Hay bale set out for the cattle

An odd year.  This afternoon I put out one of last year's hay bales for the cattle.  The grass in the pastures is getting short.   Usually the grass lasts until late October or November.  I still have grass in the hayfield but I don't want to let the cattle into the hayfield until days or a week after we have a good freeze.  That way the alfalfa shouldn't cause the cattle to bloat.

Normally I feed hay to the cattle in the north and middle pastures.   I rotate back and forth as the cattle wouldn't be in the pasture getting the hay bale as I unload the bale.  Since it is nowhere near Winter I decided to put the feeder and bales in the south and middle pastures.  A different area to spread the hay leftovers and manure.   That meant moving the feeder from the north pasture to the south pasture.  I was able to do that as the cattle were elsewhere in the middle pasture.  Then when it came to moving the hay bale the cattle were now at the middle/north pasture gate blocking my way.

Fortunately I have two middle/north pasture gates, and I drove the tractor to the west end gate while the cattle remained at the east end gate.

Here is the hay bale in the south pasture. With all the calves around I have more animals than can eat at the feeder at the same time, which is what the cattle want to do when they initially get hay in a feeder.  So I also took some of the hay from the bale and made 10 small piles around the feeder.

When it came to move the salt block to the south pasture I found the salt feeder in the south pasture like this.  No salt block in the feeder and the cattle decided to abuse the feeder.  The two metal posts are there so the feeder doesn't get tipped over.  That didn't stop it from getting lifted up and over.  And one of the legs broken.  I had to fix the feeder and put it back between the metal posts before putting a salt block in it.

The other problem was the south/middle pasture gate.  The past few weeks I have left the south/middle pasture gate open so the cattle can move between the two pastures.  The railroad tie has an eye bolt that I can put the gate's chain through to hold the gate in place.  This eye hook is a little loose but held in place.  Well... the cattle apparently don't ever want me to hook the gate closed in the future.  The eye hook is now missing. The cattle pulled the hook out of the railroad tie.  I looked all around on the ground and I can't find the eye hook.  The eye hook is large enough the cattle shouldn't have swallowed it.  But where did the hook go?

I got an extra chain and added it to the gate's chain so the gate's chain would be long enough to wrap around the railroad tie.  This will work for now.  Either I find the eye hook, or more likely, have to buy a new one.

All this took time. I have other things to do. I am trying to get all the pastures sprayed to kill the weeds.  Not as much sprayed today.

Hay bales stacked

Yesterday I gathered and stacked the hay bales from the second hay cut.  First I unstacked (took out of the hay shed) 18 of the 22 hay bales from last year.  Four bales were large and sitting perfectly so I left them in the hayshed.  Once this year's hay bales were stacked I re-stacked last year's hay bales.  

I have more hay bales than usual.  This year's hay bales filled the hayshed and a few rows outside.  Overall I ended up with 5 rows outside the hayshed along with two bales for a sixth row.  Amazon had a sale on tarps so I bought a couple.  I'll see how many hay bales the new tarps cover when the tarps arrive later this week.

It is nice to be done with the hay for the year.  Now on to other projects.

Photo from today.  It was 9 pm when I finished stacking hay bales last night.  Too late to take a photo as it is getting dark earlier now.

Hay is baled

I got all my hay baled this afternoon.  I got it all done about a half hour before Donna and I went to the Montana Shakespeare in the Park play.

I think I got the bale diameter sensor adjusted the way I want it.  It took a few attempts.  I want the bale diameter to be 5 ft (60 inches).   I got it to be 59 inches.  Close enough. Sometimes the diameter would be 58 inches or 60 inches.   What I learned is the bale diameter is not always identical on each end.  It can be off by and inch or two as more hay was fed in one side over the other.  If I set the sensor to be 60 inches sometimes the oversized sensor would go off as part of the bale may be 61 inches.  That happened a few times, but as the bale was only slightly oversized, the netwrap still worked and wrapped the bale.  Still, I didn't want to risk having an oversized bale and the netwrap not working so that is why I set the diameter sensor to be 59 inches.

Otherwise things went well.  Unlike the past so many years when I had a tractor problem, or a haybine problem, or a rake problem, or a baler problem.  No problems or breakdowns this time.  Things mostly went smooth.

