Storing my hay bales

On Thursday and Friday I moved my hay bales into the hayshed.  After all my time and effort in cutting and baling my hay I ended up with 74 bales.  This is the most I ever had.  Last year I had 59 bales from my first hay cutting, and that was after I fertilized the field.  It didn't seem like more hay than last year.

It turns out my hay bale totals are different because I used different balers to bale the hay.   Both balers should make a 5 ft by 64 inch long bale.  Both hay bales are 64 inches long.  While the new baler maximum size is 60 (inches?) the bale after it is net wrapped is 4 1/2 feet tall.  Not 5 feet.

The new bales look to be more dense than the old bales.  So I thought the weights may be the same.  On Friday I put a bale into my pickup and hauled it to CHS to be weighed.  The old bales would completely go side to side in the pickup's box.  The new bales had a little room on each side of the bale when it sat in the pickup box.  Again 4 1/2 feet versus 5 feet.

This year's bale's weight is lighter.  Twice I weighed my old bales the first year I had that baler.  Once for a first cutting of the hay, and the second time for the second cutting of the hay.  The first bale weighed 1180 lbs.  The second cutting's bale weighed 1460 lbs.  This new hay bale weighed 960 lbs.   Much lighter.   If I go by total weight.   59 times 1180 equals 69,620 lbs.   74 times 960 equals 71,040 lbs.  So the total weight difference is that this year's hay weighed 1,420 lbs more.


I had 14 bales left over from last year.  I moved them out of the hayshed temporarily so I could put all my new hay in the hayshed.

The hayshed is 20 feet wide.  The old bales just fit wall to wall.  And where the posts are located, the bales squeezed in.   The new bales equal 18 ft in total and that leaves a few feet on the side.  A nice fit, and no pressure on the walls.

Also the height is shorter.  13.5 feet versus 15 ft on top of the wooden pallets.  I could stack the third 5 foot bale but I had to put the bale fork in the lower part of the hay bale as the tractor loader's reach had the third bale barely going above the second bale.   No problems stacking the 4.5 foot bales.

With 74 bales it took two days to move and stack them all.  52 bales on Thursday.  22 bales on Friday.   I also moved last the three bales with poor net wrap on them.  I didn't want to try to re-bale these bales.  To keep the bales from falling apart I took some old twine I had and wound it around each bale.

This bale wasn't too bad to add twine too.

This is the bale I had re-baled last and the net wrapping still didn't work well.  I had to used a bunch of twine to hold the bale together so I could get it into the hay shed without the bale falling apart.

Here are all the bales in the hayshed.  I put the last year's bales in last.  You can see how last year's bales go from wall to wall.

With the extra bales the hayshed is mostly full.  I still have the second hay cutting to store in here.  I have a feeling the bales will be stacked coming out the front of the hayshed.

Cutting Donna's hay

Now that I finished baling my hay last Tuesday the weather forecast changed.  Before I finished baling, rain kept popping up in the forecast at the last minute.  After I was done baling the predicted rain for Friday and other days was dropped.  No more rain.  So on Wednesday morning Donna called and asked if I could cut her hay that day.  Sure.

So I spent the afternoon and part of the evening cutting her hay.  I could cut her field faster than my field, but not by much.  Her field ranges from normal to light.   Another problem with the light part of her field was that grass was not tall.  So the grass would lay on the haybine's metal deck after being cut and not get pulled out the back through the rollers. 

What gets laid on the deck and not pushed through and out the back.

Once enough grass lay there the rotating tines could then reach that grass and push it out back.  Having all that grass lay on the deck also interfered with the cutting teeth.  So not all the grass would get cut.  I had to drive the slowest to give the cutting teeth more of an opportunity to cut the grass.  Even then the windrows were light.  After 6 hours of cutting it was getting late.  And the amount of grass (hay) was not worth the effort.  So I left a fourth to a third of her field standing.

And parts of her field had lots of pocket gopher dirt mounds and that dirt would also get left on the deck and interfere with cutting the grass.   Not the greatest to have to stop at times to clean the grass and dirt from the deck.

Probably just as well I didn't cut all of her field.  Today Donna, her daughter and son-in-law spent time baling her hay.  And she had major baler problems and had trouble baling the hay.  It should have gotten all baled today, and I don't think it did.  2020 is not a good year.


The view when cutting Donna's field.   The canola is her neighbor's field.

Finished baling my hay

After over two and a half days of more work I finally finished baling my hay back on Tuesday.   In my previous post I mentioned how poorly my first day of baling went back on last Saturday.

Saturday night... actually Sunday morning at 1:20 am as I was still talking to my uncle Rick it began to rain. The rain chance had been forecasted for late Sunday night but now it had been moved up to Saturday night. Lightning was to the north and west off over the mountains.  Officially it was a trace of rain.  The next morning I had to wait longer before starting to bale my hay so the windrows would be dry.

The baler's back gate still struggled to open when unloading a hay bale.  After an hour, and after I partially tore some net wrap off a hay bale, I stopped and looked for a solution.  I talked with Wyatt to get ideas on what to look for.  Then I had Curtis watch the back gate as I struggled to open it, even without a hay bale inside.  I couldn't operate the opening lever and also stand back there to watch for a problem.   Curtis saw nothing wrong, other than the gate struggled to open.  The tractor has two hydraulic levers and I switched the hoses to the other lever.  Same problem.  Actually the gate struggled even more to open.   I switched the hoses back.   Then I switched the two hoses around.  Now the gate opened fine, but it didn't want to completely close.   So I switched the hoses back around and could close the gate with no problem.   Curtis thought maybe I had air in my hydraulic lines and that was causing the struggle.   I didn't know how to bleed the lines so I thought I would go back to baling hay.

Then when I went to unload the next bale the gate opened better.  After that I discovered if I moved the lever about three-fourths of the way, instead of all the way, the gate would open fine.  Why this made a difference - who knows?   But knowing this I was able to bale the rest of my hay and opened the gate with no problem as long as I didn't completely push the lever all the way.

I had lots of hay, and the windrows were a decent size, so my travel speed was on the slower side.  By the end of the second day I might have only baled about 40% of my hayfield.

Sunday night the weather forecast changed again.  Around 1 am the wind picked up and blew strong for a while.  The next day parts of a few windrows were blown over and were in a crooked line.  And it rained again.  Again, only officially a trace of rain.

Monday was another late start as I had to wait for the hay to dry.  In the afternoon I saw rain clouds here and there but did not get any rain on my hay.

I made good progress on the third day. I even re-baled two of the "first day" bales where the net wrap had torn when unloading the bale from the baler.

Not sure why, but after unloading the hay bale often I would have a little chaff left in the baler's belts.  On a rare occasion a little of the net wrap would tear off one side of the bale when unloading the bale from the baler.  I don't know if it was because of the chaff or whether occasionally the net wrap would somehow catch on a belt or the baler metal.   So after unloading the third bale I would check the baler to see if chaff was in the belts, and often would reach in and push the chaff out.  The next photo shows some of the chaff I pushed out each side of the baler one time.

I only had about 2% of the hay left to bale on the fourth day.  No rain Monday night.  It didn't take too long to bale the last 3 and 1/2 bales on Tuesday.  I had another previously made bale with damaged net wrap and I decided to re-bale it.

How I re-bale a hay bale is I manually unroll the entire bale.  Because occasionally the unrolled hay can be quite thick in spots, I use the pitchfork to move hay to make the "windrow" thinner.  A thick "windrow" can plug up the baler's pickup and stop it.  Which can be a pain to unclog.

As you can see below sometimes one side of the bale unwraps quicker than the other side.  So the "windrow" can go in a crooked line.

Even though I was able to adjust the pickup's level to get all of a normal windrow, re-baling a "windrow" usually means the hay pieces are smaller and therefore not all of it can be picked up.  What you see below I later raked up and hauled off in a wheelbarrow.  This was over three heaping wheelbarrow loads.

