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kenny thomas said:
I can remember cutting with a 6ft Ford cycle mower and with good luck cutting 8 acres a day. If we had good weather we might get it square baled, small squares, and in the barn in a week. No tedders so just had to wait until it dried.
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When I was a kid, we had two Ford 501 sickle bars and a NH 469 haybine. I hated those sickle bar mowers!
 
cfpinz said:
When I was a kid, we had two Ford 501 sickle bars and a NH 469 haybine. I hated those sickle bar mowers!
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I love sickle bar mower - but I am only clipping some weed patches and stopping willow encroachment into my meadow. Maybe 4 hours per year.
 
Silver said:
Times have sure changed. I missed out on mowers, but remember them. I remember Dad mowing , raking and building loose stacks with a sweep on a converted 3 ton truck that was turned around so the drive wheels were to the front.
When I began we cut with a side pull 9' sickle bar haybine and baled with a steel bar round baler. Switching to belt balers, center pivot discbines and v-rakes has been a game changer and allowed us to cover a lot more ground for sure. I can't even imagine going in circles around my fields again.
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I've ridden on a 2 wheel sicle mower pulled by a tractor cutting Johnston grass or corn stalls. Shocks for the corn, piled the jg onto a trailer and threw it up on a loft with pitchforks. Not fun at 12 13 years old.
 
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Im sure swinging a scythe cratered many a spine back in the day. No thanks!

The thing I remember most about those shocks of corn was when we got ready to load them some big black stinging ants had got all in em. 1000s of them. That's the one and only time I heard dad cuss much and said ''We ain't never doing this again!"

Like a lot of things he did, it was just a mental throwback to his younger days. Trying to show us 2 boys how easy we had it. I sure learned a lot from him tho. a LOT!
 
CowboyRam said:
My grandfather had one of those hanging up in his garage. I don't know what happened to it, but it is probably hanging up on someone's wall.
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I have 2 of them hanging on my shop wall. I have used them some. Keep it sharp and know how to use it they aren't real hard work but I sure wouldn't want to have to cut a couple of acres that way.
Dad said during the depression that Grandpa and great uncle walked a couple miles to a logging clear cut that had come back into a good stand of grass. They cut it between the stumps with scythe. Once it was dry they tied bundles into packs which they carried home on their backs. Lots of trip but enough hay to feed the milk cow for the winter.
 
Old farmer in Conn. taught me how to use one... It's an art and to watch someone that is good with it is actually very rhythmic... don't know if my back would take it now...
 
greybeard said:
Years before it became yard art, I have cut on this one. (Pulled by a mankiller 8n...Oh so dang lucky to have survived that :rolleyes: )

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My Dad cut hay with one of those. Except when he did that it was pulled by a couple horses. The hay I cut with a man killer 8N was up graded to a 6 foot sickle bar PTO mower. I don't know how I survived.
 
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greybeard said:
Years before it became yard art, I have cut on this one. (Pulled by a mankiller 8n...Oh so dang lucky to have survived that :rolleyes: )

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I vaguely remember sitting on one of those while dad cut some grass near the house. I don't remember what he pulled it with. He might have barrowed it. I was probably 8 or 9 then.
 
Personally rode one of them, pulled with the f-150 and cut a couple acres when I first moved to VA...My son was about 10 ... learning how to drive the pickup...I said he couldn't hurt too much out in the field...straight drive so a few jerky starts and stops along the way... so we did that... then he drove the truck for more learning, as I forked it in the back of the pick up and then we forked that loose into a hay mow..... I was poor when I moved here... and then I bucked sq bales for a farmer needing help to stack them on a wagon (no kicker baler).... in exchange for hay instead of pay.... he would call me ahead and I worked for him for several years...
Made loose hay for a couple years for the couple cows and horses I had... bought some too, but every mouthful I "put up" of my own was less money out of pocket.
 
greybeard said:
Years before it became yard art, I have cut on this one. (Pulled by a mankiller 8n...Oh so dang lucky to have survived that :rolleyes: )

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There were a lot of people missing fingers from folding the bar up to move the mower. I think that is why some went to a belt drive instead of a pitman rod. It has been a long time but I still shudder looking at one.
 
Jan, I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one that worked loose hay. It was back breaking, hot and dusty but sure makes ya appreciate small bales then later, round bales. (When you look at those big fields full of round bales, just imagine being a teenager and driving up with the landowner and seeing thousands of 45 lb small square bales stretched out in front of you on a July Texas day, to be picked up, loaded, hauled then stacked in some hot dusty hay loft or old vacant house. 5-7¢ a bale and bring a light lunch, your own hay hook and 2 pair of white mule gloves cuz ya couldn't afford the good leather ones.. )
 
I don't even like to look at a field of small square bales. Just the sight makes my back hurt. And 45 pound bales? You had small small square bales. Alfalfa in the little bales often weighed 100 pounds.
 
Dave said:
I don't even like to look at a field of small square bales. Just the sight makes my back hurt. And 45 pound bales? You had small small square bales. Alfalfa in the little bales often weighed 100 pounds.
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I never saw alfalfa grown anywhere around me. Dunno why..all the show kids and horse people used it.
Maybe it didn't do well in E Texas heat and prolific rain.
 

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