A few pics from today’s square baling

[Hay Dude]

Tomorrow will begin spreading of compost soil. Should have some pictures of the process.

 

[Hay Dude]

Well here we go. Day one of the next phase of hay farming….fertilizing about 300 acres with compost soil. I got the spreader as a long term rental. Used to own one, but it didn’t make sense. I rented an Artex 600 bushel. Nice unit. Looks barely used.

Loading scoops into spreader with the M126X and a high capacity 8’ bucket.
I made the reinforced screen mounted on the back to keep soil from tumbling over the backside onto the hood. Allows for a more heaped scoop as well.

Back to the pile for another scoop. It was chilly and breezy today. About 40* and sunny. Love it. Hawks flying around, foxes and natural beauty

Fully loaded and off to the fields to spread. Think my windows need cleaning? Lol
View out windshield

View of spreader out back window.

Returning empty for another. See anything significant off in the background? It’s East Penn Railroad!

I only spread 15) 600 bushel loads today. Not as much as I wanted. There’s 30 tri axle loads here and I got maybe 1/3-2/5s of it spread. Parked spreader for the day. Tomorrow should be more productive. Check out the DuPont mansion in the background.

 

[EddieWalker]

Is this your land or are you being paid to do this for a client? I'm just curious if it's something that people do for their own hay fields since I've never seen, or even heard of anybody doing this where I'm at. Not that I know what everyone is doing, but we have acidic soil and lots of pine trees, so the most common thing that I see people spreading is lime to lower the PH of the soil.

 

[Hay Dude]

Is this your land or are you being paid to do this for a client? I'm just curious if it's something that people do for their own hay fields since I've never seen, or even heard of anybody doing this where I'm at. Not that I know what everyone is doing, but we have acidic soil and lots of pine trees, so the most common thing that I see people spreading is lime to lower the PH of the soil.

It’s a customers property that we farm for them.
We did aerating, 2 tons lime/acre and now the compost soil. We will do 2 more 2 tons lime/acre next year.
The soil was acidic and low on critical nutrients. It was also low on organic content, hence the compost soil. The compost soil also has lime added to it. It’s primarily decayed hay, water, horse manure, chicken litter, lime and some topsoil.

Heres a view of one corner of the property.

 

[zoedog2012]

Is this your land or are you being paid to do this for a client? I'm just curious if it's something that people do for their own hay fields since I've never seen, or even heard of anybody doing this where I'm at. Not that I know what everyone is doing, but we have acidic soil and lots of pine trees, so the most common thing that I see people spreading is lime to lower the PH of the soil.

Lime raises the ph.

 

[Hay Dude]

Another view
The Wyeth Farm & Estate in the background

 

[Deere Dude]

Great action pics.
One thing that always scared me was time around a big belt operated threshing machine. My dad had an old Allis powering a 25' long belt by 6-8"wide turning the thresher. Scared me every time I walked near that thing.

 

[cqaigy2]

Nice office you have there!

 

[Hay Dude]

Towards the end of the day, I got a code in the Kubota. Didn’t have my owners manual, but I knew what it was…..low on hydraulic fluid. Tractor was noisy and shifting funny. Got out of cab and I have fluid running from the pump on top the engine, down the sides of the block and dripping off the frame.
Gotta get this job done, so I ended up adding a few gallons of fluid about 2 quarts at a time. Other Kubota is in shop, so I’m down to a leaking tractor to load the compost.
Hope to have other tractor back next week. Meantime, gotta hobble along with this one. Then tear it down and see what’s leaking. Looks like a pump seal or hose.

 

[EddieWalker]

Lime raises the ph.

Thanks, I got it backwards. I told my wife this, and she became so interested in the topic that she spent an hour on her phone reading up on soil Ph. She is a RN with a PhD, so this is the type of stuff that she enjoys.