While I had almost a half of a bale before I re-baled this bale, at the end I only had one full bale in the baler.  I have found that re-baling a bale does not make another full bale.  Now with all this smaller hay, and probably denser and heavier hay, I should have in this case changed the wrapping amount to be larger.  Normally I wrap a bale 2.3 times to make sure it stays wrapped fine.  I can change the amount up to 4 (I believe).  I didn't change the amount and when I unloaded the hay the bale's composition caused the net wrap to come apart and this is what I got.  I didn't re-wrap the bale.  I figured I would deal with the bale when it came time to move it - another day.

This is the last of the hay I had added to make a full bale.  The baler tended to grind down part of the hay and not add it to the bale.  Another reason I had decided not to try to re-wrap the last bale.

So... a partial day of making hay bales.  But my day wasn't done.   The baler was covered in loose hay and chaff.  Not only did the pickup and around the belts needed to be cleaned, but the sides of the baler was covered in hay dust and chaff.  Not so good in the long run as belts and chains run the baler.  So I opened up the side doors and got my air compressor and blew all the dust and chaff out. Even though there was a little wind it seemed as if the dust and chaff would whirl around and not blow away.  So it took a number of times to completely clean the sides of the baler.   In the end I had to blow the chaff and dust off of me.

I cleaned parts of the baler with the air compressor that I don't think had been cleaned - maybe ever.  It took me some hours to completely clean the baler.  But I think it was worth the effort.

So, four days to completely bale my hay when normally it would take a day or maybe a little over a days worth of work.  What a challenge this year has been.

Baling my hay

Let me try this again.   I was so tired from baling my hay I didn't get to writing this post until finally last night.  Just before I finished writing this post my internet failed.  So I went to bed.  Here it is another night.


After 3 1/2 days of work I finally finished baling my hay.   The task should take a day, or a little above a day, but this year has been a challenge.

The first day of baling didn't get a start until about 2 pm.  First I had to move the cow and calf away that were laying next to the baler.

Then I had to grease the hay baler's zircs.   Then I wasn't sure if my netwrap was enough.  I had bought another roll recently and now I placed the new roll in the baler's extra roll location.

The baler has four hydraulic hoses.  A pair for the hay pickup feeder, and another pair to open and close the back (gate) to unload the bale of hay.  Last year I forgot to mark the hoses with paint so in the future I would immediately know which of the tractor's hydraulic fittings to attach the hoses.   My first guess was correct as to where to attach the hoses.  So I painted the hose fittings to match the tractor's colors.  I used small model paint jars. For the first paint jar I used I dropped the jar's white lid on the ground.  As usual since my accident, if I drop something to the ground I can't find it.  I looked and looked.  Eventually I gave up and marked the spot.  The next morning when I was waiting for my uncle to wake up I looked again.  Again I could not find it.  Once again the fallen object disappears for good.  A strange world I live in these days.

Then it was off to bale my hay.   Last year when I first used the baler the net wrap somehow got sucked into the first roll of hay as the bale was being made and it used up all of the roll of net wrap.  This time I stopped and checked a number of times and it was not happening this year.   Once the bale was at the finished size the baler wrapped the bale.  Before unloading the bale I checked between the rubber rollers at the bale.  The bale did not appear to be net wrapped.  I opened the back of the baler and found that the rubber round roller was wrapped in net wrap. How the net wrapping works is the baler has two "small" rollers (one roller is metal and the other is rubber) the length of the net wrap.  The net wrap is fed through the two rollers into the baler and around the hay bale.  This time the net wrap stuck to the rubber roller and did not go around the hay bale.  Later I read the trouble shooting section of the baler's manual and it indicated that when the baler sits for a long period of time the net wrap can get stuck to the rubber roller.  Yup.  That happened to me this time.

Because the roller is rubber one must be very careful to remove the net wrap from the roller as cutting the roller can be damaging if the rubber gets cut.  So I had to go get a knife and a scissors to carefully remove the net wrap from the roll.  I did.  Then I had some net wrap that went between the two rollers.  The roller are right against each other and only the top rubber roller can be rotated by hand.  And it is not easy to do.  It requires both hands to turn the roller.  But I needed one hand to pull on the net wrap as I turned the roller.  Again, hard to do.  I eventually got most of the net wrap out.  But some net wrap was still between the rollers and bunched behind them.  Again a difficult task as the opening beyond the rollers is very small.  I kind of could barely get the end of the knife through the opening to try to carefully cut the bunched net wrap.

