Hay ans weather problems...

So I cut a few acres early Friday morning. Suppose to be partly cloudy Friday, partly sunny Saturday(today), and mostly Sunny Tomorrow. Nice on Monday as well. Well, it wa overcast complelty yesterday, mostly cloudy today, who knows about tomorrow, and now rain on Monday(and the reat of the week). I've tedded 3 times already, probably gonna hit it again in the morning. I'm guessing moisture is at %40, maybe %35 if I'm lucky. You reckon there's anyway I can get this stuff baled late tomorrow if I have a mostly sunny day? Temp around 75....

Casey,

I am in the same boat here in SE Ohio. Cut mine on friday afternoon with a moco, tedded it yesterday, then the sun went away and we had a few sprinkles around 6:30pm....wasn't supposed to do that. Mine lies on top of a ridge and I was surprised how much it had dried in 24hrs.and little to no sun. It's not that heavy on the ground and we will be baling it up this afternoon no matter what, round bales, and leave them in the field if they are not dried well enough for the barn. It is second cutting.
Seems like every time there is a good forecast, the weather guessers have lied to us, but we never find out until we get back to the house from mowing all day. I can't count how many times that happened this year. I have about 20 acres of this stuff for today!
At least there is no humidity.
You didn't say if yours was conditioned or not, if not you are in worse shape than I am.
IF (big one)we get some good sun today we will both be ok I think.

Same here in Southern Mich. A few guys I know cut on Thursday, I held off. Today is the last chance. I look at the hourly weather graph to see what cloud cover and humidity are predicted and that does alot for me in deciding when to cut.

I mowed some Friday afternoon, got started way later than I wanted to, so it didn't get worked at all Friday. Yesterday the kid tedded it twice, but it wasn't quite dry enough to rake without rolling up a lot of big wads. I'll rake it this morning, give the ground a chance to dry out,ted it out again right after lunch, maybe twice, then rake it up again before night. Tomorrow it will get baled no matter what, maybe left on the wagons to sweat for a few days, or just unloaded loose. Then sometime next week I can pick it over and cull out anything that is too wet to stack.

This has been about the worst year I have ever had for drying hay. Only twice was I able to mow two days in a row, and one of those times the second day's mowing got rained on, and eventually chopped back on to the ground.

After this weekend I will pretty much give up, unless there is an unseasonably hot dry spell.
All the rest of my rowen will be grazed off or chopped and green fed. The last ten-twelve acres that I never mowed at all is going to be chopped for poor haylage by one of my neighbors who lost nearly all his feed in the flood from tropical storm Irene.

I'm in east Ky, about an hour south of Ashland. I cut with a disc mower, so no conditioning(stupid me sold my NH 474 haybine earlier this year, doh!) and it's being made into small squares for the horse people. I'm afriad tomorrow will be to late with the rain so its getting baled late this evening no matter what. I'm going to ted again about 11, start trying to rake about 2 or 2:30, and start baling about 4 or 4:30. I might have to use the neighbors tractor to rake and start raking about 4 or so and put the wife on my tractor and let her start baling. On the bright side(literally) the sun has been out full bore all morning. If it'll just stay that way. I've still got a couple thousand squares to go, unless I deicide to roll the thousand or so, which just might happen...

I have been very lucky with weather up here lately. In the late summer I often rake late in the second day to minimize the effect of the dew which can be like getting it rained on. Then third day I will tip the windrows over as soon as most of the dew is off, and any shaded or damp ground areas I may ted out again and rake it again later on. I often wonder why I even do it this time of year. You have to work so much more for so much less hay. and only 10-20% more money.

I was on a trip to the infamous "Tailhook Convention" and got back FRI nite. Checked the GDD chart and have 65% chance to make the 500 days. So I knocke the alfalfa and grass down this morning. Today's 80 degrees helped a ton.