103 degrees here today, with the blast furnace wind. Finished baleing my tame=cool season grass hay yesterday, started June 1st, but didn't get much done the first 3 weeks. Started on 2nd cutting alfalfa, thought with the heat it would be ready this afternoon but it hadn't cured enough. couldn't have kept it in a windrow anyway. Usually I don't get a 2nd cutting, the heat usually gets it, but this year the week of night freezes delayed it some.
Hay produced fairly good, best it has for several years, but my fields are old and should be rotated, haven't because I hate to start farming again. Did plow up one field and planted it to millet, after we took the hay off.
I use a 2550 NH swather, rake two windrows together with a rake like Soapweeds only mine only has 14 wheels. Some this year was to heavy to do that though. Works fairly good for a 2 man crew, especially where we have an alfalfa grass mixture.
We have used about every method of puttin up hay here except the little square bales. Used an overshot stacke, a Farmhand loader, Heston stackwagns, had one John deere Stackwagon, had a NH chain type baler, and now a Vermeer. Mowed with a single bar mower, a mower and trail mower, on this the rear mower was driven with a long PTO shaft. My brother built 2 mowers on a single frame, something like a Rowse. I think this was before Rowse even thought about their mower. An implement dealer here had built some like that using Ford Mowers, Lyle used JD mowers, and gear boxes from M&M square balers.
