the last broken bale.

What a mess.  And I still have work to do with hay tomorrow.

The remains of two full bales

What a mess.

The hay bale once I pried it out of the baler.

Look a how fine the hay became after I re-baled it.

Once I dumped the bale, I cleared the loose hay from around the baler and then decided to run the baler to drop the loose hay in the baler out the back.

Gee... the twine that wouldn't go in the baler when the bad bale was inside somehow got sucked into the baler when the baler was empty.  I had to get a knife and cut the twine along the roller as the twine was tightly stuck.

I did a quick check of the belts.  They were all in the right spots.  The bottom belt that had jumped the divider yesterday was also still in its spot.  I did noticed the left side of the belt that goes under the metal in the far lower left side of the photo was out of the metal and starting to ride on top of the metal.  So I used a smaller crowbar and pried the belt back under the metal.

Then after a late lunch I turned my attention to the irrigation pipes.  I moved the two sprinkler lines.  The northern line I moved over one valve.  The south line was at the western end of the ranch.  I drug all its pipes to the very eastern end of the ranch to start watering the hayfield again.  For now I am leaving on the third line in the south pasture that I have used to relieve water pressure when switching lines.

By the time I got the pipes moved it was getting dark.  And I was running low on energy.  The mainline extension and sprinkler line addition will have to wait till tomorrow.