I was worried initially as this is the most blooms I ever had on my alfalfa when cutting.  But I think this is the best hay I ever had.  The hay dried.  But it still has a green tinge and not a yellow or brown tinge due to dryness.  Many times the hay is dry enough that the baling action can breaks parts of it and I get chaff to clean out of the baler every so often.  Not much chaff this time.

I planned to let the bales sit for a few days before stacking them.  In case they are not completely dry as the drying action in a bale can start into a fire when a lot of bales are stacked on each other and the heat gets too hot.

I had a handful of instances where a small part of the netwrap snagged on one of the baler's belt.  I had to remove it from the belt.

This was the worse case of a snagged netwrap.

Most times the snag as at the end of the bale.  Once in a while the snag was in the middle of the bale.

I also had two instances of where the netwrap would not stop on its own and I had to stop the netwrapping.

What my netwrapped bales should look like.   Also, you can see how sometimes one side of the bale is larger than the other side.

I ended up with 52 bales.  Plus this left-over amount.   This is the most bales I ever got from a second hay cutting.  And especially since the bale diameters are now 59 inches instead 54 inches.   Fertilizing my field worked.  Plus the first hay cutting was two to three weeks earlier than normal.

My baled field.

Still working on the hayfield

Monday I had finished cutting the hayfield.

Tuesday I took Donna and Kari out for their birthday lunches.  Their birthdays were the end of June and the beginning of July.  Both are Cancers, like me.  This was the first time we could all get together for a lunch.  Later on Tuesday I got the parts of the middle and north pastures cut like I wanted to do in order to get rid of some tall stemy grass.  I was going to cut a small grass strip by my neighbor's driveway to help him out but I couldn't get a hold of him.   So I started pressure washing to clean my mower-conditioner.

Today, Wednesday, I finished pressure washing / cleaning mower-conditioner and then parked it for the year.  I also noticed the conditioner's blade are getting dull.  Either I will have to replace them or sharpen them if that is possible.  Two years and now dull blades.  The salesman mentioned they could probably only last a couple of years before they got dull.  He was right.  Something for my to-do list before next year's cutting.

Then I drove the tractor to the gas station to fill up the almost empty diesel tank.  $139, and 43.5 gallons later, and the tank was full.

Then I raked the hayfield.  Two windrows into one.  Then again to turn the rows over.  It was very windy this afternoon and the wind moved parts of some windrows.

They windrows are 99% dry.  Time to start baling as rain is in the forecast by Saturday.   First I reset / adjusted the baler's sensor.  My baler makes 4.5 foot bales when it should be 5 foot bales.  I tried adjusting the baler last year and it didn't work.  Earlier this year I talked with Jack at the John Deere dealership about adjusting my baler.  The way he and the book recommended was the last way I did adjust the baker.  I'll try again.

This time I noticed a different way to do a step.  The step mentioned to lock the baler before raising the belt tension arm.  But a sticker next to the lock says not to lock the baler before raising the tension arm and opening the gate as it could cause damage.   I looked online to set if there was more info that made sense.  Nope.  So I locked the baler and then raised the tension arm.  I then adjusted the sensor so that it read 173.  That is the number the manual said to set it to.   Before adjusting the sensor the monitor said it was 155.  I adjusted the sensor so the monitor said it was 173.  Then off to baling hay.

Once a hay bale was made I measured it.  It measured 4 feet.  What?  Smaller, not larger?   So I readjusted the sensor to 150.  The next bale was 53 inches (4 ft 5 inches).  I readjusted the sensor to 140.  The next bale was 57 to 58 inches.  I readjusted the sensor to 130.  The next bale was an oversized bale.  I got a warming on the monitor.    Before off-loading the baler I tried to netwrap it.  I unloaded the bale and the bale was partially netwrapped.  Not good enough.  The bale size was 62-63 inches.  Anything over 60 is an oversized bale as the max size for a bale is 60 inches.

I re-adjusted the sensor to 136.  I unrolled by hand the oversized bale.  I will have to re-bale it tomorrow as it was now getting dark.

It is odd.  Who knows why the manual says 173.  The odd thing is this evening when I looked up the manual online to double check, the number is now 208 with slightly different wording for the steps.  For the same model of baler.

And to increase the bale size is to go with a lower number?  None of this is making sense.  When I talked with Jack earlier he showed me the same description as my physical manual and mentioned 173.  He didn't know why it would be 173.  It is just what the manual says.

