Cutting Donna's hay

I haven't heard back from Buddy about cutting Donna's hay.   Last week he thought he could do it this week.  Donna wants her hay cut.  Earlier this week she asked if my u-joint was fixed.  I hadn't heard from the repair shop.  They had said they would call me when it was fixed.  I got busy getting my irrigation going.

Donna asked again.  I said I was going back to sleep after moving irrigation pipes Thursday morning.  I told Donna she could call the repair shop for me.  Five minutes later Donna called me back.  My u-joint was fixed and ready for me to pick up.

$198 later and my u-joint looks better than it did before.

The next I needed was diesel for my tractor.  I told Donna I would get the diesel Thursday evening as I wanted to drive my tractor to the gas station and wanted to avoid the traffic and would wait until the traffic was slower. It was good I waited as it rained Thursday afternoon.  I got a small amount but near Donna they got .11 of an inch.

I spent Thursday afternoon fixing the haybine.  I borrowed a torque wrench from Curtis.  The knife head bolt is supposed to be tightened to 85 ft lbs when the sickle blade/teeth are midway between the rock guards.  So I re-did the tightening of the knife head bolt.

Then I needed to fix the one broken bolt on the two plates that attach to the gearbox.   Near the beginning of my hay cutting one bolt sheared off and flew into the tractor cab.  There are 8 bolts connecting the two plates.  A bolt and a heavy spring.  The spring is missing.  I bought a new bolt.   The u-joint repair shop had a similar spring he gave me.  I had to add a couple extra washers to make up for the slightly short spring length.   I think I got the job done.

Friday at noon I started cutting the back half of Donna's hayfield.  That is where the taller grass is located as Donna had replanted this part of the field a few years ago.   The cutting went well.   No problems.  No sheared bolts.  No jamming of the sickle bar.  I was able to cut in the tractor's second lowest gear and did not have to rely on the lowest gear.  My only problem was a few feet from where I was going to stop for the day.  That is when grass caught in the rock guards and sickle teeth.  This time it did not stop the sickle bar, but slowed it down a whole lot.  This meant the grass was barely cut.   I cleaned the grass from the sickle teeth and rock guard and called it a day.  I had been cutting for 7 hours.

Today I finished cutting Donna's field. It started off slower.  I was cutting shorter grass and therefore drove in the lowest gear.  I didn't want to spent time pulling jammed grass out of the rock guard and sickle teeth.  After almost two hours of cutting I went up to the second slowest gear.  I wanted to finish cutting the field today.  A few times I had to slow down for a little bit due to short grass and grass not completely getting cut.   But I finished cutting Donna's field.  And I had some time before moving my irrigation pipes where I could use the air compressor to clean the grass off the haybine.  This took a little longer than expected and I got a late start to moving irrigation pipes, but I got them move before dark.  Now on to baling Donna's hay

The neighbor's fence, which I wanted to - and did - avoid hitting with the haybine.

Lots of field to cut.

Donna's dog, Rusty, wanted to help me.

Watching Donna coming to get Rusty.

Donna coming to get Rusty.