23
September
Hay - the Rest of the Story
This is a pictoral account (limited narration) for the hay recipe so many of you commented on:
Here is a field of hay, ready to be cut:
Here’s a field (looking backwards out of the tractor) of a field partially cut:
Here’s the field fully cut (from a distance), the close field corners have already been fluffed:
Here’s that field - ready to rake:
And that field, raked - and the baling process started. We did some square bales for our neighbor’s horses. The rest will be round bales.
And when it’s all said and done - here is the hay, stored:
And now you know the rest of the story.
Tags: bale, fluff, hay, mow, rake, store
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:45 pm
I like photo #3! And did photo #2 happen while you were driving? Were the rows so straight after that?
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Hi RFC, thank you. We did hay stuff way back when I was on the farm in Nebraksa. Your post brings back some memories.
I’ll be Louise hasn’t tried to farm in the Tennessee hills, except on the bottom land you just don’t make straight rows.
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Your crop looks extra good, you have had a lot of moisture this year?
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September 24th, 2008 at 7:18 am
Louise - I have to STOP to take pictures from the tractor. Unless I’m using my blackberry, which I haven’t so far. And my rows are never straight. Even the rows you’re looking at, from a different angle, aren’t straight at all. The bumpy field makes the tractor go places that I don’t direct it to go. Just the facts.
Jim - Glad I could give you a little flashback. I’m sure our small time farming doesn’t hold a candle to your Nebraska spread, but the process is the same. Except you probably have a longer mower, and a bigger rake? It has been a decent summer for moisture, and actually the hay should have come down about a month ago when clover was at its peak, but it was rainy then.
September 24th, 2008 at 9:49 am
How well explained. Simply amazing. I know nothing (and I do stress the nothing) about farming but the thing I’d really like to know is you make the bales so round and perfect. I’m sure that’s going to sound like a silly question but I want to know.
September 24th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
I am so glad you left the hay recipe link as I might have missed it, so thank you, it would have been my loss. Very interesting and great photos as were these.
September 24th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Milena - the bales are made perfectly round by the baler, it spins around and around (in a chamber, being spun by wide belts), and the hay keeps getting sucked in (like a vacuum cleaner) and when it gets full (per the gauge on the baler) Prince Farming presses some button (or a series of buttons) to make the twine spin around and tie it together. That’s about as technical as I can be for you. Are things going any better in Houston?
Denise - happy to oblige for the sake of education. Here’s to mine too
(education, that is!)
September 27th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Thanks for showing that as it’s not something I would see. All the trees that are around your farm are amazing and so green…