Kickin' it old school! (Pics)

BillyinStoughton · Jun 11, 2012

We've been doing round bales for quite a while now, but a lady up the road wanted to buy a couple hundred small squares for her horses. I figured why not since I had a nice 4 acre field of timothy and orchard grass that was ready to cut anyhow. The old John Deere 14T only missed one tie and that was on the first bale. I had to clean out a wad of twine that got stuck in the duckbill and it was good to go. I almost forgot what it was like to pump out small squares. It seems less and less people use them every year.

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Anonymous-0 · Jun 11, 2012

Bud likes it.

Anonymous-0 · Jun 11, 2012

There used to be a pretty good market for small squares here in the east until the recession thinned out the back yard horse population. Bigger horse operators got geared up to handle big bales which are cheaper. Kind of hard to handle big bales by hand.

BillyinStoughton · Jun 11, 2012

I get calls every year to do small squares. You're right though...it's usually horse farms looking for it or a small beef guy with a few head. You can make some $$$ at it if you don't mind the little bit of labor that comes with it. Grass hay is goin' for about $3.25 a bale at the moment around here. By the end of summer depending on where the droughts are, it can be double that.

rrlund · Jun 11, 2012

I got rid of my square baler in 1981. Ask me if I miss it?

Eric Rylander · Jun 11, 2012

Nice pics! Nothing finer that a girl that will drive an old Farmall. He11 I can"t get my wife to SIT on my tractor for a pic.

My inlaws in southwest VA buy small sqaures for their horses, they have had to buy a few rounds when they couldn"t find any, but still pull them apart to feed, they won"t put a whole bale in a ring as they find most of it gets wasted and they want to regulate how much hay the horses get.

Back when there were lots of small dairys with tie stalls (not milking parlors) small sqaures were fed as they were tossed down from the loft above. Of course at least in the small MN town I was from, people quit having families of ten to 15 kids so there wasn"t much free labor to toss those small bales around.

rustyfarmall · Jun 11, 2012

That sure brings back some memories. Only part of it that I didn't like was when we had to STACK them in a barn in July and August. Got paid a whole whoppin' $1.25 per hour to help the neighbors put up hay. Small squares and small rounds was all we had back then. I probably handled somewhere around a million of 'em.

Ken Macfarlane · Jun 11, 2012

Familiar scene here every year! We had a round baler for a few years, couldn't sell the bales so we got rid of it. Put a few thousand into an old dairy mow every summer.

Fergienewbee · Jun 11, 2012

I hauled hay for $1.00/hour when I was in high school. Farmer's daughter drove the tractor/wagon to keep things interesting. His wife made great meals at noon: beef roast, chicken, ham etc.

Larry

dhermesc · Jun 11, 2012

Locally brome hay is going for $6-$7 a bale. My neighbor put up a bunch of hay in big rounds is now tearing the bales up and feeding them into his square baler. As a big round bale its worth about $50-$60, broke into small squares they are worth $160.

The Red · Jun 11, 2012

We were still using one of my Farmall Hs pulling hay wagons through 1998. Didn't have a pretty girl to drive it though. I got that job.

RLA · Jun 11, 2012

U folks will laugh & say I'm crazy

everyyear 8500 square bales, 7 to 800 square
straw bales, 1000. to 1500 2nd & 3rd crop
square bales.. 250 to 300 round bales...
Our barns are not set up for rounds bales.
16 x 60 silo with hayledge....

BillyinStoughton · Jun 11, 2012

I wanted to drive the tractor too, but my crazy half-breed indian girlfriend pulled rank. And since she carries a boot knife and tomahawk I wasn't in a position to argue. Not without getting the Bureau of Indian Affairs involved at least.

dhermesc · Jun 11, 2012

We actually used to put quite a bit more than that. Shoved a lot of hay through an old 440 twine tie.

A lot of old sheds found themselves stuffed with hay and sometimes a tarp nailed to the leaky roofs.

just another old geezer · Jun 11, 2012

she ain't totin' a boot knife in that pic, she's barefoot!!!!

Ultradog MN · Jun 11, 2012

Great post Billy.
I always like the photos.
Me and my cousins spent a lot of time doing that same lifting, stacking and hauling when I was a stripling lad.
Weekends the girl cousins would come up from the city to help so it was a lot more interesting as they brought their girlfriends with.

randallinMo · Jun 12, 2012

I'm not going to ask you.......because I know you do.

(oh, to only hear your thoughts right now!!)

BillyinStoughton · Jun 12, 2012

She's got sandals on. And trust me...those Chippewa girls will find a place to hide a knife. I'm tryin' to get her to at least upgrade to farmin' boots in the name of safety. She'll probably make me buy em' for her though for services rendered.

Kickin' it old school! (Pics)

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