After over an hour I finally got over 99% of the net wrapped removed.  The rest disappeared once I rewrapped the bale.

To re-wrap the bale I had to setup the net wrap to feed it through the roller again.

Here are the instructions from the manual: http://manuals.deere.com/omview/OME126850_19/OUO6039_0000008_19_17OCT00_1.htm

The hard part is step 5 and "F" in the illustration where you get a little of the net wrap through the two rollers.  I hadn't seen the YouTube video on how to do it by using the lever. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO6o73SsVZA) So I was trying to turn the roll by hand.  Two hands on the roller to turn it.  But I needed one hand to push the net wrap between the rollers.  I couldn't do it.  I went to get Curtis for help.  He was not home as he was out on his motorcycle.  I tried Tye.  He wasn't home. Rusty wasn't home.  I called Donna.  She was on her riding lawnmower and didn't answer her phone.  So I went and tried and tried and tried over and over again.  Finally I got the net wrap started in the rollers.  Then I was able to correctly net wrap and unload the hay bale.  It took me over two hours to cut the net wrap, restart the roll of net wrap, then net wrap and unload the hay bale.  This was all frustrating.

On to the second hay bale.  This time the bale was net wrapped correctly.  But when I went to open the baler to unload the bale the controller claimed the bale was too big.  The back end (gate) of the baler wouldn't completely open.  Again and again I tried.  Finally I drove back home to where I had unloaded the first hay bale.  I went and got a pry bar to maybe push the back gate open.  Nope.  I couldn't do it.

I tried to open the gate.  I tried to close the gate.  I tried to open the gate.  Each time very slowly the gate would open a bit more.  After a while I mostly had the gate open.  I drove and stopped the tractor to try to get the bale to roll out.  Over and over.  Finally the bale came out.   The net wrap was partially torn off the bale.

On the left is bale number 2.  On the right is bale number 1.  Bale number 1 is how the bale should look and be wrapped.  I figure that maybe if I am careful when transporting the bale later that I could get it (mostly) into the hayshed.

Then on to bale number 3.  Again when I went to unload the bale the gate wouldn't open completely and the baler controller said the bale was too large.  After a number of retries the bale finally came out.  Again the net wrap was partially torn off.  Again, I decided to leave the bale and later see if I could transport it to the hayshed.

On to bale number 4.  Again the gate didn't want to open.  This time I completely tore the net wrap off the bale once the bale came out of the baler.  I had to physically unroll the hay bale so I could re-pickup the hay into the baler.

On the controller one can set the maximum bale size.  I have it set at 60 (inches) the maximum amount.  It worked fine last year.  I wanted to change the maximum bale size but I couldn't find how to do so in the manual.   Donna showed up when I was looking and looking in the manual.  I'll tell you...by now I was in a mood.   Finally I found how to change the maximum size.  Most controller setting use options 1 through 26 (or greater) to change them.  Not the baler size.  It is changed using a different button.  Go figure.  I changed the max size down one level to 59.5.

I then re-picked up the hay from bale 4 back into the baler.  I was able to unload the bale without tearing the net wrap.

Bale number 5.  Same thing.  No net wrap tear.  I changed the max setting down one more level to 59.  Same thing.  I was getting the bale out without a net wrap tear, but it was a struggle as the gate didn't want to completely open.

My uncle earlier thought he would arrive at my hours in a few hours from now.  So I continued my struggle until he would arrive.

I had another problem.  The baler's hay pickup mechanism is controlled by a hydraulic lever.  But the pickup didn't want to go all the way to the ground that I wanted.  Most of the hay from the windrow was getting picked up so I didn't do anything else as the manual seemed to indicate I had to re-bolt the pickup's small wheels to change the height.  When I re-picked up bale 4 I left a good amount on the ground.  Well, after a few more bales I decided I had to change the height even if it meant re-bolting stuff.  I looked at the manual on how to do this.  Then I looked some more in the manual about the pickup.  In another chapter (Chapter 45) I found a section that described a manual crank that also adjusted the pickup's height. 

