[Rivendell Farm]

Hi Gina,
Welcome to the forum. I notice there hasn’t been an overwhelming response to the question on the supportive farming network in Michigan. I live in southern Michigan, about one half mile from Indiana, and have farmed with horses for more than 20 years. As far as I know there is nothing in Michigan that comes close to MOFGA. In fact, I’m planning to go to the Common Ground fair in Maine this month. There are people around who take horses to plowing matches, parades, etc., but as far as farming goes, that’s mostly done by the Amish. I’d be happy to learn if there is something out there I don’t know about.

Where in Michigan are you headed? Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

If the grain is dry enough, lack of ventilation shouldn’t be a problem. You could add a very small amount of diatomacious earth to prevent weevils from infesting it. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

There are probably as many opinions on how and when to cut hay as there are people doing it. Quality is definitely better if it’s cut early when the weeds are young and tasty, but it does take more work to make more cuttings. It seems now the weather patterns are more erratic than in the past with drought likely to occur in any summer month. Same with long rainy periods. I think cutting early and more often helps control weeds in the stand that can’t keep up with the alfalfa. Mature burdock in the hay gets burrs in wool. Cutting late I get large stems of something unidentifiable that even the horses look at with disgust. Yesterday I baled hay that was mowed the day before, a third cutting if you count early grazing as a cutting, and was some of the most beautiful alfalfa/ trefoil/grass you can imagine. Sheep dream of this sort of hay in the winter. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

I know of an Amish farmer who uses a hay car and, I believe, slings to put both square and round bales in his barn loft. You don’t have to drop them more than a few inches, just high enough to clear the floor. You might want to be sure your barn is strong enough. A sling of loose hay may not weigh all that much less than a round bale. Old barns don’t make it easy to get round bales in or manure out, but they have a lot more character than pole buildings. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

The bales are kind of balanced on the pipes of the bale master, and held there by the grappling hooks and short chains. You simply lift the hooks out of the bales and they roll off; sometimes it takes a slight push. The ones we feed to sheep in the field are rolled off so they line up along the fence. For the bales we store in a pole barn, I have a modified manure bucket that fits on the ancient loader of my Farmall M tractor with a bale spear on it. With that I can stack them three high. It’s not as nice as a modern, articulated loader bucket would be, but it was cheaper. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

Geoff,
The tongue is virtually weightless with a full load of hay and two people on the cart, but it doesn’t seem to cause any problem except for bouncing at the trot down the road. I do have brakes on the cart that help a lot on steep hills. For braking it’s better to have more of the weight on the cart than less. My bales are 4X4. Larger bales can fit and might present more of a tongue problem. But there are carts with movable axles to balance the load, at a price. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

I hope I did the pictures right. Anyway, if I did, here are some pictures of the Bale Master. I wrote an article about it that’s in the Small Farmers Journal, about 2006. To unload it, you simply pull out the grappling hooks and let the bales roll off. Videos are way beyond my technical skills. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

George,
I think I saw that once at Horse Progress Days. It looks like you’ve gotten pretty good at backing. My problem with most horse-drawn round bale movers is, they only move one bale at a time. If your field is more than a half mile from the barn, it’s slow work. I bought one that can move six round bales at a time. It’s called a Bale Master, and is basically a very low trailer made of pipes. Using an electric winch, cable and grappling hooks, you roll the bales up onto the wagon. Simply pull alongside the bale, run out the cable, set the hook and roll the bale up. The only time you may have to back it up is if the bale is very close to the edge of the field. You have to see it work to appreciate how clever the design is. I’m not sure it’s still being manufactured. A few years ago I paid $2,000 for it, much less than the cost of a self loading hydraulic trailer. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

It’s been a while since I’ve used the type of rake you ride on with horses hitched directly to the rake, but it does seem there was a lot of stress on the big wheels, though not enough to damage them. It made nice corners. If you turn left, won’t you mess up the windrow you raked on the last round? Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

That’s a great site. Thanks for the link. Gene Logsdon is one of my favorite authors. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

Yes, the Fowler brothers were from Montgomery, but I don’t believe either of them is still living. I have to admit to not being a big fan of horse-pulling, though. I’d rather watch horses plow. Unfortunately Montgomery today might be best known for its Meth labs. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

Dave,
I live in Michigan, about five miles north of the Ohio/Indiana line and most all the wheat grown here is soft red winter wheat. Are you sure hard wheat is raised in your area? The climate here isn’t great for hard wheat- too much rain. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

In my area the Amish bring loose hay to the barn, but the only reason they bale it there is if they’re short of storage space, since lose hay takes up about twice as much room as baled. My own experience making loose hay years ago was that it wasn’t much, if any, more work than square bales, but it was slower, a big deal if the dark clouds are moving in and lightning is flashing in the west. We used a hay loader to load the wagons. A person armed with a hay fork stood on top of the load to rearrange the hay as it came up. Back at the barn we had a track and hay car above the loft so with ropes and pulleys hay could be lifted off the wagon, then moved into position for dropping on the stack. We used slings and each one contained about one quarter of the wagon load. The hay did need some rearranging as it was dropped into the mow. The resulting hay was generally better quality than our baled hay. One big drawback to loose hay, though, is that it is not easy to get to the animals you want to feed, unless they’re in the barn near the hay. Square bales do make nice, handy feed packages. Bob Kidwell

[Rivendell Farm]

Donn,
My friendly Amish welding shop some time ago bent the big bar that adjusts lead to make up for too much slop in everything. I did pull back on the bar and have adjusted it to reduce the lead a little. I notice the steel plate on the bearing end of the pitman gets rather hot from flexing as the mower runs. I thought perhaps because the bar is not quite in line. This mower hasn’t been quite the same since the bar hit a gate post at a high rate of speed.

Mike, I thought of the use for that loose piece of metal in the hold down after I made the post.

[Rivendell Farm]

Hi Donn, It’s a six foot bar. The knife is tighter than usual, but there is still paint on all the ledger plates. I think it’ll run easier after it mows a couple rounds. Normally I can pull the knife out by hand. Not so right now. Incidentally, what happens if the bar has too much lead? This one has about 3 inches, twice that recommended. Bob

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