Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Strawed Out

Friday night after work, Dad and I (my brother showed up for the second load) went to a neighbor's farm to get straw bales. We don't grow wheat/straw on our farm, only hay. We loaded 180 bales on 2 wagons.

Before the load

During
Since it was just me and Dad, I was responsible for driving the tractor. It doesn't seem like a difficult job, but it requires a steady speed, slow enough that the people loading can hike their bales up and not get ran over by the wagon, but fast enough that they aren't waiting for you at the next bale.
 Dad was stacking, and occasionally we'd stop and get a big pile of bales together. Then I'd hike them up to him.
After
Stacking bales really requires 3 people: driver, stacker and hiker.

Saturday afternoon we put them in the barn loft. We don't have a bale elevator; we use bale forks that take 6-8 bales at a time. That process also really requires 3 people, but Dad and I did that alone: driver, rope puller, and fork-placer. Sorry there aren't any photos of the barnloft process; I was driving the tractor yet again... :)

No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...