When I posted Catering Jellyrolls on Jan. 22nd, I promised the conclusion would be "Next up." Well, stuff happened and "Next up" got postponed by the Insane Propane Drain, Snowmaggedon, a style review featuring my frigid weather wardrobe, a wonderful Valentine's Day present from Bill and the birth of our only "spring" calf. This weekend brought more snow and frigid temperatures. I'm ready for spring and warmer weather. Since that may not happen for awhile yet, let's go back to last summer and finish what I started earlier...

Last summer when the time came to load and haul the round bales home, I was offered the opportunity (read drafted) to add another task to my Certified Farm Hand (CFH) designation. But we didn’t use the regular hay trailer; we used one specifically designed to haul these gigantic brome jellyrolls. However, this task still required that I drive the flatbed farm truck because the bale hauler has a gooseneck hitch. There’s always an adventure afoot when I get behind the wheel of the farm truck!

The loading process for big round bales is different than the process for small squares due to the size of the round bales: 1,150 pounds versus about 80. Bucking bales with a hay hook isn’t an option! This operation requires a tractor with a bale fork. The loading logistics are also different: Instead of driving both the tractor and the truck pulling the hauler from one bale to the next, loading one at a time, the bales are pre-arranged in lines of seven, the hauler capacity, then loaded all at once in one location. This eliminates driving two gas hogs the full distance, stopping and starting at each bale. Considering the bales are usually anywhere from 50 to 100 yards apart, this method is much more efficient in terms of time and fuel usage.

Here’s what a round bale hauler looks like from the side and looking down from my position astraddle the horizontal bar of the gooseneck hitch (and trying not to fall off!):

The plan: Bill would drive the John Deere tractor to the hay field, two miles away, and arrange the bales. When he was almost finished, he would call me to bring over the bale hauler.

When the call came, Cricket and I jumped in the truck and took off for the field. I knew maneuvering this rig through the gate into the field would require finesse to not take out the gate posts or turn at too sharp an angle, putting excessive torque on the sacred gooseneck hitch. (Sacred? At $4,000 a pop, you betcha!) I pondered the situation during the two-mile trip and came up with a plan: Start my wide turn early and aim for the gate at an angle, not straight on. The plan worked well. My right side mirror cleared the gate post by about one-half inch, but the left rear wheel of the trailer dropped off into the ditch which, luckily, was shallow. Pretty successful, I’d say.

We headed for the first line of bales. Bill arranged each line with a gap in the middle big enough for me to drive through and park. He speared the first bale and loaded it on the hauler. He speared the second bale and used it to push the first bale forward on the hauler until the second bale was loaded. He repeated this process until seven bales were on board.

One more bale and we're ready to go unload.

Bill shut off the tractor and climbed down from the cab. Because we were hauling several loads from the field to our place, he didn’t want to drive the tractor back and forth each trip. But wait…doesn’t he need the tractor to unload the bales at home, you ask? This is the cool part!

We arrived home and Bill parked where he wanted to unload bales. I moved into position with my camera, he grabbed a lever on the side of the hauler, pulled it out at a 90 degree angle, then pushed it up.

Wait for it…

Oops! Waited too long! That’s how it works but it wasn’t the shot I wanted.

We went back to the field, repeated the loading process and returned home. Positions, everybody! OK, Bill, let ‘er rip!

Wow! There’s the shot I wanted—the bales are about a foot off the ground! Isn’t that cool? Now, back to the field for another load.

After the last bales were on the trailer, we headed for home. This trip, Bill drove the tractor which left me (Yikes) to drive the truck and loaded bale hauler. To protect truck side mirrors, gate posts, hauler wheel axles, sacred gooseneck hitch and our marriage, Bill drove the load out of the field and onto the road. We convoyed home with me in the lead. I don’t know which made me more nervous: driving the rig, or knowing Bill was behind me and would see and have plenty to say about any near-misses or flat-out collisions! We made it home unscathed and Bill even complimented me on my driving. Kudos to June, the Jellyroll Hauler!

Some of the heifers prefer the small square bales Bill serves in a former stock water tank that sprung leaks, now repurposed into a nifty serving bowl. Somebody with her front legs in the tank prefers to eat out of the middle instead of along the side!

No, this post isn’t about pastries—it’s about hay.

