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big tee

big tee

Well-known Member
After seeing the forecast for the next 10 days here in the Midwest the memories of baling hay as a kid don't look too bad.. We had a IH 45 and then Dad bought the NEW IH 46-big improvement. I was the youngest so I drove the "M" on the baler. The black and whites are a little before my time---Tee

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Growing up Dad sold hay and straw to horse people. We baled 20,000 small square bales a year and over half of them we delivered in the winter. Dad started out with a 24t and then upgraded to a 336 and then a 327. We always had a bale thrower. Tom
 
Yes baling Hay was hard work. Then when you baled straw you thought you were in heaven because the bales weren't as heavy. Working in the barn was tough especially when you got up close to the tin roof. But that kind of work & work ethics made me who I am today.
 
I spent a lot of hot Summer days on wagons hooked to a JD 24T baler with only one person on a 24ft wagon it'll keep you real busy until its gets about a half a load on it.
 
I grew up throwing those things when I was younger. I have absolutely no interest in throwing them now. I'll take my round bales and let the tractor do the heavy lifting. I remember hot, sweaty, itchy, and occasionally a snake baled up in one. I can't recall any fond memories of those things really.
 
Been there, done that. It was real bad when we did the third cutting. Barn was almost full so you were just under the roof-no moving air at all. Hot Hot---Tee
 
I was too small and allergic to hay to get involved...But you'd hear during the summer which farmer baled the heavies and which the lights..square. And what the pay per bale was...Even with the modern equipment nowadays it looks to be hard work..
 
I wasn't all that big (back then), but I never thought it was such a bad job. As recently as 2 years ago, I went out and picked up and stacked about 150 bales one afternoon by myself. Therapy I guess.

I started out raking hay when I was around 8. By 10 or 11, I was also mowing it, then raking. Dad hired at least 3 neighbors I can think of to bale it. Last one he used also had kids who were hauling. They all got fired when dad running the baler lightened them up to about 45 pounds to make them easy on the kids to haul. Of course he and the kids were getting paid by the bale, the standard back then being 60 pounds.

So not long after that, a brand new JD 336 baler, NH 479 haybine and NH 258 rake showed up. I got to run all 3 and I was in heaven.

I got to see a variety of methods used to haul hay.......the only one missing was a baler with kicker. The best of the best of them, back then, was a hay monster. Almost too easy.

A year or so ago, was visiting with an Amish Guy (AG) who my mother's cousin hired to haul square bales. Cousin thought it would be cute to make the bales 80 to 90 pounds, then pay the standard rate per bale.....the reverse of what had been done to us. AG said they were complaining to no avail. Next year bales went back to standard size. Cousin said he forgot one critical factor........he was the one who had to load and haul them out. He fought had with those bales all year....and it almost gave him a heart attack doing it.
 
Just saw this--The 45 in the pic. is just like the one we had but ours didn't have the shield over the plunger crank. When I was in the service my Dad bought a new Deere 336 with a kicker on it.---Tee
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That wasn't even considered work when I was young, baling hay and stacking on the wagon and unloading and throwing the bales up in the mow and stacking was normal, had to be done, all us boys loved it, it was just one big competition.
 

I rode the rack behind the baler. I picked up little round bales and stacked them on a wagon. I did my share of stacking in the barn also. Too old and soft for that kind of work anymore, but I wish I could still do it. Never minded it a bit.
 
I am working on bringing up a new city well that is along the river, we are trying to get it running before the floods hit, so keep it cold another couple weeks and I am OK with it. This is on the Cedar river, so downstream from you.
 
I was always on the rack behind an IHC 45 baler when you could keep it tying it was work to keep the bales away from it. I would not trade any of those days for nothing. Gave me a work ethic that still is there today. I would not to do that work today at 71 but I still very much enjoy working.
 
I counted 7 time we handled the bales one year;
1 bunched them behind the baler
2 made hay stacks in the field
3 from the stack to to truck
4 from the truck to the hay mow
5 stack them in the mow
6 from the mow down the to the cows
7 pitched the digested remains in the honey wagon
 
I still love doing hay, but my youngest son is going to take a job with a construction company this summer, so that's the last of my help. There's nothing better than going round n round in the warm summer sun. I'm going to miss it
Pete
 
I enjoyed being on the rack in the field.

Unloading in the barn was hot dirty work.

Do a few 100, maybe 1000 or so, now, with a bale basket all by myself.