Then my memory came back to me.  Last year I had used that manual crank to completely adjust the pickup's height.  So now I used the manual crank and got the pickup's height to the level I wanted.  I had picked up four windrows of hay so far, so I went back and went over all four rows again.  I also went over where I had picked up bale 4.  By the time I finished I had picked up 3/4's of a bale of hay.

I was able to make a few more bales of hay by the time my uncle Rick arrived.  For the day I made 10 bales of hay in almost 7 hours of work.

A poor amount of work.  It was a miserable day of baling hay.  The only thing good about the day was chatting with my uncle as I hadn't seen or talked with him for a couple of years since he last visited me.

Uncle Rick

Out of the blue my Uncle Rick from Washington state came by and visited me Saturday evening.    We were born on the same day and the same year.   We had a great visit till late Saturday night and then on Sunday morning until he had to return home.  So I didn't bale my hay late on Saturday evening, which was fine as I was having a nightmare of a day trying to bale my hay.  It was much better to visit with Rick.

Here we are checking out my cattle in the south pasture Sunday morning.   I noticed that Toby the bull was hanging out with Mama cow.  She must be coming into heat now.  The "big" animal in the center of the photo is one of my calves born this Spring.  My calves are doing fine.

Finally raking my hay

It rained again last night.   .07 of an inch of moisture.    I had an idea it was going to rain.  Several weather forecasts had a chance of rain.  Some a minor chance.  Some a small chance.  Some forecasts has rain missing us and staying in SW Montana.  Donna thought there was little to no chance of rain. Instead of raking my hay on Thursday, Donna thought I could start baling it late afternoon.  No....  I thought it was going to rain.  And sure enough it did overnight.  Not only overnight, but clouds built up in the morning and we had another rain shower around noon.  Yet another cold front too.

So I had held off from raking my hay.  I didn't want to rake and then re-rake my hay.  At 3 pm the clouds looked like they would no longer form rain clouds so I started to rake my hay.  I figured it would take me 4 hours or so to rake the hayfield.  A little over 6 hours before I finished.  I also planned on hooking up my baler and get it all ready to go tomorrow.  Since raking took so long I only had time before dark to hook up the baler to the tractor.  I then discovered that last year I forgot to mark the baler's four hydraulic hoses with different paint colors so I would know which hose went to which hydraulic connection on the tractor.  So tomorrow morning I need to figure it out, and then mark them with paint this time.  And I need to also grease the baler.   Then I can get to baling my hay.

Our next cold front is suppose to arrive on Sunday.  The weather forecast had now moved it to arrive Saturday night/Sunday morning.  Not Sunday night like they predicted before.  So I will be busy tomorrow and hopefully get everything baled.  If not, and it rains again....  *sigh*    "Mother Nature.  Can't you give me two days at least?!"

In the photos you can see the grass is already growing.

Initially I used a pitchfork to get the hay out of the tower's footprints.  I don't know what it is about the towers, but the hay under the towers was still wet.

To rake the hay, as I had no place to initially rake a windrow without it combining with another windrow, I started raking the hay in the middle of the field where I had last cut the hay.  That windrow was the shortest windrow.

Raking from the inside to the outside meant some windrows were partially crossed to make a new windrow.  Sometimes crossing windrows meant the new windrow had piles of hay.  Hopefully this won't make it hard for the baler to handle.

You can see how the hay laying there for almost a week was affecting the grass underneath the windrow.

Rain on my hay

At 3:30 am this morning I was woken up from a deep sleep to the sound of thunder.  And some lightning was happening.  I went outside and called for Daisy to come in the house, and he did.  Around 5:30 am I was woken up again.  This time it was raining.

Other than a stop of a few hours late morning, it rained until mid-afternoon.  .30 of an inch of rain.

