With the fields cut, its time to make rows out of all the grass that is laying around. These are known as windrows, by having the hay gathered up in this manner it makes it easier to bale later on. It will take me another day or two to gather it all up in neat tidy rows. But soon it will be all ready to be collected with the haler and formed into square hay bales.
Between mowing and raking I had to wait a few days for the weather to clear up. They kept calling for rains throughout the week. And I need to do the raking in dry weather. But finally we got a long stretch of good weather ready to rake.
Starting off the day we can see the close by windrows, but further away it has yet to be formed. In the beginning it seems like so much work, but if I just do what I can day by day it all adds up.
Slowly but surely I form them, going a little under 5 MPH. Some areas I need to slow down a little more for but all and all its all 6th gear driving.
Later that day I can really start to see my work out in the fields building up. Its really cool being out on the tractor for hours not really seeing what all I have done. But returning I can see it all from a good vantage point.
After lunch I go out to do some other areas, we can see the hay just laying on the ground not raked up yet.
Just looks like clumps of hay, due to the rain gathering them. But soon they will be in neat rows.
Out in the fields we can see as well what it looks like before I rake. If I was not forming bales I could just "chop and drop" it and the grass would grow back. But I want to collect all that cut hay to make square hay bales out of.
A few times I had to stop raking to pull some branches we missed of the windrows. Its probably not good for the baler to get sticks inside it.
My branch collection, I throw some of the branches off into the woods but if I am in the middle of the field I just put them in the bucket of the tractor.
Riding along I got some video of the front and back. Its a little bouncy in the tractor.. lol
We can see how the rake gathers the hay and forms rows. The FPS of the gif may not show it but its spinning at around 540 RPM.
A closer look at the rake, its all powered by the tractor.
It has been a great tool, one of the four machines we need to make hay bales. Along with the mower, rake, and accumulator. So we are about half way through the process now, soon the baling will start and then it will be the final product ready to pick up from the fields.
Previous posts on this project:
@solominer/the-fields-are-waking-up