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!