I hope the baling all goes as planned tomorrow.  I had hoped to get more baling done today as late tomorrow afternoon is a 'Shakespeare in the Park' outdoor play I am planning on watching along with Donna and Kari.

I'll see how much baling I get done tomorrow.

Hay stacked. Harrowing done.

Today I finished stacking my hay bales.  I had to move last year's hay bales out of the hayshed, then gather and stack this year's hay bales, then re-stack last year's hay bales back into the hayshed.   As I never use all the hay bales in a year, this way last year's hay bales are first to get eaten this Winter.

Last year's hay bales at the end.  It would appear my second hay cutting this year may have the hayshed filled and a few hay bales just out the hayshed.  We'll see.

Once the hay was stacked, I got the harrow out, raked the extended corral, and re-raked the corral.  Then parked the harrow.  Another day I will take the harrow sections apart and lean them against the hayshed until next Spring.

Around and around I went in the extended corral to smooth it out.  When the ground was wet and muddy this Spring the cattle's weight moved some of the ground into "hills" which then stayed when the ground dried.  The "hills" were kind of a moat-area around where the cattle stood around the feeder.

The extended corral area is now level.

The main corral on the left.  On the ride side is the corral where the bull and his feeder were located.  Not as much to rake in there, just the location where the feeder had been.

Rain

Good thing I got all my hay baled yesterday.  It rained this morning, and again this evening.  Heavy rain for us.  We got .49 inch of rain.  The ground is still damp.  The unbaled hay would have been a mess from this rain.

Hay baled

I got all my hay baled today.  Just in time as it was 9:20 pm when I was done.  It would have been nice if the hay rake didn't break yesterday.  I would have gotten all the hay raked yesterday, the tractor re-fueled, and the tractor hooked up to the bale yesterday.  Since I didn't get that done yesterday, I had to do it today.  I didn't start baling the hay until 3 pm.

A little over six hours to bale the hay.  Not bad.  None of my usual baler mishaps happened so that helped.  I had only one instance where the bale wouldn't stop wrapping a bale.  That was when the netwrap roll finished.  Whether that was the problem that netwrap wouldn't stop, or the not-stopping is what caused the netwrap roll to finish is unknown.  That bale did have more than the usual amount of netwrap.   I got the new roll of netwrap loaded and the baler's actuator adjusted, and everything was fine after that.

My only other annoyance is that occasionally one side of the netwrap would get caught in the baler and not around the bale. This happened four or five times but the bales are good and don't have to be re-done.

Examples of this:

I made 59 bales. Which is decent.  I fertilized the hayfield this year so I expected more bales.  On the other hand I cut the field almost three weeks earlier than usual.  The longer time in the past would have meant more hay in the first cutting.

Tomorrow I will clean the baler and park it.  The hay dried quicker than expected so I won't have to wait as long before I stack the bales in the hayshed.  A few days from now.

Once the bales are stacked I will lay out the irrigation lines and start irrigating.  A few rain drops when I turned the tractor off, but no real rain yet.  A half hour before I finished baling I saw dark rain clouds and a lightning bolt in the north end of the valley.  But it didn't come my way.   Rain is forecast for after midnight, but now that my hay is baled the rain probably won't come.

Hay rake broke

Every year the past so many years I had equipment problems during hay season.  One year a tractor problem.  Then a swather problem the next year.  New tractor, new swather last year.  So last year one of the rollers on the hay baler broke.  This year, the hay rake broke.

The baler and hay rake are not that old.  I got 90% around the first row in the hayfield when the rake quit today.   The "basket" that rotates and moves the hay did not turn when I pulled the hay rake.  By hand I could rotate the "basket".  So maybe the problem was in the "gear box".

The "gear box".   The lever on top of the gear box in one position engages the movement of the "basket".  The other position of the lever disengages the "basket's" movement.  The lever seemed to be ok.  Still, I opened the gear box to see inside.  Lots of grease.  And the grease slowly would ooze out.   What a mess.    I thought maybe the cogs the lever engages had worn out.  No, they seemed ok.

Taking the gear box apart and then putting it back together was a major pain.  The bar (sticking out of the gear box end) has to fit just right against the cogs and lever.  The grease oozing made the heavy bar and gear box end plate slippery.  Everything got messy.  And the grease was some special grease.  It was very hard to clean off my hands and arms.  Neither soap nor a "goo" grease cleaner cleaned me.  I had to pour gasoline on my hands and arms and wash several times to get clean.   My clothes are a mess.

