Bez?
Well-known member
A short tale from my day cutting hay.
Well, I cut about 50 acres of heavy hay today.
You folks in the south will possibly find this hard to believe but .....
The grass was as tall as my head while I sat in the tractor. It is a Case 5250 4WD. A pretty big step to get onto the bottom rung and three more to get into the cab.
Grass is thick and densely matted until about 2 feet up from the ground - I have never seen hay like this.
Neighbour asked me to do some custom cutting for him. I was sitting on some hay that was to damp too bale so I said I would.
Went over to his house and picked up the tractor and hooked on to his Case 8312 discbine.
Drove the whole shebang down to this fellows place and had a short chat with him. He showed me the field, and I asked about hazards.
None he says. No rocks and nothing in the field but grass. Straight orchard and well into getting ready to go to seed.
It has rained here every day for the past 6 weeks so it is real tall grass and the ground is wet. Just this week we are finally getting weather that we can harvest hay.
Being a suspicious type, I started in and opened the field up going real slow.
After getting the head lands done I had a good flat field all set to go.
I was real happy that I was pulling that little discbine with a bit more than a hundred horses because at 6-7 miles per hour and soft ground I was working the equipment pretty good. Almost got stuck a couple of times - but the 4WD and some decent speed saved me.
You know something? He had left a little pull type disc out there - about a 12 footer. I ran right over it with the tractor! Tough to see those little things when they are hidden in the tall grass.
A bit bumpy, but no damage to me - I might have bent the disc up a bit but c'est la vie!
So I stopped and had a peek at the tractor - no marks on the tires. I turned around and put the front end loader under the disc and turned it up on it's side - just to let the owner know I found it!
I also found a real nice rock about an hour later - this time I was only going about 3 miles per hour. The rock was probably 8 feet long and stuck up about 6 - 8 inches out of the ground. A real nice square edge that met the discbine almost perfectly flat and into the middle of the cutting bed. It is an almost prefectly square rock that looks like it was a carved pillar laying on it's side.
Good thing the stone guards worked, or I would have lost at least three turtle backs.
I probably lost about 6 knives.
So I turned the tractor around and put the loader to the rock and stood it up on end. I think it sticks out out of the ground about 5 feet now - so it is easy to see. I guess this fellow will now have a nice field marker if he leaves it there. It is not quite vertical though - I did not have a level with me.
I finished the field with some pretty badly bent knives and will change them tomorrow morning.
That hay will be hard to get dry.
I wonder what folks will think when they drive by this field and see those things sticking straight up in the air?
So much for "no hazards".
Bez?
Well, I cut about 50 acres of heavy hay today.
You folks in the south will possibly find this hard to believe but .....
The grass was as tall as my head while I sat in the tractor. It is a Case 5250 4WD. A pretty big step to get onto the bottom rung and three more to get into the cab.
Grass is thick and densely matted until about 2 feet up from the ground - I have never seen hay like this.
Neighbour asked me to do some custom cutting for him. I was sitting on some hay that was to damp too bale so I said I would.
Went over to his house and picked up the tractor and hooked on to his Case 8312 discbine.
Drove the whole shebang down to this fellows place and had a short chat with him. He showed me the field, and I asked about hazards.
None he says. No rocks and nothing in the field but grass. Straight orchard and well into getting ready to go to seed.
It has rained here every day for the past 6 weeks so it is real tall grass and the ground is wet. Just this week we are finally getting weather that we can harvest hay.
Being a suspicious type, I started in and opened the field up going real slow.
After getting the head lands done I had a good flat field all set to go.
I was real happy that I was pulling that little discbine with a bit more than a hundred horses because at 6-7 miles per hour and soft ground I was working the equipment pretty good. Almost got stuck a couple of times - but the 4WD and some decent speed saved me.
You know something? He had left a little pull type disc out there - about a 12 footer. I ran right over it with the tractor! Tough to see those little things when they are hidden in the tall grass.
A bit bumpy, but no damage to me - I might have bent the disc up a bit but c'est la vie!
So I stopped and had a peek at the tractor - no marks on the tires. I turned around and put the front end loader under the disc and turned it up on it's side - just to let the owner know I found it!
I also found a real nice rock about an hour later - this time I was only going about 3 miles per hour. The rock was probably 8 feet long and stuck up about 6 - 8 inches out of the ground. A real nice square edge that met the discbine almost perfectly flat and into the middle of the cutting bed. It is an almost prefectly square rock that looks like it was a carved pillar laying on it's side.
Good thing the stone guards worked, or I would have lost at least three turtle backs.
I probably lost about 6 knives.
So I turned the tractor around and put the loader to the rock and stood it up on end. I think it sticks out out of the ground about 5 feet now - so it is easy to see. I guess this fellow will now have a nice field marker if he leaves it there. It is not quite vertical though - I did not have a level with me.
I finished the field with some pretty badly bent knives and will change them tomorrow morning.
That hay will be hard to get dry.
I wonder what folks will think when they drive by this field and see those things sticking straight up in the air?
So much for "no hazards".
Bez?
