The Life of a Custom Mowing contractor

[Hay Dude]

I have semi-breaking news:

After spending a kings ransom on parts, I’m back to baling. I did have to have a tech help me fix this and although it hurts my pride, he discovered something I would have missed that would have cost me a lot more money.

The main issue is the central lube system greaser grenaded and sent crap into the greaser distribution block. The greaser and block were over $2,000 alone.

I was able to install the greaser, lines, electrical feed, etc. myself no issues in a few hours. The distribution block was a terrible. It has several outgoing grease lines that all have to be labeled, because all the lines have different specific “rates” of grease sent to different size bearings. Anyway, I got that removed.
The tech needed to come down to calibrate the sensor properly (but I later learned the NEW distribution block comes with a NEW sensor already installed). I was kinda miffed to have to pay the tech to bring the dist’n block down only to find it didn’t need calibration.
However, while he was there, he looked down into the baling chamber and discovered something I didn’t see. Not ONE, but TWO broken plunger arm bearings had broken greaser lines!!!! Neither of us know how long the lines have been broken….weeks? months? YEARS??? These bearings are about $4,000 EACH to replace! So while he was there, we spent about 5 hours fixing those lines and checking others for broken fittings.

So although I didn’t want to spend $1,200 for the tech for 8 hours, it may have saved me $10,000. However, nobody knows how long these bearings went without grease. So they could be on the way out. Nobody really knows yet, but we took a pry bar to them and they were both nice & tight.

Raked, then baled a dozen bales after we finished up repairs at 2PM and everything went fine.

Only a small sampling, but after 2 blown-up driveshafts and basically a completely replaced greaser system, I can bale hay again. Just in time to put it all away for the fall & winter.

 

[LouNY]

Much of the time it seems like repairs never end, they just snowball.

 

[EddieWalker]

The part nobody tells you about farming is that most of the time you're wrenching on something to keep it going.

 

[Hay Dude]

Much of the time it seems like repairs never end, they just snowball.

Right? Bad things seem to happen in threes around here. Once the baling “rhythm” is broken, it seems to take forever to get going again.

The part nobody tells you about farming is that most of the time you're wrenching on something to keep it going.

Nope.
Everyone thinks you sit on your ass in a cab and make money. What a joke.



Today I should finish hay for 2025. It was a good year until the end. I really thought this year I would escape the repairs monster.

On the bright side, I increased bale pressure to 95% and made less, but heavier bales, which increases efficiency.

I also have a potential new Feed hay customer coming this week and he wants to buy 20 to 40 large squares at 60% more than what I get for mushroom hay. That will help with the costs of some of these repairs. Kind of a sad way to look at things, but it’s better than nothing.

 

[LouNY]

At one time there was a good market for mulch hay around here for stabilizing the banks of the highway projects. That seems to have died off up here.

 

[Dryland Farmer]

Some people compare farming to sitting in their den. Clueless.

 

[RayIN]

Some people compare farming to sitting in their den. Clueless.

Or compare their farming phone app to actually farming.