Before and during.

Then what could the problem be?  I miss my neighbor Curtis who died last December.   He would have given me advice on what to do next.  No Curtis, so I looked online on YouTube for a video on how to fix the rake.  Only a couple of wheel driven hay rake videos on YouTube and they weren't helpful.

I went and tested the bar that connected the two wheels to the "gear box".  With a pipe wrench I could turn the bar.  Okay.  Why don't the wheels turn the bar?

I jacked the wheels off the ground as driving the tractor to pull the hay rake wasn't helpful.  Turning the wheels didn't turn the bar.   The problem must be the wheels.  I took the wheels off.   This was a pain to do for the wheel closest to the "gear box."   I had to partially disconnect the bar to get that wheel off.

Still no clue as to what the problem was.  With Curtis around the answer would be quick.  But I was very frustrated right now and not thinking clearly.   By now I wasted the afternoon on this problem.  It was now 4:30 pm and the John Deere dealership closed at 5:30 pm.  I took the round object in the previous photo to the dealership.  I wanted to take more parts but they would be very, very difficult to take off the rake.  So I took photos of the rake with my camera.

Across town I drove in heavy traffic.  I wanted to talk with Jack as he always knew the answer on these oddball and old type of equipment.  I could not find Jack.  Other repair people had no idea when I asked them about the rake, or where Jack was.  I talked with an equipment manager and he said Jack was sent out to customer site for a repair.  The manager had to leave in a couple of minutes but he said he would let Jack know to call me when he got back.

I drove home.  And I thought some more.  I got an idea.  I looked some more at the rake and it seemed I now knew what was the problem, and came up with a solution.  I waited to hear from Jack.  From my description he said he thought that was the problem and solution also.

The problem was this lever on each wheel.   The spring pushes the lever end out and the lever end catches in the ridges in the round object I drew a red arrow to in an earlier photo.  The levers in both wheels froze up and the spring could no longer push the lever end out so that the lever end would catch in the ridges.   The wheel would turn but lever end not catching meant this round object would not turn when the wheel turned.  The round object not turning meant the bar would not turn.  The bar not turning meant the connection in the "gear box" did not turn.  That connection not turning meant the "basket" did not turn.  The "basket" turning is what rakes the hay.

So I worked at moving and loosening the lever.  I oiled the lever.  I hammered the lever back and forth and eventually the lever would move due to the spring action.  This wheel done.

The next wheel lever was much more fixed in place.  I think this lever may have failed sometime in the past and only one wheel caused the bar and basket to move until today.  On this second wheel I had to pound the lever out of the metal ring.  I used a file to smooth the lever rod and the metal ring and now this lever moves easily by spring action.

Then I had to put everything back together and clean as much of the grease as I could off of external stuff.  More gasoline and rags were used. 

At 7:21 pm I finally got out to rake my hayfield.   If the rake had worked from the get-go I would have been done raking by mid-afternoon.  Instead, with a late start I got only three-fourths of the field raked by dark.  Tomorrow I will finish the raking and then start baling the hay.   Raking is good as around 10% of the hay is still green and wet due to cutting.  Maybe tomorrow - if I didn't rake - the hay would be ready to bale.  With the hay raked, it should be all good tomorrow for baling.   And raking two rows into one row should make the baling be faster.   I want to get the baling done tomorrow as rain and thunderstorms are in the forecast tomorrow night and Thursday.

Hayfield first cut

Yesterday and today I cut my hayfield.  The earliest ever for me, but the grass was high. Time to cut.  Saturday noon I saw an animal walking in the hayfield.  I saw the ears, top of the head, and sometimes its back. What animal was this?  It was a deer, not a dog.

I saw other people had cut their hay.  Usually they cut early as they want three hay cutting in a year.

The weather forecast looks good for hay cutting and drying.  Warm to hot temperatures and mostly dry.  Of course, after I cut my hay the forecast now has a rain chance later this week.  Normally it wouldn't be a problem as I normally can bale in four days after the hay is cut.  But in the areas I had seen hay cut on Sunday and Monday - or was it Monday and Tuesday? - and saw they had raked the hay on Thursday; on early Saturday afternoon their hay was not baled.  The hay was drying, but didn't seem quite ready to bale.  Hay is drying longer this week.  I hope my hay dries quicker.

