Hay Harvest

After we tilled the ground from land clearing, we seeded the ground with oats and brome.  It took a while, since we used a small broadcast seeder on the back of a quad (It seemed to have feed issues, so we went around and around until we were sure we covered everything.) So harrow it all in, set up the handmoves so we can irrigate the crap out of it, then wait a bit.

Hay harvest was really good this year; we always seem to break last years record of hay bales, and this year was no different.  While the two main fields have reached full production (so, statistic wise, our harvest numbers have reached their peak and will start to taper off), the extra four acres just added should equal an extra ton or so of hay in a couple of years.

Here's a video of our first harvest off the new field: 

I think we got just over 1100 bales - around 12 tons of hay.  Considering hay production takes us a week to do during the really hot part of summer,  that has to say something about our methods and endurance.

On our second cut, I revived a Belarus 820 that we parked a few years ago.  It came with the farm, and we used the loader it had to move stuff around before we brought our backhoe over from Cranbrook.

It was awkward to use as a loader machine, and had enough mechanical problems that we decided to park it after the backhoe arrived.  When we needed a larger machine to run the baler, we opted to get an MF180 off one of our neighbors instead of fixing the Belarus up (Largely due to both questionable parts availability and the reputation of the brand on the internet).  While the 180 does an okay job, it has enough mechanical problems that Mom and Dad feel a little ripped off over it.

After I kicked it awake again and started cleaning it up, I realized it ran so well I might as well try it with baling the hay.  I took the loader off, bolted some sheet metal we found for it back on and changed the fluids. (I have never seen transmission oil the consistancy of custard before) and put the baler on.

Considering it is a noisy, soviet-era tractor, it ran better than we thought it did 5 years ago!  I think a