The boys (I guess I should say men but I got into the habit of saying the boys) do the baling: Mr. Ferrero Rocher, his two brothers, and a brother-in-law. Baling is typically done 1 – 3 days after raking depending on the heat. For this first crop they’d start baling around 3am because of the dew, bale two pivots, and get done about 8 or 9 in the morning. They’d come home for breakfast, a quick 1/2 hour nap then back out to haul hay until about 4pm. The rest of the evening was spent servicing the balers, turning on pivots in the cleared fields, other mechanic work then home for dinner and bed hopefully by 8pm so they wouldn’t fall asleep when baling in the middle of the night. Mr. Ferrero Rocher particularly likes to listen to old time radio shows on his Ipod to keep him awake. The Six Shooter with Jimmy Stewart, Dragnet, and Sherlock Holmes are his favorite.

As you’ll see in this video we use one ton balers. We started using them about 14-15 years ago when ton bales were worth more than regular sized small bales. Usually only those with a couple of horses or cows want small bales. Ton bales measure 4′ x 4′ x 8′.

The tractors are driven right over the top of the hay with the wheels straddling the windrows. What is unusual about this video is the rakers are out right ahead of the balers. This field was raked on a Friday morning. Then Saturday afternoon huge gusts of wind tore through wrecking havoc on the windrows. It really looked terrible. We don’t work on Sundays, well at least we try not to, you know keep the Sabbath day holy, but were very tempted to because the dew was perfect for raking the hay back into windrows for the balers. Monday morning at 3 am all the raking and baling crews were out trying to finish up the last of first crop.

This next video just shows what the boys see while driving their tractors when baling. You’ll see the hay being picked up into the baler. You’ll also hear Mr. FR speak at the end.