I had to fill diesel in my tractor.  Almost 40 gallons so I wanted to drive my tractor to the gas station.  Better to do that on a weekend instead of a weekday as there would be less traffic.  And there was.

I filled my tractor yesterday afternoon and got to work to hook up the mower conditioner.  The cattle had eaten most of the grass in the NE pasture and fruit tree area and time to let them out to the north pasture.  I wanted to wait to do that after I got the tractor and mower conditioner into the hayfield as that would mean less gate watching as I drove through.  Slowing me down was after I got the tractor ready the cattle decided to take a siesta next the gate to the north pasture where I would drive my tractor through.  I waited an hour and then the cattle went back to the fruit tree area and I was able to drive through the gate.  When I finished cutting on Saturday I then let the cattle into the north pasture.  They were happy.

It was late so I only got 7 rows cut Saturday.  The first row was slow going as I wanted to cut near the fences but not into the fences.  The grass was so tall in many places that it was hard to see the mower conditioner as it moved near the fence.  So, slow going.  But no fence damage.

Also in the southern part of the hayfield kind-of close to the south pasture I saw two male deer in the tall grass.  They were growing nice antlers.  They kept staying in the grass each time I came around.  Today they were gone.  But as I cut today I saw quite a number of areas through the hayfield where deer had laid down flattening the grass.   The deer will have to find new areas to bed down now.

Saturday I drove at 2.2 mph.  Today I drove a 2.9 mph.  At times when the hay was not as high or thick I may have been able to drive a little faster, but I kept at the steady 2.9 mph speed.  I was making good time.  I remember the last time I cut my hayfield after fertilizing it.  That was when I had my old New Holland swather.  The swather struggled and I had to drive at the slowest speed and even take a few stops every now and then so the cut hay could get through the swather.  The mower conditioner - no problem.  Back when I fertilized and cut with the swather it took me almost three days to cut my hayfield.   This year, 8 hours over two days.  This is why I wanted to get a mower conditioner to replace the swather.

Today's cut was off to a sad start. When walking out to the tractor I found next to the hayfield gate, in the house yard, eggs in a nest.  It looks to be turkey eggs.  Several damaged, others not so.  The hole in the one egg was due to a magpie that flew off when I approached.  But no turkey.  Either my cat, or when the cows were in the yard eating grass they disturbed the turkey and she left.  I never had a turkey make a nest in the yard before.

Then when cutting the hay, when cutting my second row for the day, I saw on the first row a dead bird.  I think it may have been a hawk.  It wasn't a turkey.  And I don't think it was a pheasant.  Why the bird didn't leave the grass as my mower conditioner came, I don't know.   Then a few rows later on the east side of the field - the dead bird was on the west side - I looked back at the mower conditioner and saw a bird fly out of the grass just in front of the mower conditioner.  If the bird waited 10 seconds later it would have been dead.  The bird looked like the dead bird.  That is why I think it was a hawk.   Then for 5 or so go-arounds I would see the hawk standing on a windrow near where it had flown away.  Most likely it had a nest there.  So sad.

The power line towers are so annoying to cut around.

The field is cut.

Broke pitchfork handle

In between putting out another large hay bale for the cattle I will share some of the hay from the heifer's large hay bale to tide the cattle over.  I use a pitchfork to carry the hay from the heifer's feeder over to the wooden feeder in the main corral for the other cattle.   The hay can be tightly wrapped in a large hay bale.  And I can try to move a large amount of hay.  My pitchfork handle broke off.

Usually one can knock out the handle from the bottom.  But not this time as the bottom wasn't open.  I had to drill out the part of the wooden handle still in the metal fork.

I have a couple other pitchfork but they are not the same.  One is smaller and has a metal handle.  The other pitchfork has 5 tines, not six.  Not as useful for moving hay.

Initially I thought I may be able to whittle down the end of the broken handle.  But then I found another handle that was a little thinner and one I barely had to whittle down.   I gave the new handle a try and it has held up weeks now.

Time for hay bales for the cows

Today I put out the first large hay bale for the cattle this season.  The hayfield is eaten down pretty well.  No sense over doing the eating of the hayfield.

Because my new bale spear is three long spears, and not one long and two short spears like the old bale spear, it can be difficult to use the spear to lift up the metal hay feeder as the two lower spears want to go into the ground.  With the ground still not frozen I was able to lift the one feeder in the north pasture where the hay bale would go.   So I went and lifted the other feeder in the middle pasture and moved it to position for the next hay bale.  So that is done.

