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Oh — gwpoky. I wish I’d have known what you were after in ND, SD as I just got back from a fast road trip from here to Eau Claire WI with an empty 18ft trailer heading east. I might have been able to haul something your direction.

Pretty strange conditions on that trip — Butte, MT was initiating their watering restrictions (odd/even based on address and date) while Billings, MT was getting over some flooding. Western SD was worried about low rainfall conditions but the eastern half and into MN was too wet (some were still doing tillage and trying to get corn in the ground in early June). During the 6 days I was gone (3500 miles), home went from 60F to 80F for that period and I went from being patient on the hay crop to being behind (dang it). Hardly recognized it when I pulled in at home.

We’re looking at pretty dry conditions with lower than normal spring rain so it seems everything is maturing much earlier — including the local winter wheat etc.

Mitch – Lat 44 and 300ft? We’re at 46.8 and 3000 ft but your winters still trump ours by a mile. Happy Haying!

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I’d like to see your sliding tongue, Donn. I assume it’s square tubing? Also, if pulled with the forecart, backing up is not an option.

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I read the article too and the author sort of plays with the terms so to speak. Starch and sugars are nutrients so claiming that we’ve decreased nutrients in lieu of starch or sugar isn’t really true – we’ve reduced one nutrient for another (perhaps). In nutrition, even water in your food is considered to be a nutrient.

That said, I do think that the quality of our fresh fruits and vegetables has been diminished but think it is likely the result of trying to speed maturity/growth, increase shelf-life and improve the durability of the produce for long distance transport. As the apple researcher here in WA state said “we’ve taken the Red Delicious apple and kept it red but it’s certainly not delicious anymore.”

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The one problem I have with using time in efficiency calculations is that I feel it’s one thing I truly own and, as such, I don’t like my choice of how to use it to be considered a debit.

My point is – if I milked 4 cows this morning, what differene does it make whether I did it in 45 minutes or 1hr and 45 minutes?  I still milked 4 cows.  The rub comes when we convert the “saved” time into other work … so in that hour I “saved” I may have mucked out 5 stalls.  But I would have gotten to those later anyway …. so where does it end?  That’s the arms race or just race period.

Please don’t believe for a moment that I’m not a victim of this eas well.  I easily fall prey to the “hurry hurry so I can …. hurry hurry”.  It’s a battle.

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As I mentioned, one unjust comparison or measure really involves the “work done per unit of time”.   That’s how we ended up in the modern ag version of an arms race in the first place.  “If I can farm faster then I can farm more ground” and we’re off and running with 80 ft cultivators, 400HP tractors and complaining that our old corn planter tumbles seed when we operate at field speeds of 6 mph or greater  …..  and, until very recently,  still getting close to the same price for products as  we did 30 yrs back.

Don’t get me wrong, I think draft-animal power is the way to go.  The paper I posted was just another opportunity to look at somebody’s attempt to quantify efficiency of farming with animals. complete with its flaws (the paper not the horses).  But what I like, as Jay points out, it puts something out there for us to look at, think about and reflect on what we do.

Reading an article and seeing its misconceptions and shortcomings can often clarify our own positions for doing what we do.

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Well I wanted to edit but my time limit expired …. Another calculation that makes things look significantly worse for horses is in labor.  They calculated GJ of energy produced per hour of labor ….. so even with the same level of “production” (tons of hay, bushels of grain etc) the fact that the horses aren’t as fast is considered a detriment.  That seems like an unfair assessment.

 

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Read the paper – they have taken a lot of this into account.  As I read it, they even included the energy needed to build the tractor ….

 

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I’ve seen the woven cattle panels used to make a arched lean-to green house off the side of a barn or shed.  Covered them with plastic and good to go.  Panels here cost about $20 for 16’x 60″.  Cut in half would give you 32′ of row for $20.

Wind is what usually wipes out our trellised stuff so the structure needs to have some  serious support.

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To clarify – you need to create a Google account.

 

Also – careful when “placing” your icon on the map.  They can be easily moved – even other people’s markers.

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Ever tried livestock panels cut in half lengthwise and attached to T-posts?

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Mike – no stacks per se.  Bales just fall into the sled (it is bottomless) ….. but no left/right etc.  When you accumulate an adequate number (6 or 8 or ?), you pull a trip rope that releases the latch on the back gate.  The bales push the gate open and are dropped at that spot.

I do know of another guy who rode on a board in the sled and stacked/arranged bales but he said that was a pretty filthy nasty job and not all that safe either.

My baler came with a side drop chute meant to be used when baling for use with a bale wagon that picks up bales.  I just “rigged it” with a piece of scrap plywood to make it drop bales on the strings not on the end.

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Found the thread RE: the above mentioned horsepower (they were calling it a ground power).  Sadly the picture(s) are not with the thread.  They are somewhere here but I have no idea how to figure out where.

 

http://draftanimalpower.com/forums/topic/the-finished-ground-power/

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There are a couple of top notch restorers  at the ag museum linked below.  They rebuilt a huge horsepower and display it at the spring plowing event (they were setting it up w/ 2 horses per “tongue:” and there were 7 tongues).  They’d also be a good resource for you.  http://co.garfield.wa.us/eastern_washington_agricultural_museum

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I’ve attached a picture or two (I hope).  One shows the sled in general and the other, the baler with guides for trip rope.

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[near horse]

George – I’ll try and upload a picture of the setup I used last year.  The sled I used previously was a hodge-podge unit and would occasionally not relatch after opening but the unit I have now (from a neighbor) works much better.  The 2 bale height thing I mentioned was on my previous unit — this one looks like it could maybe handle 2 bales high and still make it out the door.

I haven’t really had the need to backup except if I plugged the baler and you do have a little room (a foot or two) to back up and get out of the windrow a bit so unplugging is easier.  The only headache I can think of is missing a knot and ending up with a bunch of loose hay in with your bales but it’s not THAT big a deal.

Sometimes a bale will be dropping out as you’re turning and that one might miss the sled and even get run over but again not that common.

If you’re hand loading or even using a hay grapple, having groups of bales is a nice thing.  Especially if you load by yourself!  You can even “try” to drop your groups near each other in the field.

I’ll get a picture up later today.

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