Paul
 
The summer I graduated high school we bought a brand new NH 570 baler and 2 NH silage gears and built beds at hold over a 150 bales. Went from the 267 in 1st gear to 3ed gear and with those long beds we could put up a lot of hay. Now,25 years later still using the baler but stacking with a grapple now!
 
Most places that I worked gave you a variety of in the loft and in the field. However, one farmer in the area had teenage sons and they had exclusive rights to the field gathering. The hired help worked the loft. The good news was he only had two sons, and we could stack in the loft faster than they could load wagons. So we got cool down breaks while waiting on the next wagon.
 
Dad got a new 45 baler too. Like the rest of them it didn't always tie so good. As a young lad I rode the twine box & tied a lot of bales as they were going through the chamber. Inhaled a lot of dust those summers.
 
I remember we used to compete to see who could throw a bale the highest and farthest.

helped the one neighbor once. he always put hay on the ground and picked up with wagons and trucks.

extra height to throw into the back of a C70 grain truck... but that wasn't good enough... we used to see who could throw them over the 5.5ft sides without missing.. and that was heavy straw bales too.
 
The M on the baler was my first job, about all I could do was steer, could only reach one pedal at a time, clutch or brake. Steering an M was a hell of a job by itself for a young kid, had a brother stacking the wagon. Later I think we had one of the first New Holland kickers which stream lined things. We got a new side mount mower on another M with a conditioner pulled behind. Seamed like I mowed hay every morning, then raked the hay I mowed the day before. The big barn had a conveyor along the top and we'd just run the bales off that and worry about stacking them on a rainy day. Sounds like fun now, would have rather gone fishing at the time.
 
I always liked working on the rack as long as there were two of us to do the stacking. By myself, not so fun. All in all, it was an OK way for a 14-year-old Iowa farm kid to make a little bit of summer money. I wasn't thrilled when the bales were too wet, as in sometimes breaking the twine! That's a good way to end up with moldy hay, or even a barn fire. Straw was sure a pleasure to stack compared with most hay.
 
Back in the custom baling time, me and a buddy worked for the baler man, rode and stacked wagons. the farmer hired the guys for the mow. we got $14 dollars a day, the mow guys got paid by the bale. Baler man cut and raked and baled for farmer. I had a 48 chevy and picked up everyone that was working that day and everyone brought soap and a towel and when we were done for the day, we went down this gravel road where the road forded the creek and it had a slate bottom and I drove up the creek in about a foot of water then we all got out and cleaned up and swam in a hole in the creek. those were some fun times and we had a little money for gas and pop. This was in western Indiana in the late fifties. in covered bridge country,
Parke county Indiana. Gene
 
I miss it. Favorite thing when I was a kid. 'Cept for that day I had arc flash burned my eyes the day before and didn't sleep and I got dehydrated and puked a bunch. Kept at it, though. Wonder I didn't have a stroke. Was baling for my ag teacher/FFA Advisor and I didn't want to let him down.
 
Our neighborhood baling ring started out in 1950 with a Case hand wire tie baler with the Wisconsin engine. I was too young to be involved then as I was born in 51. In 1959 the Case went away to be replaced with a new 14T Deere. I started driving the baler in 1964, the last year for the 14T. In mid-summer of 64 the plunger rod broke in the 14T and it was replaced with a new 24T. I drove the 24T for two years, then I graduated to stacking the rack. The 24T was replaced with a 336 in the early seventies and was used for a couple years but then round bales came in and the square bale days were over. Skip about 40 years and now I am back to baling a little horse hay for the granddaughters with an old New Holland 68 but it’s only 5 or 6 loads a year. Back when we were baling all through the summer and I was young we would bale 900 to 1300 bales in an afternoon. A couple of the men on the crew were ww1 vets so we didn’t push it real hard. We had two of us on the rack so I handled only 450 to 600 bales in an afternoon but we had already unloaded 4 or 5 loads that morning before the afternoon baling. Today if I load one load alone I am completely shot, I’m embarrassed to say, and I’m still ten years younger than those two ww2 vets were back in 1970.
 
We always loaded 5 high when only one guy on the rack-80 bales per load. The length of our racks had about 10 inches in front when the last rows of bales were on--I was throwing the last bale up-standing on the 10 inches when both twines broke-Next thing I knew I was flat on my back on the ground--Memories---Tee
 
If you notice that one black and white picture that one guy is riding the twine box-More Memories---Tee
 

For three years I stacked all the loads on the wagons and all of the bales in the loft. Then I went to work road construction. I liked it so much I would see people out in the field haying and stop to help for years after.
 
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