You may have seen those circular spoked discs being hauled down the highway (if you live in farm country, that is). This is the tractor attachment that's used to rake the dry hay into horizontal columns so it can be picked up by the baler.
Behind the raker comes the baler. These guys work as a team. Many farmers own their own equipment. They save a lot of money not having to hire someone to rake and bale but it probably takes them three times longer to get the job done. In the photo above you can see how the raker has raked the dry grass into long piles.
A lot of dust (and pollen) gets thrown up during this process, especially by the raker. I'm sure I'll have a couple sneezing fits tonight!
And at just the magic moment when the baler has picked up the proper amount of hay, the driver stops, opens the tail and out poops a perfectly formed round bale of hay (sorry for the graphic language but that's what I think of it as, pooping hay!), tied with string and wrapped with plastic. Farm equipment has come a long way, baby! My grandfather plowed this same land with a mule. He was a crop farmer rather than a cattle rancher so I'm sure he never had to worry about cutting hay.
This whole process took about 20 minutes for our 15-acre meadow and we harvested three and a half bales of hay! Last year we didn't even have a cut until June and we only realized one bale! If we fertilized our meadow we'd probably get twice the amount of hay but we're not in the hay business and our lessor has it cut for us just to keep the place looking nice.
10 comments:
I always wondered how they make those round bales.
I love to watch this being done. It's the kid in me. :)
love the hay pooper. to funny. i really like the wire wheels on the raker. works or art they are. thanks for sharing this, i have never seen it done and now i have. got to go the dust is choking me
Hay time is filled with activity. We don't make the round bales here. Ours are the oblong ones we call "three wire bales". Of course I'm talking about alfalfa for horses. I have lifted many a bale of hay in my day.
I'm glad you had a better growing season this year, so far.
still waiting to get ours done. last year they were able to get 10 bales off a field that usually does 45-60. i'm hoping this year they do well.
Isn't it an amazing process? My grandfather's family used to travel around from farm to farm during the haying season.
So different these days... love the action here!
Those Spirograph thingys are pretty cool looking.
All I have to say about this post is "Achoo!"
I so enjoy this post Kathy. As I know the szenario well from my childhood, but with a lot of handish work....
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