The feeder I put the bale into is the feeder that some legs caught on frozen manure this past Spring when pushing the feeder with my tractor.  The feeder then became a little oval and not round.  Today after I lifted the feeder on its side, the feeder was sitting in a manner where I could use the bottom of the bale spear's attachment and the tractor's arms to push down on the feeder.  I think the feeder is now more round and not oval.   The feeder I fixed is the one in the background with the hay bale in it.

The cows saw what I was doing and came and stood by the gate to watch me work.

Once the hay was put out, I opened the gate and the cows took off to the hay.

12 cows can eat at the feeder at the same time.  I have 15 cows.  So I put out a few piles of hay from the bale nearby so all can eat in the beginning.   The rest of the time the cows rotate when they eat and all don't eat at the same time.

Hay bales put away

This afternoon I finished hauling and stacking my hay bales.  I filled the hayshed.  The last row of bales just stuck out a little bit so I can't close the hayshed gates.  I put a temporary corral panel in place so when I let the cattle into the NE pasture they won't be able to get to the hay bales.

It is nice the hay bales don't stick out much.  Less work where I would have to sweep the snow off the bales when it snowed.

Glad to get the second hay cutting done.  One less annual project to do this year.

Hay is baled

I got my hay all baled today.   I got it completed before the rain came.   Donna called me and woke me up before 9 am to let me know that the dew was almost gone and I should start baling my hay.   She said she heard the rain would come at 6:30 pm.   I was uptown at 6 pm and the rain started there.  When I got home the rain was starting.  Donna lives near the weather service monitoring site and that site said rain started at 6:30 pm.

I got an early start to my baling.  Around 10:30 am.  Things went well.  Early afternoon I figured I had about a half dozen bales left to make.  I decided I would try to adjust the baler's diameter's sensor.  That is because, though the baler's monitor is set to make the bale to be 60 inches in diameter, the bales made are 54 inches in diameter.

The baler's sensor.

Here you can see how the sensor is positioned close to the outside indicator of the bale size.   How they work together - I don't know.   Red indicates an oversized bale.

How to adjust the sensor?  I looked for a YouTube video.  The only ones I found were for the new version of the monitor, with new features.  I checked my manual.  Two different descriptions were found.  I went with the simpler description.  I found the monitor's channel's setting for the bale diameter's sensor to be 56.  I adjusted the physical sensor and the channel's setting became 60.  I made a bale.  It was an inch or so smaller.  Huh?  I checked the setting.  It was now 59.  I adjusted the sensor so the setting was 50.   The bale was an inch or so larger?  Huh?  I checked the setting.  It was now 53.  Huh?   I adjusted the setting smaller to 46.  The bale was about the same.  The setting was now 49.  I adjusted the sensor to 41.  This time when I made the bale, and went to netwrap the bale, the monitor said the bale was oversized.   I wasn't sure the bale was netwrapped so I manually selected to netwrap the bale.  The bale was netwrapped.  When I unloaded the bale the knife didn't cut the netwrap, so I cut it by hand.  The bale size was 58 to 59 inches.  This is less than the 60 inches that is suppose to be the max size.  Why did the baler think the bale was oversized?

The monitor setting was 43.  I changed the sensor so it was 45.   I made another bale.  But this was my last bale and it was a touch smaller even though I went around the north pasture to try to get enough cut grass to make a full bale.  I couldn't.  So I did the manual override to wrap the bale.  This time the monitor kept wrapping the bale and would not stop.  So I stopped the PTO.  The baler's actuator had not retracted to make the cut.  I tried to manually - through the console - retract the actuator, but it wouldn't - no matter how often I tried.  Even though the bale had lots of netwrap around it, I manually started the netwrap again.  This time it worked.  It did a little netwrap and then cut the netwrap and stopped.  Finally.

After I unloaded the bale, and before I started to clean the baler, I decided to try to adjust the baler's diameter sensor using the other method in the manual.  This method's steps were a little confusing.  And the setting that was mentioned was "173".  No idea why this setting.  It made no sense.   But I did it.  Now I won't know until next year when I make a bale if this works to make my bales to be 60 inches in diameter.

