Hi, I’m Mike.
We have now started up haying on the ranch, producing the bales that will feed our herd
for the long, sometimes hard winter.
Today we get a look at the first part of the haying process as we get to farming, and cutting
grass on our Wyoming life
Welcome to our Wyoming life, a continuing video series of mine, my wifes and our families
life on a Wyoming Ranch.
We invite you 3 times per week to join us as we explore the ranch life and escape the
ordinary.
Ranching for us is all about family and care of that family.
Our family extends well beyond those that just lives in our house.
We consider the entire ranch as part of our family and all things that come from it.
The cows are certainly a big part of it, pigs, chickens, gardens and even the grass that
grows here.
But along with all that, we also include those families that the ranch provides for, those
that purchase beef produced here, the customers that come to farmers market and enjoy Erin’s
produce or eggs and even those of you who watch what we do.
Whether you are trying to get a better grasp on what goes into agriculture, or you work
in the industry yourself.
Maybe you are against raising animals to feed the population and you want to educate yourself
on what, how and why things happen on a ranch or farm.
That’s totally fine, you are all part of our family and we are happy to call you that.
As with any family one of the big days of the week, whether you hate or not is the day
you have to go to the grocery store and fill up your fridge or your pantry.
And for a major part of the family here on the ranch, the cows.
This is the time of year we start to fill up their pantry.
All summer long the cows are going to enjoy fresh grass on the prairie.
Eating to their little hearts content.
But this winter, once snow covers the ground, getting to that grass is going to be a lot
harder and the grass will be less abundant.
When that time comes its up to us to make sure they are fed, especially as they will
all be pregnant and requiring more and more subsidence to help provide for them and their
growing calves.
Its this time of year that we shift gears a little bit, and become more farmers than
ranchers.
Theres a song from a local country star named Chris Ledoux called Dirt and Sweat Cowboy,
that is all about this time of year.
We don’t have permission to play it, but the lyrics “I love this ranching, with it
roping and branding, but I don’t like that farming at all.
So its goodbye for summer, this haying it sure is a bummer.
And I’ll be back to help you gather in the fall.”
Well, we cant split when it comes to haying so the next best thing for us to do is get
to it and put it behind us.
How do we know when to start haying?
That can be a tricky question, but you would never know if you didn’t get out and look
at the hay fields.
In our fields we have a mixture between pasture grasses, including wheat grass, needle grass
and brome, along with alfalfa.
Alfalfa is what give the majority of protein to our hay, the problem is that alfalfa and
wheat grasses are rarely ready to harvest at the same time.
Normally we would harvest alfalfa when it at about 10% flowering but because the wheat
grass has not started to head out at that time, we wait on alfalfa and concentrate on
the wheat grass, which makes up a majority of our crop and the bulk of the hay.
With the grass now headed out, we can head out to start on the first step of haying and
get to cutting.
This year we will be cutting hay with a Rowse double 9 mower.
The double 9 mower is made up of 2 – 9 foot sickle bars that take care of cutting the
grass.
Making each swipe of the mower 18 feet wide.
The mechanics of it are pretty simple, no computers, no crazy systems.
Just a PTO that powers a drive that moves the sickle back and forth between guards that
protect them from rocks and other hazards.
Of course we need something to pull the mower with and to power it and for that we will
be using our John Deere 6410 tractor.
The mower utilizes PTO power and hydraulics from the tractor.
The hydraulics control the lift of each sickle and the PTO puts power to the machine.
Once we are all hooked up then its off to the field to get to work.
With the sickles down, there are a few daily requirements the mower needs.
Mostly grease.
We greased the mower up at the beginning of the season, but some high wear and tear parts
require daily greasing and the biggest of these is the wobble drive.
Forget to grease this and you will have a very short day and probably one filled with
a whole lot of dirty words.
Under this cap is one little zerk type grease fitting that will make or break a haying season.
It needs to be greased everyday, or every 10 hours of operation, which ever comes first.
There is one for each sickle, while we are at it, we also grease one more hard to get
to and slightly annoying fitting called the knife pin that holds the sickle to the drive.
These are the high wear and tear parts on the mower.
As we fire it up on very slow RPM, you will see what I mean.
Power from the tractor travels down this shaft, to and through the first sickle drive, then
onto the back to a belt which drives each sickle back and forth.
Keep in mind this is at only a few RPM.
We are going to be running the mower at 540 Revolutions per minute.
Keep in mind this is the only time we will operate the PTO while we are outside the tractor
and its only so show you how it moves.
Anytime we have to get out of the tractor, the PTO will be shut off along with the tractor.
Its way to easy for accidents to happen, and I don’t know about you but I like my fingers.
Some more than others.
Once we are ready to go, there is still one very important part to running the mower and
that’s converting it from road mode, to field mode.
By pulling this one lever, we change the angle of the wheels by only inches, but allow the
back tires to swing out to the side and the sickles to run in tandem.
The first sickle cutting the closer 9 feet and the other following right behind.
This field we are cutting today is also the field where we ran our irrigation experiment
over the past month or so.
Our goal was to see what kind of difference late season rain would make on our grass growth.
Over the past month we made sure that this area received 1 inch of rain per week.
And as you can tell, it didn’t have much affect as compared to the rest of the grass.
The only difference we see is that the watered area is slightly greener, as rains have stopped
over the rest of the field.
What this tells me is that late season rain, over the last month, has little effect on
the growth of the grass and that its more than likely early rain.
The rain that falls in April and May that dictates growth and height of the grass.
Next time, we water earlier and maybe even figure out a way to water more for a better
sample.
As we continue to cut our first round of the field, we keep the sickles toward the fence
but as you can imagine we don’t really like driving over the hay we have not yet cut and
that’s why after our first round has cut as close as we want to get to the fence we
can now turn around and cut the other direction.
Now driving on the grass, we have already cut.
Things do break and quite often that breakdown comes from broken teeth on the sickle and
is an easy fix.
You will notice a broken tooth because you will start to miss cutting patches of grass.
When that happens, its time to stop.
Shut off the tractor and fix it.
We start by removing the broken tooth, then replacing it.
Two bolts hold on each tooth of the sickle and then we replace the guard that was protecting
it, again another 2 bolts.
If you stay on top of the state of your guards and sickle teeth your down time will be a
lot less than if you don’t.
Replacing one tooth takes minutes, while replacing and entire row will take you hours.
With that fixed you are back up and running.
Heading out in circles for hour upon hour.
In fact, cutting at about 6 miles per hour you will average about 11 acres per hour,
this field is about 70 acres so make sure you schedule at least 7 hours to get it done,
but eventually, you will near the end.
And those last few swipes of the mower will bring you a great satisfaction, until you
remember, this is just the first step.
There is two more steps to go, raking and baling and although our time is up for today
we will have plenty more coming up from the field.
We will make a bale, eventually but first it will be breakdowns and rebuilding.
Skinned knuckles and probably a few dirty words, but we will get done.
Unlike Chris Ledoux’s song we aren’t taking haying season off and we don’t have to wait
until fall to see you again, we will see you sooner than you think.
Thanks for being here with us, make sure you find us on facebook and Instagram and please
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know you and your story so comment as well, let us know you are here.
We will see you again on Tuesday, until then have a great week and thanks for joining us
in our Wyoming life.