Cutting my hay

Although I was tired, yesterday evening I started to cut my hayfield.   It took 2 and 1/2 hours to go around the hayfield 4 times.  The alfalfa and grass are tall and thick again this year.  Good thing I decided to not fertilize the field this year.

When I started I was using too high of a gear on my tractor and therefore drove faster than what I could do to cut this alfalfa and grass.  Almost immediately the haybine's wheel stopped turning and the belt began to smoke as it was now slipping.  So much alfalfa and grass had come into the haybine that it stopped the wheel from turning anymore.   I had to remove all the alfalfa and grass by hand.  When I restarted I went in the lowest gear and then the haybine worked fine.

While there is plenty of alfalfa and grass to cut, it is a little less than last year.  Last year, even in lowest gear, sometimes I had to stop so the cut alfalfa and grass would work its way through the haybine.  I only had to do that a time or two when cutting the 4 rows, and didn't have to do it today.

After the past couple of days of getting up earlier than normal for me to do stuff, and not getting enough sleep, last night I slept long and hard, and it was almost noon before I got out of bed.  So I didn't get started on cutting hay today until 1:45 pm.  I then cut hay non-stop until 10:15 pm when it got dark.  I now have about 3/4 of the field cut.  I should be able to finish my cutting tomorrow.

In the first photo, four rows I cut last night, and the first row I cut today.  Last night's rows are already starting to dry as they are not as green as the row I just cut today.

Getting towards evening.

Other years I would do a little different / extra cutting on half of this row to then make the cutting of this row to be straight.  I didn't bother this year.