Weekend Baling Saga

Here’s a quick run-down of our weekend: By mid-afternoon on Saturday, overcast skies and dampness had fled, giving us the chance to bale some hay. (Buster is excited and happy to take part in any job, any hour of the day!)

I was driving the baler, while my husband and son unloaded the baskets and stacked the bales in the haymow. All was going fine until KA-THUNK…….whir-r-r, and the baler apparatus quit working. Drat. Sighing, I quickly yanked the PTO lever back and climbed out of the tractor, knowing full well what had transpired.

Yup…….the flywheel pin had sheared……..

Believe it or not, this is one fix-it job I can handle. Insert a new pin and tighten it with a wrench and vise-grip. No problem. We should then be good to go, although there’s always the chance that the shearing of the pin is only a symptom of a more complicated problem…..and, unfortunately, in this case, that was the case.

Husband spent the rest of Saturday trying to figure out what was wrong. He phoned a baler expert who works at an implement dealership to get some advice, and even went to the extreme of consulting the baler operator’s manual. In the next scene, the consternation continues on Sunday morning. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it to church…..Husband’s obsession with fixing the baler overrode everything else.

Take a gander at some baler innards, parts of which are similar to a sewing machine. Here is one of the two needles……complete with an eye through which the twine is threaded:

The needles move upwards into these knotting mechanisms (sort of like bobbins) to tie knots in the twine which is wrapped around compacted portions of hay, forming the bale.

Ho-hum. Buster and Betsy are bored right into dreamland. I was very nearly in a similar state, sitting in the tractor cab listening for Husband’s shouted instructions to turn the PTO on and off.

The guilty culprit was finally found. Don’t ask me to explain it, but the baler’s predicament was caused by one of the parts in this next photo.

An extrication and some welding was called for…..

FINALLY, after all that, and following a quick noon lunch, the baler was taken to the field for a trial run. A kink or two was smoothed out and then we were back in the baling business.

And, thank goodness for that! The afternoon’s weather was perfect---sunny and breezy---and Husband would have been fit to be tied (or knotted, or compacted, or whatever) if he was unable to bale on such a nice day.

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I drove the baler for six hours today, then came in and threw food on the table for the guys---easy stuff, don’t worry---turkey sandwiches, store-bought potato salad, watermelon, brownies. Then I tossed this post together. I’m still in my itchy hay-filled clothes and must do something about that. THANK YOU for the many kind comments that past few days! I will get back to responding to comments soon……it just hasn’t been possible this weekend. There’s a few more loads of hay to bale tomorrow and then second crop will be done……HOORAY!

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