Last year we bought a line of hay equipment, all from the same farmer. But, as of yesterday morning the only piece of equipment that I had used was the rake. Last night that all changed after I finally got the gumption to get the haybine ready to go and cut some hay. I spent some time in the morning crawling around underneath and on top of the haybine looking for all of the grease zerks and then I oiled all the moving parts that didn’t have zerks. After all that I began working on the big problem … getting the hydraulic cylinder to lower. I don’t know exactly what the deal is (it’s a fairly involved story, so I won’t get into it), but lets just say I am able to lower and raise the haybine … just not as easily as I should be able to!
Once all of that was done I was ready to go. The area I cut wasn’t very big (probably 5-7 acres), but I really enjoyed the process. Partially because it was a beautiful night and partially because I was doing some productive work on the farm and things were mostly working out. As you can see from the picture the sunset was pretty amazing and it was only made more amazing by the fact that I saw it from the tractor seat as I was making rounds cutting hay.
Now, I just have to see how long it takes to dry, rake it up, and then figure out a baling plan. I may have gotten a little ahead of myself, but I have at least four different plans to get it baled. I’m not too worried about it … yet!
After enlarging the photo, it looks like you have a decent stand of native tall-grass prairie grasses (I see some big bluestem, little bluestem, indiangrass? and what I think is switchgrass). From the photo, it looks almost the same as our native grass pastures and hay meadows.
It would be interesting to know how much hay you were able to get per acre as a comparison.
We usually cut hay in late June-early July, and in an average year get about 3.5 round bales per acre (approx. 4000 lbs.). This year, we didn’t have any rain this spring and only managed about half that amount of hay.
Like you said you’ll get it up one way or another. That sounds like a true farmer. My grandfather always told me “It’ll get done one way or another” every time I would question something. It looks like you have some good grass. The sunset looks great! That’s what life’s all about.
I am just getting into learning about a small hay operation. Clueless on equipment to buy. What all do I need?