Not good.  Everything is wet.  I checked the underside of one windrow.  It was wet.  I didn't want to rake the windrows this year but now I have too.  I am going to try to rake the hay tomorrow afternoon.  It is suppose to be dry Wednesday and Thursday.  Then Friday has another chance of rain.  One weather forecast has it dry after that.  Another weather forecast has a slight chance of rain next Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.  I hope by raking the hay tomorrow it will be dry enough to bale some of it on Thursday.

I'm not the only one affected.  I seen that other fields cut when I did are also down and wet.

Hayfield

Here is my hand scythe.  I used it late afternoon to cut some of the grass growing in the hayfield along the yard fence.

My neck is almost back to normal.  When driving the tractor I have to mostly look back at the haybine to make sure everything is going right and I am positioning the haybine to correctly cut the row of grass in a straight line.  Hours of doing this gives my neck a pain when twisting to look backwards.

Finished hay cutting

I finished cutting my hay around 6 pm.  I finished a few hours earlier than I expected.  Things went well.  For about half of what I had to cut today I was able to drive my tractor in the second lowest gear.  I felt like I was then cruising.

The hay cut from the previous days are already starting to dry.  You can tell what I already cut today versus what I cut yesterday.

I have a hand scythe and I used it to cut the grass under the power line towers.  The grass was tall and thick.   The tall grass couldn't stand up and laid on other grass.  The grass was several levels deep.  In some spots the lowest level grass was turning brown and very wet.  The wetness wasn't due to lower ground but due to the thickness of all the grass.  It was very hard to cut the grass by hand.  I am somewhat amazed my haybine could cut the rest of the grass so well in all spots.

The weather forecast definitely has rain for tomorrow.  Not what I want since I just cut my hay.  I hope the rain doesn't come or it misses me.

I must be getting old.  This evening after I finished cutting the hay and then cleaning the haybine, I fell asleep for several hours.

Cutting hay

Yesterday afternoon I started cutting my hayfield.  I would have cut weeks ago but our rainy June stopped that.  I had planned on starting to cut on Friday, but after I did some yard mowing around noon I noticed the thick grass was still kind of wet near the ground and it was causing problems for my lawn mower.  I figured my tall and thick hayfield was also wet down low so I waited one day for a little extra drying time.

I usually can cut the field a day and one third.  I figured this year it could maybe take up to two days.  Wrong.  The hay is so tall and thick my haybine can barely cut it.  I have to drive my tractor in the slowest speed, and even then I had to sometimes stop moving and just let the haybine get the hay through.

I have spent two full days cutting my hay, and it looks like I have one more day left before I am done.  I am going to have lots of hay this year.  I guess I shouldn't complain at how hard and long it is to cut the hay this year.

The grass is so tall that along some of the barb wire fences I had trouble seeing the fence and had to be extra careful I didn't get the haybine to close too the fence and ruin one or both of the the things.

Of course after I started cutting the hay the weather forecast changed.  Now there is a good chance of rain on Tuesday, just after I cut my hay.  Then maybe on Friday.  It seems as if it is hard right now to get more than a three day period of no rain.  I hope it doesn't rain Tuesday.  My windrows are so tall and wide that if the hay needs to raked and turned over I'm not sure how or where I can do that.

A 29 second video of my haybine cutting hay: https://youtu.be/D-PCEOgnM8w

Calf 17 - Maria's

This afternoon I discovered that Maria finally had her baby calf.  If she was on schedule she would have had her calf back in March or April.  A few times this past week I saw Maria laying a certain way and it looked like she was getting closer and might have her calf in the next week or two.  It was faster than I expected.  I didn't notice the calf until mid-afternoon.  I think the calf was born in the morning or even a bit earlier. The grass in the pasture is still tall and sometimes it partially hides a cow, much less a small calf.

The calf is a female.  Darn.  This calf, and Diamond's upcoming calf, most likely will be held until next year as they will be a bit small to sell this October.  Having a female calf means I need to keep her separate from the bull next year in case she comes into heat earlier than expected.

Maria, the new mother.

The calf pretty much look like her mother.