Hi I’m Mike.
Everyday has the potential to be one of those days on the ranch and when things break, it
can slow you down and even shut you down pretty quickly.
Especially when dealing with haying and the equipment we use.
With some problems there is no easy fix and sometimes you have to call in reinforcements
on our Wyoming life.
Welcome back to our Wyoming life.
All this month we have been haying, cutting the hay fields to make the winter hay for
the cows.
Cutting grass, raking it and baling it.
We have also been fighting with the weather, afternoon thunderstorms over the past few
weeks that will shut down haying faster than a 6-month-old with no diaper will shut down
a public pool.
You’d think that everyday around here would be pretty much the same this time of year
and for the most part it has.
This is how most of my days go lately, when it comes to haying.
Go out, cut grass for 4 hours, then rush to get it raked up.
If it doesn’t rain I can usually bale the next day, but sometimes the weather has different
plans.
You know how mowing your lawn is a pain after it rains, or you forget that you were planning
to mow and you left the sprinklers on and now the wet grass clogs up your mower.
For us when you are basically mowing hundreds of acres the rain is just as much a pain but
for different reasons.
For us, using the sickle mower, wet grass isn’t so much of a problem, this thing will
cut through just about anything and wet grass really doesn’t bother it too much.
The nice thing about the sickle mower is that it lays the grass down right behind it and
in a nice sheet.
That grass, even if it is a little damp will dry out really quickly in the sun.
Sometimes it dries too fast and we have to use the rake to get in in a windrow, or a
pile so that it doesn’t dry out too fast, before we get a chance to bale it.
When we bale, we want our grass to be less that 16% moisture.
We have a handy meter in the baling tractor that takes an average of the moisture level
of the grass in the baler and as you can see, its pretty dry.
This year with the rain, the rake has been getting a workout.
If the grass we cut gets rained on and is in a windrow we have to get it dry again.
The moisture will sit at the bottom of the windrow and if we baled it now that wet hay
would mold in the bale.
Mold and pregnant cows is a very bad combination.
It can cause cows to abort their fetus if its eaten at the wrong point of development
so we avoid it as much as we can.
When we have a wet windrow we roll it over to dry it out.
And for us it works great, the sun and wind will move through the windrow and dry it out
fast, sometimes too fast.
So the rake has been probably our most used implement this year, rolling windrows at least
twice and putting windrows together to make baling faster with less wear and tear on the
baler, but not on rake.
So not everyday starts out the same around same around here, sometimes life throws you
a curve and you either choose to hit it or let is go by and most times I swing, not because
I want to but because I have to.
This morning as we come out to get to rolling over another set of windrows after rain overnight,
I found the rake like this.
Just walking up to it you can see that something isn’t quite right, the main support bar,
which is usually straight, well now its not.
This piece of 6 inch square tube steel that runs down the length of the rake and is basically
its main support has broken.
Here’s the dilemma.
The way it sits now, we cant fold it up, which means that we cant move it out of the field
to fix it.
I don’t have a welder on my truck, so fixing it in the field isn’t an option.
So we need to figure out a way to move it back to the shop.
Short of a chinook helicopter, we are going to have to get it folded up and pulled out
of the field and the way to figure out how to do that, lies with figuring out how it
broke in the first place.
Not only is the tube steel holding up the frame of the rake, its assisted by a piece
of c channel that runs underneath it.
This channel bolts in to the back of the rake and takes a bunch of the load.
Obviously these bolts and broken, which then allowed the rake to only be supported by the
main channel.
Oddly enough, this is what the thing is made to do.
Break.
This channel is held on by what they call shear bolts, bolts that are made to break
off if they are put under too much stress.
This field we are working in is rough and my guess is that I hit a bump that broke off
those bolts.
The problem is that you cant see them from inside the tractor so I had no idea they broke.
Then a few miles or a few feet later, I hit another bump which put stress on the middle
of this beam and started the crack.
That crack grew overnight to the problem we have now.
Now that we know what happened we can look at how to fix it.
In order to move this thing, we need to get that C channel back in place and bolted up,
let it take the stress off the main beam long enough to get it folded up and back home.
To get things to match up we need a jack.
I have a floor jack with me and after some scrounging around we find a few pieces of
lumber and a log, that will help us get this thing back in place.
Worse case scenario the thing falls and the beam breaks completely in half, as long I
stay out of the way I should be safe if it does fall and with faith, we get to jacking
it up.
With it holding in place we use some extra bolts to secure the c channel back into its
place where hopefully it will support the weight it needs to.
Ranching is sometimes a lot of winging it, it is for me anyway and although I don’t
know if this is going to work, I sure hope it is and when it comes time to let down the
jack we will find out.
Heres the nice thing, if I can get his folded up then the wing bars and wheels will help
support the middle beam for the trip home, so that’s our next goal.
And away we go.
Back at the shop its time to formulate another plan, this one of how to fix this thing.
I have a welder in the shop, but this thing is not going to fit in the shop.
So its time to call for some help.
I could weld this myself, after all I am the worlds okayest welder but this is a pretty
big break and a piece of equipment that is essential to us haying.
If I weld it, there is a chance I could have to weld it again but If I call a pro out,
then I know its done right and with the other problem of not having a welding machine that
can reach out here, it seems like the thing to do.
We call in a few favors and end up with Rick a professional welder and mechanic with his
own service truck out to help us.
Our break isn’t getting any better and with the help of Ricks truck and his crane we are
able to strap on to the rake and life the main beam back into place where it is supposed
to be.
Rick starts by cleaning off all the paint, grinding the seams clean, then gets to welding
the thing back together.
I lost track of how many passes of welds he put down but like any good welder he also
wants to brace the new joint and we do that with some scrap angle iron that I had laying
around.
Laying the iron over the edge of the beam and welding them in place, giving us a solid
bridge over our weld.
When the crane is released, nothing moves at all, which is a good sign.
After it cools a little paint makes it look pretty.
And then its back to work.
Folding the rake back up and headed back to the field.
Overall, this breakdown has cost me most of a day, but if the weather cooperates then
it’s a day that I can make up pretty quickly.
The hay out in the field is still wet, the windrows still need to be rolled over to dry
and there is no better test than a working test.
Although we will have to keep an eye on it for the rest of this rakes life, the problem
looks fixed.
Around here no fix is permanent is seems but we will take it easy on the rake for bit.
Drive a little slower, watch out for bumps and hopefully we will get many years out of
this repair.
Everyday when I come outside, I really have no idea what to expect.
Cars can drive through fences, cows could be out, buildings can be on fire, equipment
can be broken that looked just fine the day before, its always an adventure and everyday
I learn something new.
I figured out pretty quick you have to embrace the things that happen, figure out how to
deal with them and get them fixed and I am here to tell you, if you need help.
Make that call.
Thanks for helping us out and joining us today.
We hope that you can subscribe because we have lots more on the way from the ranch and
I invite you to come and hang out with us, live, this Wednesday right here on YouTube
at 7pm mountain time.
Both Erin and I look forward to getting a chance to answer questions and let you know
what is going on around here and the ranch.
This week we have a couple special things happening too, we will be taking, for the
first time ever, video questions from viewers and we have a special tribute on the way for
all of our patreon and other supporters during a very special mail call.
I hope you can join us, that’s Wednesday at 7pm.
Until then, have a great week and thanks for joining us in our Wyoming life.