The last problem on Friday was the baler's actuator not working until I did a test and it started working. Saturday was the real test. Make a hay bale and see if the actuator works and net wraps the bale. And it worked. I continued on and made more bales. Things were going fine and it appeared I may finish baling the hay before I had to move my irrigation pipes at 7:30 pm. But no. After 6 pm another problem occurred. I appeared to have only a bale and a half to make. But on the ninth bale for the day the baler was having trouble taking the hay once the size got to the late 30s. It was like too much hay was being fed to the baler, and my windrow by then were not large. So this slowed me down and I had to go from fourth gear to third. Then down to second. My bale size goes to 60. At 44 it would go to 44.5 then back to 44. Over and over. The size should increase as I fed one windrow into the baler. I decided to net wrap the bale and unload it even if it is smaller. That way I can see inside the baler if there was a problem. I unloaded a half sized bale.
Checking the baler I could see no problems. So I started making another bale. Things started off fine but then the feeding problem slowing me down started in the mid 30s. I continued on, slowly. At bale size 43 I was driving north gathering hay. The south wind would blow hay dust my way so I had to close my tractor window. With my skull fracture last Fall I lost my sense of smell. Or so I thought. Apparently I still have a very minor sense of smell. I started to smell something different. I didn't know what it was. For some reason I thought a neighbor upwind may be bar-b-queing. With the hay dust the baler was hard to see. I decided to stop and get out and go check the baler. Walking around the back of the baler I noticed smoke and then saw some red embers in some of the hay chaff coating the baler.
I quickly unloaded the bale from the baler and drove a short distance away. The bale was covered in chaff and loose small hay. The few spots I saw smoke I stomped it out. There was still hay chaff and residue in the baler and smoke coming from some of the spots. I removed what I could of the chaff and dust but couldn't get it all as some was crammed into spots. So I drove home and got a garden hose and got everything wet. Over and over. Even if there was no smoke in that spot on the baler.
Just as I was finishing up a man who had driven by on the road stopped and came to tell me my hay bale was on fire in the field. Sure enough lots of smoke was coming from that hay bale and chaff. I went back out to that hay bale was a pail of water and a rake. I got rid of the smoking areas.
By now it was almost 8 pm. Past time to start moving irrigation pipes for the evening. Tomorrow (Sunday) will be another day to finish baling the hay. It's late now and I'm tired and falling asleep. Tomorrow I will write about Sunday and Monday's "baling" activities.
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