Donna and I went over. Wyatt thought maybe Donna's ran the tractor's PTO too fast. Okay... Wyatt had some hay he hadn't re-baled yet. Donna ran the baler. The left knotter re-set perfectly. Okay, let's go bale Donna's hay.
When we started the baling the left knotter did not reset correctly. What?! Why?!! I cut the twine in the baler and the tied up twine on the left side of the the bale. Donna re-set / tied the twine on the baler. We triggered the knotter re-set lever and the left knotter re-set correctly. We continued on, going slower on the tractor. Once a bale was made the left knotter re-set correctly. Then once the next bale was made the left knotter did not re-set correctly.
We tied up the twine on the bale and baler and tried again. The left knotter re-set. A bale was made. Left knotter re-set correctly. Next bale, the knotter did not re-set. We continued on. Donna's daughter and son-in-law were on their way for the four hour journey here with their rented flatbed trailer. Maybe we can make enough bales by the time they get here.
On and on we slowly went. As time passed the left knotter would re-set correctly for more bales before failing. Progress. Slow progress. The baler was improving before another disaster hit. After the left knotter failed I happened to walk around the baler and discovered one baler tire was completely flat. You've got to be kidding us!
I got a jack and took the baler's tire off and we in to have it repaired. The tube was shot. They had a new tube and fixed the tire. $31.39
By now it was after 1:30 pm. We were hungry. I only had a slice of banana bred and a donut for breakfast. We stopped at a Wendy's restaurant along the way. The drive through line was long. We went inside. The walk-up line was long and service was slow due to a lack of employees. We left. We stopped by my house and I picked up a box of my cereal and we went to Donna's house where I ate cereal and Donna's made herself sandwiches.
I put the baler's tire back on and we continued baling. The instances of the left knotter not re-setting were getting fewer and fewer. Eventually we were able to go around and around several rows with no problems and made a number of bales. We had finished the former horse pasture section of hay and moved on to the next field section. By now Donna's daughter and son-in-law arrived. We stopped and talked. Then they went to loading bales onto the flatbed trailer. By now it was mid-afternoon and Donna's was getting woozy from feeling hot. So we stopped and went into Donna's house so she could rest and cool off.
After around an hour we went back out to make more bales. After making three bales the left knotter failures started up again. Again every other bale, then every bale. What?! Why?! Donna was getting overheated again and woozy so she went back inside the house. I fixed the twine on the bale and baler. The daughter and son-in-law were getting close to picking up all the bales. Much of the trailer was full of bales, but they could still put more bales on the trailer.
They were disappointed in the baler's failing again. They were thinking of accepting the amount of bales they had and calling it quits. I had to convince them of giving the baler a go. No one knew why the baler's left knotter would not work, then would work, then would not work again. I thought another set of eyes would see why there was a problem. Or at least maybe the baler's knotter would start working again after a few more tries.
After seeing the first failure the son-in-law saw difference between the left and right knotter and maybe that was the problem. So we got some tools and started taking some of the left knotter apart. While we were doing so Wyatt called Donna to see how things were going. He had finally got his baler to work consistently and finished making all his bales. He didn't think what we were doing would fix the left knotter. He had other ideas. He said that when he could take a break he would come over to witness the failure.
We put the left knotter back together and made the adjustment Wyatt recommended on the phone. Now when we tried to re-set the left knotter before making a bale, it would not re-set. So we backed off on Wyatt's recommended adjustment. Now we could re-set the knotter. Then we went on to making a bale. After the bale was made the left knotter would not re-set automatically. We were back to re-set, make a bale, then re-set. Then the knotter re-set correctly after a bale was made. We are going in the right direction.
Then I noticed the right side of the bale's twine was not tied. Huh? We made another bale, left knotter failure and right twine not tied. As I was tieing both twines to save the bale Wyatt arrived. I reset the left knotter and we made a bale. I don't remember if the left knotter worked once the bale was made as I noticed the right twine was not tied. Wyatt looked and noticed the bil hook on the right side was broken. How did that happen? Who knows. We couldn't make any more bales until the bil hook was replaced.
Wyatt was done baling his hay. He was busy picking up and stacking his hay but he said we could use his baler to make more bales. While he drove home to get his baler we parked Donna's baler and started to try to take the broken bil hook out. Should be easy, right? No.
We were still trying to figure out how to get the bil hook out of the bil hook pinion when Wyatt arrived with his baler. We hooked the baler up to Donna's tractor and went out to making bales. Wyatt's baler worked. The daughter drove the tractor and made bales. The son-in-law went to work finishing loading the trailer. They planned on driving the four hours home tonight. They would unload the bales tomorrow morning and would come back to get another load tomorrow.
It was after 8 pm and I had been helping Donna since 9:30 am. Donna was resting and recuperating. The son-in-law said he had it under control and said I should go and take care of my things at home. Rascal had wanted to be outside when I left in the morning, and had been outside all day with no food or water. I went home and let Rascal into the house to eat and drink. He was happy I was back home.
I'll see tomorrow how things went after I left. Hopefully better after a disastrous day. Maybe they got closer to getting half the field baled. And maybe we can get the bil hook out and Donna can buy a new one. Tomorrow's got to be a better day than today.
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