[AT] Old tractors and hay

Larry D Goss rlgoss at evansville.net
Wed Oct 10 07:46:39 PDT 2007


Humm.  You may be on to something on the attraction of making hay, Farmer. 
In thinking back on it, the earliest photos I have of my grandfather as an 
adult were taken while he was mowing alfalfa in Colorado with a team of 
horses, and one of the earliest photos I have of our family when I was a kid 
is one of us out in the alfalfa field pitching hay into hillocks at dusk. 
We had about 6 or 7 acres of hay and no rake!

Larry

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Francis Robinson" <robinson at svs.net>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 6:53 AM
Subject: [AT] Old tractors and hay


>    Kevin mentioned making hay and I have been busy doing a little of that
> too. That and closing mom's estate and working on son Scott's addition 
> (26'
> X 32' - two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a new utility room) to his house.
> This last weekend we got the perimeter walls framed, the trusses put up 
> and
> the decking on.
>    This years drought really wiped out the hay crop all summer. The late 2
> 1/2" rain and a few little ones finally got stuff at least green if not
> tall. A little crop is better than no crop so I mowed about 6 acres last
> week and baled it. It only made about 120 bales but it was pretty clean
> orchard grass and will sell OK at $4.00 a bale. Yesterday I mowed about
> another 6 acres of it and today I will mow about 6 more acres of rough old
> lots. I mowed the orchard grass with my S-MTA and an old drawbar mounted
> John Deere sickle mower. I have a New Idea flail mower but it is a little
> severe on short soft orchard grass and I think the sickle mower is better
> for it. These rough lots I'll cut today are old pasture lots that are 
> mostly
> fescue and some common pasture weeds. They also have some small mulberry
> sprouts and some old dry stemy stuff from last year. We couldn't make hay
> last year due to rain every 3 days (along with family health care 
> problems)
> and this is the first we have been able to do any haymaking this year due 
> to
> no rain. Maybe next year will be "normal"...   ;-)   I will cut those 
> rough
> lots using my 6' bushhog on the 3 point of my Farmall S-M. I could use the
> New Idea flail mower but it requires so much HP that I would have to get 
> out
> one of the big tractors like my Deere 4020 and the fuel cost goes way up.
> The bushhog will make that rough old stuff look like actual hay. If the
> weather holds I will maybe get a chance to take a second small cutting off
> of it after a weeks growth using the sickle mower. The sickle mower cuts
> much closer to the ground. The first rough cutting I will probably take to
> the auction at Knightstown IN. A cousin of Diana's once told me that he 
> was
> selling some "junk" hay there. I told him that I never sell "junk" hay but
> that I do sometimes sell some "sheep and goat" hay.   ;-)
>
>    I have been watching carefully to make sure that blisters or boils 
> don't
> pop up on the S-MTA drawbar from coming in contact with that John Deere
> green paint on that sickle mower...   ;-)   It is a nice mower. I don't 
> have
> any idea what model it is, I have not found a tag or numbers anywhere on 
> it
> yet. I was going to a show auction last year and a brother-in-law had 
> known
> it was in the sale and asked me to to watch and see what it sold for as he
> was just curious. It was obviously a good mower and since it only sold for
> $65 it followed me home. Maybe next year I will mount it on my 1948 John
> Deere A.
>
>    We are the first road out of the city limits (now about a half mile 
> from
> my corner field) and it always seems a little funny to me when people stop
> on the road to watch me working in the hay fields. There seems to be some
> deep connection to people and hay... Sort of like the way people naturally
> gather around a wood stove or a campfire whether it is burning or not. The
> connection to hay seems stronger than just corn or soybeans.
>
>
>
> --
> "farmer"
>
> When you reach the end of your rope
> tie a knot and hang on...
>
> Francis Robinson
> Central Indiana, USA
> robinson at svs.net
>
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> 





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