2024, animals, Farming Update, Uncategorized, work

SSSSStrawwwwwww

29 Comments

Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben.

I’m back at the college. Back at ‘Work’ work. Which, at the least, gives me a little more structure to my day, so I can comment on the blogs in the mornings.

I’ve told you about the oats getting cut, and then harvested, and now all that’s left is baling up the straw. I thought it looked good and I’d have the pole barn full and enough straw left in the fields to make some round bales. Jokes on me. You’d think I’d know not to count my bales before they’re made.

The pole barn where I store the straw was nearly empty, and what was left on the bottom row had mildew on the bottom edge, and many had broken strings (Someone tell me why the mice always only eat through one string?) so I used the tractor and loader and cleaned it all out.

Then I put some house wrap on the ground hoping maybe it will keep those bottom bales from getting mildew. Found a snake in the corner, but no raccoons.

I baled the first field of 5 acres, and I got 96 bales; three quarters of a load. Well, shoot. I expected 250 bales off that field. But the next field did better. I got three loads, about 400 bales from there.

And then the last 2 fields were thin and I didn’t get much off them. But I expected that. They didn’t look very good before harvest. I finished with 615 bales total. 488 were put in the barn, with 127 stacked on a wagon for the neighboring strawberry farm this fall. The bales are more brown than usual due to the rain and rust fungus.

Baling went well, not too many issues.

The twine holding the bales together, comes in ‘bales’. Because of course.  It’s sisal twine, typically from Brazil (I don’t know why, it’s just what the bag says). Two spools of twine in each bag, because my baler uses two strings on each bale. There are some balers that use three strings per bale, making a little larger bale, but still considered a ‘small square bale’. The large square bales typically have 6 strings on them. Big square or round bales use a different twine.  

The twine is usually brown, but green isn’t unheard of. I have used plastic baler twine for the straw, but the mice would still just chew one string, and the plastic would get wrapped up on stuff and, of course, it never goes away. The sisal will eventually degrade.

You can see my baler holds four spools; the one being used and a spare spool. One spool feeds each side of the bale. Some balers might hold eight spools (more extra’s). And the larger square balers hold up to 15 spools. The twine comes out of the spool, through some guides, through the ‘needles’, which come up through the hay or straw and into the knotters, bringing the twine with them, in order to encircle the bale with twine. The knotters make a simple overhand knot, and cut off the string after the knot, while holding onto the next string to make the next bale. It’s pretty fascinating to watch and understand. And maddening when it isn’t working right.

A spool makes about 500 bales. And I don’t know why, but the spools never run out together. Which doesn’t make any sense. The needles always move together, the strings SHOULD be the same length, and I have started the bales together. But they never run out the same. Must be the spool itself.

Ninety nine percent of the time when a twine spool runs out and the next spool starts, for whatever reason, that straw or hay bale will not tie right. I haven’t figured out yet if it’s my knot that comes apart, or what happens. The next bale will work fine. But that bale with the splice, blows apart in mid-air. I was pleasantly pleased when it changed spools and the bale DIDN’T break once!

I had my two padawan’s help unload. Because the barn was empty and we only had the three loads, we could just throw them out of the wagon by hand, we didn’t need the elevator. I only had three rows on the ground, and I was stacking up three more rows.

The boys were trying to throw a bale over the top of the wagon. They got close, but never quite over. Next year I’ll bet they will be able to. I was just pleased I have ‘old man strength’ and I could still keep up with them.

The ducks are still doing well, and they come running when I call them and throw out corn.

Next week, everything else that’s been happening.

WHAT DO YOU HAVE NOW YOU DIDN’T HAVE WHEN YOUNGER? (POSITIVE ANSWERS ONLY)

29 thoughts on “SSSSStrawwwwwww”

  2. You failed to specify how much younger. I could say a partner, daughters, grandchildren, a house, etc.

    I could also say I know myself better and sometimes wish I could revisit my comparative youth with the self-knowledge I have now.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  7. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I have perspective on life, its stages, and how my lifetime fits into the history we know today. I also have an ipad, and a blog–TB– things and media which I love and use constantly. The ipad is a doo-dad I could not even conceive of when I was young. Which takes me to Adele:

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

    1. OT, I went outside to weed and found it drizzly again, so here I sit, covered in stinky bug spray waiting for it to stop.

      OT2: Phoebe continues to get well and is recovering so much of her desire to play. We are enjoying that.

      Liked by 5 people

      Reply

    2. Ben, the pictures of the bailer makes me remember farm stories told by my dad and grandpa about bailing in the 1940s as they were transitioning from horses to mechanical farm equipment. Dad said they always tied their pants closed at the ankle to prevent mice from running up their legs. He would talk about the itchiness, as well as the difficulty of managing horses. The human labor farming took before mechanization is humbling. They raked, shocked and separated grain from chaff all by hand and with horse-driven equipment.

      When I was really little we watched my mother help her father throw bails onto the hay wagon. The next three days after that she took aspirin and laid on the couch groaning with pain and a hot water bottle because she was so sore.

      Liked by 4 people

      Reply

      1. Absolutely, it used to be a whole lot more work. I was 10 years old when dad bought the first kicker baler because he didn’t have the help. Mom has stories of driving the baler while dad would stack on the wagons but she was never a fan of doing that and I think it led to more than one argument. She always said his hand gestures left a lot to be desired.

        Liked by 2 people

        Reply

  8. How long did the baling take, Ben? And what kind of snake is that?

    I feel like I’m more curious than I was when very young – or maybe it’s that I have a little more time to be curious. First couple of decades of adulthood it felt like you had to keep your nose to the grindstone…

    And I’m sure I have more confidence in my abilities.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  9. Altogether, the baling only took about a day and a half. That first field I had started late in the day. But then all the rest I got baled in One day.
    I did spend part of one day raking the multiple thin rows together. And then the tractor died and I had to walk home and it took me a week to get that running again. I left all that out. Put it out of my mind I guess.

    I believe that’s a fox snake. I see them fairly often. I saw the skin before I found the snake. They shake their tail and it rattles against steel of the building and the first time you meet one you think it’s a rattlesnake. I have learned since that it’s not really.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  10. I have, which is a surprise to me, quite a bit of money to share with charities. I focus on food, shelter, and safety. Local first. Women/family shelter, food shelf, local program for homeless. Then Red Cross and two international programs. Also the democrats of course.
    Clyde

    Liked by 7 people

    Reply

  11. An Old Story

    We were made to understand it would be
    Terrible. Every small want, every niggling urge,
    Every hate swollen to a kind of epic wind.

    Livid, the land, and ravaged, like a rageful
    Dream. The worst in us having taken over
    And broken the rest utterly down.

    A long age
    Passed. When at last we knew how little
    Would survive us—how little we had mended

    Or built that was not now lost—something
    Large and old awoke. And then our singing
    Brought on a different manner of weather.

    Then animals long believed gone crept down
    From trees. We took new stock of one another.
    We wept to be reminded of such color.

    – Tracy K. Smith

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  12. I decided yesterday that the catnip on the south side of the house had to go, as it was 3 feet high and choking out the other plants. I could have made a bale of it. Husband carried three armloads of it to the back of his pickup. We took it to the city bins and disposed of it. We reeked of nip. I am surprised we didn’t have a bunch of cats following us around town! It will come back again next year, of course, but that is ok. We will just “harvest” it when it gets too big.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    3. It’s not a bad idea to pull out about half the goldenrod every year, or it will conquer the world.

      The catnip seems to be sort of self-limiting in my yard. It’s there for a couple years and then after I cut it back too severely, it leaves in a huff.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Leave a reply to Author John G Dyer Cancel reply