haying

Everyone getting their hay in? we finished with first crop last night about 11:00. And delivered some hay also. Jim

Jim,

I am having a terrible time with this first cut of hay this year. With rain, equipment repairs, and the job that I work off the farm, I still have a long way to go to finish the first cut. The hay is WAY too mature. It's stemmy and brown with seed heads set on it. The fescue that is low is still green, but the majority of what I am cutting is brown.

Unfortunately, I need the hay to get through the winter, so if it ever stops raining, I'm going to cut and bale it anyway.

Good to hear that you are finished. Now you can start getting ready for second cut!.

Tom in TN

I have gotten in about 1/5 or less of our hay. We have only had one window of dry weather long enough to do hay and that was 2 weeks ago. Most of June and July so far it has rained every day. We only need 80 bales for my sister's two goats but I have a lot of customers lined up to buy hay out of the field and I have not been able to do much for most of them. Our hay is losing quality too but I think I will still be able to sell it since nobody else will have hay to sell that is better quality around here this year.
Zach

Threw about 2/3 of my first cut out! Rained earlier than predicted by about 8 hours and I got caught with a pile of bales on the ground and another 15 acres or so laying down. Then proceeded to rain every day or the next 5 days.
Second worst cutting I've ever had.
Too bad, 'cause some of the thickest and nicest 1st cutting I've seen in a while.

Looks like some really good hay.

Got the right tractor, Model 70 Diesel with power steering, pulling your baler.

Started our second cutting of fields last week.

Thanks for sharing your photos with us.

As for us, I figure if we mount some plontoons
on everything we can float most of the 1st crop
out.. So far 4207 bales of small bales & none
of it has gotten wet. Have around 4500 more
to bale if it ever dries out.

With any luck I'll have it all baled tomorrow(Sat) or Sunday. Finally looks and feels like hay weather outside.

With that view in the first picture, I had to look around and make sure I was in my house instead of on my JD620. A very familiar scene.

James I swear that was a Farmall MD.

Yes it looks good. That 70D was my dads that I got when he passed away. And I have the first tractor I ever drove, A 46A that was my dads. My son has a 48B also. We use them all. Jim

I've seen photos of your tractors; all are very nice looking tractors.

Makes them really special when they are part of the "family".

We got a three day window here but I didn't mow much because most of my customers are away for vacation. I baled about 100 bales, and had to leave only about 10 worth in the field due to moisture. I got the wagon in the shed and did a little maintenance o n the baler and suddenly the skies opened up and the 20% chance unloaded on me.

We're getting there. We've only got 1 field left that we're baling. I tried raking it tonight, but with so many trees and such I got most of it done and just gave up. It should still get pretty close by the time we get to it tomorrow as we gotta finish chopping our oats & peas first. We did 4 1/2 loads today but then I got into the thicker stuff and it was making pudding by the rotor in the bagger so I quit.

After we get all of ours wrapped up, my brother and I have to road our equipment 13 miles to the other side of Appleton near Fox Valley Lutheran to do a horse hay job. We're doing it on a 1/3-2/3 split, and of that I'm gonna take probably 3/4 of our share to sell and my brother gets the other quarter. Probably hang onto it until February/March, then start advertising it.

Also have 1 small 2 acre or so chunk we're finally able to get to that we never got planted in corn. Probably gonna try finding a little sudan or something to stick in there. Gotta fill in the wet spot in a corn field too. Should have enough left over seed to finish it off. It'll still be very green when chopping the field this fall, but in the long run it shouldn't affect it too much because they'll just be a small % of the rows the width of most of the field.


Here's a pic of the last of our 1st crop. It's what's left of Shade Today's tree farm near Darboy. The owner approached us last year if we wanted to seed it down w/out any rent cost just to keep it in the ag tax bracket, instead of commercial because it's for sale right now, but not moving too fast. Still a few (lots) of trees here & there, and a few holes where they spaded one out and never filled in the holes.... Gotta pay attention when working in here. Last year I broke a spindle on our 1855 while working it up to plant.




Donovan from Wisconsin

I start raking and baling at 3:30am and run until the dew wears off at about 9 or 10. Then, I'm on the cutter until 7pm.

Hope to be done by the 15th.

Allan

No one has even started here. Rain almost every day. The only hay that's in has been wrapped bales and silage.

(quoted from post at 21:47:27 07/05/13) Threw about 2/3 of my first cut out! Rained earlier than predicted by about 8 hours and I got caught with a pile of bales on the ground and another 15 acres or so laying down. Then proceeded to rain every day or the next 5 days.
Second worst cutting I've ever had.
Too bad, 'cause some of the thickest and nicest 1st cutting I've seen in a while.

Click to expand...

I actually did my first cutting back in May. Had a perfect 3.5 days with breezey temps in mid-80's everyday and absolutely zero dew at night or in the mornings (or in other words perfect drying weather). Everything dried well and it was slated to be one of my best crops ever.....till the baler broke. Could not get it fixed and ended up losing about 35% of the crop.

While I tried to save what was down, by flipping and tedding. I would no sooner get it dried out and it would rain yet again. After a couple weeks of continual rains I cut my losses and scooped it up with loader and am composting it in a dirt pile to improve that soil. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and wait till next time.

Finished baling tonight around 10:00. I had to drop them on the ground because Dad had to go milk and noone else was available to drive. We did get 314 loaded on the wagons before Dad had to go, and we gotta pick up another 120 bales from the ground. Slight chance of rain tomorrow morning, so if it does we'll have to spread them out in the mow and feed them 1st.

Donovan from Wisconsin

The weatherman predicted us a window of decent weather for a week with a slight change of occational shower last Thursday and sunny the next 5 days.
I cut down 50 acre last wednesday, thursday was beautiful drying weather. Been raining steady for the last 3 days :shock:

So much for listening to the weather forecast. :roll: