A "Bale" of a Good Time

Earlier this week I was able to get the haybine up and running and cut about 4 acres (more or less) of grass. It was nice to know that the haybine we purchased last year was in good working condition. I knew the rake would work fine because I used it last year, so the last piece of the puzzle that needed to be put together was whether or not I had a working baler. I knew that there was a spring underneath that was broken, but since I do not have a manual (or a lot of baler knowledge) we didn't get the correct part ordered.

Good thing there was a plan B, or C, or D ... I don't really remember which plan it was, but I do know that we were able to borrow the families New Holland baler. With a working baler in hand we were able to finally put up the hay that I cut. Needless to say, it was plenty dry and ready to be baled.

The grass in that area of the farm is mostly a mixture of warm season grasses. As Rich mentioned in an earlier comment we have some Bluesteam, Indian Grass, and Switchgrass which actually covers most of our farm. It is a nice stand in some parts and a bit thin in most of the farm. I would say our bales averaged about 40 or 50 each and we have right around 130. Not a real good cutting, but at least it is a start.

It is very nice to look into the shed and see hay piling up!

Have Haybine ... Will Cut Hay

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!

Thinking of Winter Feeding...

With all of the fence blogging going on lately I have neglected to mention one of the biggest topics on my mind lately, which has been winter feeding. Because of everything else associated with getting the farm up and going (which is the big push this summer) we weren't able to make hay with the first cutting of our grass and I know that with only one cutting there won't be enough to make it through the winter. This means that I'm going to have to buy in some hay, which also means that I'm going to be feeding mostly round bales again this winter. And, to top that all off it means that I need to figure out how to get the big round bales to the farm. So far I have come up with a couple of options.

Option #1: Try and buy all of my hay relatively locally. I'm hoping to have between 40 and 50 big round bales so that I don't have to worry about buying late in the winter, but that also means quite a bit of transportation. Last winter when I bought 12 bales a friend from church hauled them for me in two trips, but this would be a much more substantial undertaking. One idea would be to buy from someone that delivers. This would be the easiest way to get my hay and would take the least amount of my time, but it could be the most costly.

Option #2: This is kind of the crazy idea and whether or not I like the idea really just depends on my mood at the moment. My step-grandmother owns some land about an hour and a half from us that has about 11 acres of grass on it. I could use my dad's tractor, mower, and rake to get that hay ready and then hire my cousin to come down and bale it. This would also include paying some sort of rental price to my step-grandmother. After it was all baled then I would have to hire my cousin again to haul it up to the farm (where I would need some help unloading). One nice thing is that my cousin can haul 11 bales at a time. The downsides of course are that it will mean more time spent on my part and that it may not save me that much. I guess an upside is that I could maybe get a very small second cutting off the ground that I could square bale so I would have some small squares on hand.

As I have been walking around the farm pulling fence, pounding posts, and putting in cotter pins these are the two options I have bounced back and forth in my mind. As I type them out I still can't decide which option I like the best. Any thoughts?

Big Anthill: 1 ... Brand New Vermeer Mower: 0

That was the tally today out at the farm. I guess I should be totally honest and tell you that we did get the mower up and going (at least it was when I left), but that big anthill sure did take it out of commission for a while as we dug at the clay goop stuck up in the rollers of this new Vermeer Disc Mower/Conditioner. Oh, and while we were digging up in there we were also covered with ants! Luckily they didn't bite to bad, but they were kind of annoying.

Like I said I had to leave before it was finished because of youth group, but when I left our friend (doing the mowing/baling) had moved from the area where he clogged up and was trying to stick to the ridges on our place. If the anthill had been completely dry this big mower would have just blown it to bits, but after 7 inches of rain this past week that little (actually really big) anthill made of clay and mud was practically like concrete.

The good news is that we got some hay cut and should have bales next week ... plus I believe we have all the drywall work done and are ready for a light orange peal texture! That really is the best news because we are something like 8 days away from our first night there.

Keep praying if you would like...

Stacking Hay...

As you can see by the picture on the left I picked up our Massey Ferguson #10 baler yesterday. I've got the hood up on it because I spent the evening cleaning out 3 or 4 years of old hay, barn dust, and other dirties. I have a little more work to do cleaning and then we will go through and grease everything before we start work in the field. If the weather keeps on like it has been this past week I believe we will be baling in the early part of June down at my dad's farm. We probably won't be able to get any hay off of our new farm until late summer or early fall, but with the 20+ acres available at my dad's we should be good to go.

Speaking of hay, I ran across a pretty cool article in the May 2008 issue of "The Stockman Grassfarmer". The article by editor Allan Nation is titled "Dead Apple Trees Can Help Make High Quality Hay". This article was so interesting to me on so many levels and if you have a chance to read it I highly recommend it.

The idea of the article comes from a steam train trip Mr. Nation took across Poland (cool thing #1 :: steam trains). On one particular trip Mr. Nation and his wife took was through the mountains were the Communists mostly ignored the people and they still continue on in the same way of life that they have lived for years and years. He commented on the fenceless farms, the freshly painted houses, the big families, the small size of the farm, and I guess basically the sustainability of these rural communities. I guess bigger and bigger doesn't always need to be done...

But, the thing the prompted the article was the number of dead apple trees that had been worn smooth stacked at the edges of fields. It wasn't until later in the trip that he found out that they were used for stacking hay. The trunk end had been sharpened so it could be driven into the ground and all but the main branches had been trimmed off of these 8 foot tall trees. What he saw was a large family working together in the field (cool thing #2 :: large families working together) to build a stack on this tree.

Mr. Nation goes on to write about the method of "tripoding" as described in a 1950 book that he had recently read (cool thing #3 :: Acres USA is going to republish this book). The "tripoding" method involves three poles, again about 8 feet high, set in a tripod with smooth wire ran on the outside. According to the book the hay is put up on the wires and a hut is made. It is import to leave three air holes, but the method is said to provide a very high quality green cured hay.

It probably won't happen this year and maybe not next year, but I could see a small farm like mine utilize this method. Especially if gas keeps going up!

Farm Machinery Shopping...

Yesterday I went shopping. Awhile back you may remember reading about whether I should rent equipment, buy equipment, or hire someone with equipment. Most of the discussion centered around the subject of making hay. On our farm we won't have a lot of ground to make hay on (unless we find some to rent), but between my dad's land and my land we will probably be making hay on up to 40 acres this year. Considering the prices of some older equipment out there we decided it would be most efficient for us if we actually owned the equipment.

So, as I said yesterday I went shopping, and now we own the equipment we are going to need to make hay. I found a listing on Craig's List for a haybine, rake, and baler. With that equipment we would have a pretty good start, so I e-mailed the seller and yesterday I had a chance to check everything out. It's old used machinery, but it seems to be in good condition and the baler has always been shedded.

I didn't take a camera with me, and I wasn't able to bring it home today because the pasture (some of it is out in the pasture) and the roads are pretty muddy. But, I did some searching on the internet to come up with some pictures of what we bought to get started in the hay business.

The haybine is a New Holland 469 (like the picture) that seems to be in okay shape. I have never used a haybine before, but when my uncle used to make quite a bit of hay he had a New Holland haybine so my dad used it and there is a good source of information in the family. One plus of using a haybine is that you are able to bale a little sooner than if you just use a sickle bar mower. The rake is just an old Massey Ferguson five bar rake (similar to the one pictured). Nothing special, but it will work great for us.

The baler is an old Massey Ferguson #10 baler (the same as pictured, just more dust). It is an old baler, but it has been taken care of and the knotters where rebuilt not too long ago. Before I went to look at the baler my dad talked with a couple Amish neighbors that have or have used Massey Ferguson #10 or #12 balers. They all had good things to say about the bales they make. In fact the only complaint they had was that they were too heavy, so they took to many horses in some people's opinion. I'm not too concerned about the weight!

So, that was my shopping day. I must admit that I enjoy shopping in another farmers barn and pasture much more than I enjoy a day running from store to store. Even on a cool and muddy day it is better! We have a few options on how we will split up the equipment between my dad's place and our new place, but most likely the baler will end up at his place since he is further away from his brothers place. I will at least be able to get the hay cut and raked and then pick up my uncle's baler if I need to. I'm already looking forward to the warm summer days!

Buy, Rent, Or Hire ... Machinery

My chapter book report from Ron Macher's book, "Making Your Small Farm Profitable", combined with the link provided by Kelli of Sugar Creek Farm (and the other comments in the post) led me to the question of ... "Buy, Rent, or Hire?" In fact it almost sounds like a game show, maybe I should look into the possibilities! But, back to the question at hand. I really started thinking about what to buy, what to rent, or what I should hire done. And to be perfectly honest I was mostly thinking about hay.

I know that no winter will ever be the same, but if next winter is anything like this winter I will need about six or seven small square bales of hay each day to feed our Dexter herd at it's expected size. That does not take into consideration any other livestock we add. Let's just say that we need to feed that much hay for 3.5 months ... we are looking at roughly 683 bales for our cattle alone. I bought some $2 a bale hay this year and it was okay, not great for lactating cows, but good enough for the steers and dry cows. If I wanted some quality hay I know that I would have to pay more than that. Let's just say I can find some for $3.50 per bale ... we are looking at $2,390.50 for small squares, and we hope that is enough. Of course I could go with some big round bales, but there are plenty of things to consider when going that route.

One question brought up in the comments was that 20 acres or so of pasture/hay ground didn't seem like enough to have a baler/rake/mower. I think that is a very valid question and one that I think I need to examine. So, let me just throw out some numbers.

