Hay is cut and baled, probably getting hauled today

[deadeye]

It's amazing how making hay has progressed since my brother and I stacked square bails on the hayrack that was pulled behind a baler. (I could go back a bit farther when I helped spread "loose" hay that came up the hay loader being pulled behind the hayrack but that might age me bit too much ). Between my bil and I we have 50 acres of hay that a local farmer has harvested for the past three years. On Thursday afternoon he cut about 10 acres using a "haybine". He returned Thursday to cut the remaining 40 acres. Saturday, they returned with the rake and baler and by 5:00 had the entire 50 acres baled. They plan to start hauling bales today and if they don't finish the rest will go tomorrow. 

[dakids]

I remember bailing hay as a teenager.  Hard work for sure.  Farmers wives always fed us well.

[Jerkbiat]

I got lucky. My grandpa sold all the cows before I was old enough to help. 😁

[LPS]

I will be hauling the bales for the horses home tomorrow and Wed.  Good to have it done. 

[dutchboy]

Times have certainly changed. I can remember dad plowing with a 2 bottom plow. Then disking it, them dragging it. After that we would all get out there and pick rock. Finally he would plant it. Again with a 2 row planter. As far as haying goes he had a thing where you pulled up 6 bales at a time into the hay mouw. It was on a track and when in the barn you pulled a rope when you wanted to trip it and drop the bales.

This was back in the early 60's and my memory is fading some. I also remember as a little kid going up and chipping frozen silage for the cows. No silo unloader for us. 

[Dotch]

Never had the good fortune to deal with a lot of loose hay although we used to make hay cocks out of grassy, loose hay then fork it on top of the small square stacks we made in the field. Dad was too cheap to buy a big tarp and plastic never stayed on well. The loose hay actually worked pretty well especially in a drier fall & winter. When we got a New Holland 845 round baler my freshman yr. in college, thought I'd died and went to heaven.

Round bales here are made for the season. Neighbor Jon baled it this year and aside from cutting the 1st cutting, I didn't have to touch it. He cut the 2nd cutting, raked both cuttings, baled it, hauled it, unloaded and put the bales in rows in my yard. Sweet! Still some haying to do here yet this week. Need to lay in a few hundred more small squares which are always a PITA. Tough to parcel out hay from a round bale for small pens, particularly for ewes with lambs at their side. Running the haybines and discbines is fun when everything works as it should. The other neighbor's discbine has rollers that are getting pretty worn so getting the wrong length orchardgrass in it at the wrong ground speed occasionally results in it getting wrapped around the rollers. That sucks.

Still a far cry from mowing with the old #25 IH sickle mower, crimping with a Brady crimper, raking with an old 4-bar JD steel wheeled rake, then baling with the old IH 46 baler. If it missed only a few bales per load you were lucky. Baling in the "good old days" was a lot more time consuming and made for a lot of trips. Put up the old Stanhoist elevator into the barn 1st so we could unload & stack the bales. Had to flip them on edge when unloading as it wasn't wide enough to lay them flat. I hired out to help others bale as well. Frequently got stuck in the haymow as word spread I knew how to stack. Hate stacking small squares to this day. No one wants to help. The only good thing about stacking hay is when you're done.