Why Round Bales?

We baled our hay at the start of this week - our big farming endeavour every year!

Bales in the sunshine

 We round bale ours and the other day someone asked me why. We could make much more money from them if we baled it into small square bales and sold them through the winter. Our main issue with that, other than very few contractors will bale them like that anymore, is we have no storage for them. 

Bales in the rain

One day we will build a barn to store our bales in (if we can get planning), but in the meantime we will keep having round bales. These can spend a bit of time in the rain without getting too damaged and they are easily transported away from our little smallholding - sold off the field. It's a good job too with all the rain we've been having over the last couple of days!

Moving Bales

The bales have gone today. Dad found someone who wanted to buy them so picked them up this afternoon. As well as this he came with a trailer full of bits and bobs for a rather large project we're starting next weekend (but more on that later in the week).

An enjoyable job



A good, secure load



Off they go!



A flat tyre just to make things interesting!



Getting a wheel off a tractor with no jack - just a few tricks my dad taught me!

Things were going so well until we had a flat tyre on the little loader tractor. The only advantage with this was dad showed me a trick on how to take a tyre off a tractor without using a jack (as I didn't have one).
We did have to continue loading the trailer with the flat tyre, but as the tyre is completely perished where it burst it will need to be scrapped anyway so no great loss, just bad timing!

Cutting Grass

I didn't put cutting hay as the title as we're probably going for silage, but it doesn't matter as today we finally cut the grass on our three fields! This is long overdue but with the weather being rubbish and being so busy it just hasn't happened.

Good 'old john Deere

 Dad's kit is massive in these little fields so they were mown in no time at all and as it's a mower conditioner it fluffs the hay as well, saving having to turn it the first time. I didn't get to mow the grass myself this year (new mower so no chance) but hopefully by next year I should start to get some of my own kit for mowing, turning and bailing.

Down side to big kit - can't mow under the trees very well

There seems to be plenty on the field and it looks like good stuff, just got to hope for good weather now!