This done, now onto cleaning the baler.  Cleaning the baler this time was even more work.  Because of the roller failure and fix earlier this year, I hadn't cleaned the baler back then.  Apparently the rain and moisture since then hardened the dust and hay.  This made cleaning harder and slower as I had to brush and scrape stuff to get rid of it rather than just using an air compressor to blow it away.

I was partway done when I realized the time.  I checked my mail and the check from the livestock auction had arrived.  Haynes the bull weighed 2015 pounds.  I got 1.58 a pound for him.  My last bull that I sold in 2021 weighed over 2400 pounds.  I got the low end for a price.  Bulls back then were selling for upper 70s to mid-90 cents pound and I got 70 cents a pound for my bull.  This time the price I got for Haynes was in the mid-range for what the bulls sold for at this auction.  I got over twice as much for Haynes as I did for the previous bull.  My, how prices have risen.  Still, prices the auction charges have risen.  The cost charged by the auction for transporting Haynes, and then feeding him overnight until the auction, was a little over $50.  Still cheaper than if I hauled Haynes all the way to the auction myself.

Then off to the bank to deposit my check before the bank closed.  After that, and grocery shopping, it started to rain for the day.  We got .13 inch of rain.  That ended my cleaning for the day.  I hope to get it done tomorrow.  And then work on putting my bales into the hay shed once they are dry.  At least my windrows didn't get wet before baling.  During my drive home from the bank I saw another field of cut hay into windrows laying there were wet.  Not good.

I ended up with 35 bales.  This is the most bales I ever got from a second cutting.  Don't know why. Usually I get 26 to 28 bales in a second cutting.  My time between first and second cutting this year may have been a week or so longer than usual, but 7 to 9 bales more?    This is year is the first time I got more bales from my second cutting than from my first cutting.  In the first cutting I only got 27 bales.  Much less than normal.

Started baling my hay

Late this afternoon I started baling my hay.  I have a small window to get all my hay baled as the weather forecast has rain coming tomorrow afternoon sometime.

Wednesday I did a little more grass cutting in the middle pasture.  Then I spent time cleaning the MoCo.  Because the hayfield was not super dry when I cut it, the MoCo had more 'crud' to clean.  Kind of like a lawnmower when the grass is not dry.  I got a lot of the MoCo clean but I have more cleaning to do.  But I don't have the time right now so I unhooked the MoCo from the tractor and left it to finish cleaning another day.  I then drove the tractor to the gas station since rush hour was over and my fuel tank was low.  I filled the tractor with 40 gallons of diesel then got to work raking the hayfield windrows - two windrows into one windrow.  I got 3/4's of the hayfield raked by dark.  Early this afternoon I got the rest of the hayfield's windrows raked 2 into 1.   Then I raked those windrows - again.   That is because 2 into 1 means raking one windrow on top of the next windrow.  Because the top of the windrows were dry and the bottom of the windrows were damp/wet and with some green, I needed to rake/flip all the windrows.

Usually the windrows would dry by now.  After all I cut the grass back on Sunday and Monday.  But several nights of rain.  And the ground was still damp from back when I irrigated the hayfield.  Here you can see the grass is really growing after being cut only a few days ago.

Then I waited the rest of the afternoon for the windrows to dry.  

After I gave the cattle a couple sacks of apples I then started baling the hay.  It was now 7 pm.   This is the first time I baled hay since I fixed my baler's broken roller back in June.  Would my fix work?  Yes, it works.  Yay!

Then on my third hay bale the console ended up flashing with the same warning as when the roller broke in June.  Oh no!  I tried the manual override.  Nope. Still a warming of a failure. I checked the baler and found netwrap really rolled around a roller that feeds the netwrap into the baler. I never had this happen to me before.   Because this roller is covered in rubber, I had to use a scissors to cut the netwrap rather than using a knife.  Slow going to cut thick netwrap.

This is how the roller should look.  This is how the roller looked after I repositioned the netwrap and then successfully netwrapped the bale.

The rest of the bales were successfully netwrapped.   I did have two bales where part of the netwrap got stuck on the baler's belts.  This has occasionally happened to me in the past.  Not sure why.  But with a little effort I got it removed from the baler.

I baled until dark at 9 pm.   In two hours I got 13 bales made and four windrows baled.   Now tomorrow I hope the dew is gone early and the rain starts late.  Then I may get all my hay baled before the rain comes.  I hope so.