Starting to bale hay

I finished raking the hay rows this afternoon.   Then I immediately started my hay baling.  I got started hay baling at 2:45 pm.

If one hasn't used the netwrap in a long time one should "fiddle" with the netwrap before trying to netwrap the first bale.  I did the "fiddle".  This time it didn't work.  My first hay bale wasn't netwrapped.  I did more fiddling.  The netwrap worked on the second bale.  In fact I finally ran out of netwrap when netwrapping the bale.  I have a new roll of netwrap and I spent time loading it in the baler.  The second bale was then netwrapped.

The third bale had a problem as the bale was partially netwrapped.  Not good enough to hold the bale together when I would eventually move the bale.  It appears part of the netwrap had rolled around one of the rollers and not the bale.    When I loaded the new netwrap I was careful not to over-start the roll in the rollers as a side effect can be for the wrap to go around the roller and not the bale.  I'm sure I had done it correctly.  I cut the netwrap off the roller.

The fourth hay bale: everything worked as it should, and the bale was netwrapped nicely.  From then on most bales were netwrapped correctly.  I did have two bales where the netwrap didn't stop wrapping and I had to manually stop it.

And I had one bale where part of the netwrap got snagged on the baler.  Only a part of the netwrap so I can still move the bale and do not have to netwrap it again.

So I have two bales I have to unroll by hand so I can re-run the hay through the baler again so I can netwrap it correctly.   At the end of the baling this evening I unrolled one bale.  Then I coughed and coughed as the grass / pollen irritates me and the unrolling of the bale had stuff floating into the air.   The other bale I will unroll tomorrow.  When I unrolled the one bale I did notice a few pieces of wet grass or alfalfa in the bale.  While the grass and alfalfa mostly dried after I raked it, apparently not 100% dried.   I will wait till tomorrow to re-bale the bale I unrolled.

This year had been wetter than last year.  And I also fertilized the hayfield.  Last year I got 56 bales during the first hay cutting.  Today I made 66 bales so far.  I have more to do as I only was able to bale the rows I had raked on Thursday.  It was getting dark by the time I reached the rows I had raked today.  Still, approximately 60% of the rows have been baled.  I should be able to bale the rest of the rows tomorrow - unless something happens.   I need to be done by Saturday night as rain is coming on Sunday and I want all the hay baled before the rain arrives.

While I was baling the hay I saw this hawk (?) on the ground in an area where I already had baled the hay.  Was the hawk looking for a mouse now that the hawk can see the ground?  As I got nearer the hawk flew up into the tree by my patio.  The hawk was big.  My camera had to zoom a lot to get a good photo of this bird way up in the tree.