If I were to assume that I am going to have a tractor (at least at some point) of 50 hp or more I would have enough power to bale hay. So, I could go the buying route, but not include the cost of the tractor because I would have it anyways. In my neck of the woods where big rounds are king I have seen plenty of nice working New Holland or John Deere balers selling for the $500 range in classifieds and at auction. A used side-delivery rake will cost less than that as will a pull behind sickle bar mower. None of this equipment is top of the line, but it is usable on a small amount of land, relatively inexpensive, and our family knows how to work on this kind of stuff. I'm thinking I could buy the stuff for $1,500 give or take. That is lower than the cost of the hay for one year and I could use it multiple years. Of course I need to factor in maintenance costs and the fact that I would have to do the work. On the flip side if I was going to have extra hay I could sell it.

On the subject of renting ... I am clueless of the costs. But, I would probably have to rent from a local farmer who may also be planning on using the baler and equipment. That would mean that I would have to work around their schedule and that doesn't always work when we are talking about hay.

Finally, I could hire the hay done. According to this great chart that Kelli pointed me to the average mowing per acre price is $10.70, the average raking per acre price is $5.65, and the average per bale cost is $0.48. It wouldn't take all 20 acres to get the 683 bales I needed, but just by taking the per bale cost we can see that it would cost at least $327.84 for the hay plus the other expenses. I believe Kelli mentioned that they cut and rake their hay so this does look like a good possibility if you can do that. One downside of course would be the timing, but they may be more likely to get it done if there is money involved instead of just shares or if they were renting you equipment.

There are lots of things to consider in this. But, I think one thing is for sure ... it would be silly for me to buy in hay when we could make it on our own. Grazing our 19 head of Dexter cattle won't allow us to bale the entire amount, but when we have some good spring growth we should be able to bale a nice chunk of it (and maybe get a second cutting if we are lucky).

Any thoughts...?

Are You an Artist?

Do you know how to paint a beautiful picture? Can you mold a lump of clay into a wonderful sculpture? Are you able to take an amazing landscape portrait? Do you make art with your music and your voice? Well, I don't really know much about any of those, but I do know one thing...

Baling Hay Is An Art!!

Now, before you think I am absolutely crazy let me explain... First of all you need to know when is the perfect time to cut the hay. This isn't something that goes by calendar or clockwork, it is an art to know the perfect moment to cut to get the perfect hay. Secondly, you need to know when to rake and how to rake your hay. This isn't something that you do a certain number of hours after the cutting ... it is an art ... it is a feeling. Next you need to bale your hay, which means you have to set the tension just right, make the bales just the right size, and make sure you get all the hay into the baler. Finally, comes the most artful part of the art of haymaking. You need to stack the bales onto your hayrack and then into the barn. Getting them in an orderly manner is no pell-mell operation. You must know just where to place each bale so all your corners are tied in and the rack is ready to go down the road ... oh, and it helps if you can go six or seven levels up! Then into the barn it goes.

We stack our bales on the sides so all of the stems are sticking up and down instead of stacking them in the normal way. We do this because that is the way grandpa did it ... no, really that is the way grandpa did it, but it also helps the moisture wick out.

Yesterday we baled around 600 fifty pound small square bales of grass hay down at the farm. It was a warm day and lots of hard work. Even though I'm sore now I enjoyed it very much. I enjoyed the warm breeze ... I enjoyed working as a family ... I enjoyed the sound and feel of the tractor and baler ... I enjoyed the scratchy hay ... I enjoyed the art (I guess I should say I enjoyed learning the art)

Baling Hay Soon...

Well, one of the bummers of not living on the farm (or near the farm for that matter) is that you don't get in on all of the fun. In this case I missed the cutting of the hay. We have not made any hay yet this year because we haven't been able to get schedules and equipment to meet up at the same time, but now we are ready to go. This past Thursday and Friday my dad got all of the hay cut (well, all that we will need) and this coming Monday we will rake and bale it. We only have two Dexters right now, but we may end up with as many as 800 or 900 small square bales. I think that should be enough! In fact we probably will be able to get a cutting of alfalfa this year yet because of the warm fall they are predicting and another cutting of grass hay that has recently come out of CRP. We will practically be living in hay!

With the the over-abundance of hay, it is making me wish that we had some more cattle to feed. If only I could find somebody wanting to unload their Dexters. But, we are probably better off with just our two considering we don't live near them.

I do wish that I was able to be more involved in the day-to-day operations, but I guess all things will come in time. At least I pray that is true. Look for a report Monday night or Tuesday from the baling.

Edit :: Well, there is one sure fire way to predict rain it seems. Cut your hay! There was no rain in the forecast this weekend, but there was some next week so I urged my dad to get the hay cut before the rain ... today rain ... out of no where ... well at least to the weather man it was out of no where! My dad's Amish neighbor told my dad that it would rain today and of course he didn't look at a forecast. He just knew it would rain because we had a frost last night. I guess you learn something new all the time. Oh well, we still have some stuff still standing.