Years ago, three friends from out-of-state, two gals from San Francisco and one from Baltimore, visited us at the Valley Falls farm. None of them knew anything about farming and had never been to Kansas. We took them on a tour of the countryside to see farms, fields, and cattle. As we drove by a field of big round bales, one of the gals from San Francisco exclaimed, “What are those big jellyrolls used for?” Bill and I hooted with laughter! Then he explained what they were and how they were formed. To this day, I can’t pass a field of round bales without thinking “jellyrolls!”

The pictures below show Bill catering a gigantic brome jellyroll to our current pasture residents:

• 11 bred heifers, aka prospective new mothers, due to have calves this fall.
• One cow/calf pair, Sleepy and her heifer, Snooze. Sleepy is one of the “Boomer Sooner Bovines” from my book. She suffered a post-partum complication last fall so we kept her at home over the winter for observation. (The rest of our 60 cow/calf pairs were transported to a ranch 30 miles away because we aren’t set up to feed that many cattle during the winter. See my post of 11/29/13, “Bon Voyage Until Next Spring!”)
• Cutie, a red white-face Hereford-mix heifer who didn’t stay bred last year but was given a second chance due to her genetics, so will calve in February.
• A Rent-A-Bull, the proud father who bred the 11 heifers.

Side Note: The Rent-A-Bull came from a registered breeder and was tested to be free of trichomoniasis, a sexually-transmitted disease passed by bulls to cows and heifers. There is no treatment and it can cause infertility and abortion. 

Bale drop...

And viewed from inside the cab of the tractor...

We’ve been putting up small square bales for many years. In the chapter titled, “Hay Fever—Not Just an Allergy,” from my book, I included pictures illustrating the baling process for small squares. If Bill wanted big rounds, he either bought some or rented hay ground and hired someone to bale them. He now has the appropriate baling equipment. So let’s rewind to last summer and take a look at that process.

The cutting and swathing step is the same for both types of bales.

The process changes beginning with the raking step. Instead of using the small side-delivery rake that throws cut hay to the side into a windrow (picture on the left), a hydraulic wheel rake is used, which combines two windrows into one. Here is a picture of the wheel rake “at rest.” I’ll have to wait until summer to get an action shot. The tined wheels you see in the air are lowered to the ground when in use.

Once the cut hay has cured, or thoroughly dried by exposure to sun and wind so it has minimal moisture content, it’s ready to bale. The baler picks up the loose hay, rolls and twine-ties it “jellyroll-style” into a size preset on the baler, then the back opens up and rolls the formed bale out onto the ground. Depending on the size of the bales and denseness of windrows, they are dropped anywhere from 50 to 100 yards apart in rows.

The first time I saw a tractor pulling this type of baler around a field, I didn't know what was happening. Suddenly, the back opened up and the bale rolled out. Wow—cool!

In my 2012 Holiday Letter to friends and family, when I announced my retirement from my day job effective at the end of the year, I listed a few of my retirement projects. One of those was to "probably get more involved in our farming operation." Then I noted "I am not retiring from my day job to become a farm hand!" Of course, I was kidding. I was already a part-time farm hand and looking forward to expanding that role. Although I didn't realize it at the time, that involvement would also provide fodder for my blog like it did for my book. (I love farm puns!)

I'm launching this new category with the post "Trailer Loads of Trees."

Trees.

Yes, I said trees.

I can now add "driving a logging truck and trailer" to my farm wife job description list. This list has grown by leaps and bounds since I retired from my day job.

Last winter, the county road department cleared out trees along the road by one of the pastures we rent in preparation for reshaping the ditch to eliminate a flooding problem. Bill and a friend spent several days engaged in serious chain saw activity, trimming off the smaller branches and root systems. What I was hauling home were the denuded tree trunks. Later, Bill would cut the trunks into logs and run them through the log splitter to make pieces small enough to use in the wood furnace.

OK. I have to maneuver this farm truck with a 24-foot trailer attached out of the driveway and onto the road without:
1.      Taking out the mailbox
2.      Doing a side-roll into the ditch
3.      Turning so sharp the gooseneck hitch breaks—a $4,000 catastrophe!

Yikes! Too many things to watch and try not to destroy. This will require multi-tasking, not one of my talents.

If you've read my essay, "I am a farm wife..." or the chapter "Hay-Fever—Not Just an Allergy" in my book, you already know I can drive the farm truck pulling the trailer loaded with hay bales without getting high-centered on terraces in the field. But someone more experienced always drove the truck and trailer from the field to the barn. 

Maybe I’ll just goof around and take a picture while I try to remember the earlier instructions about how to get this rig on the road. 

Cricket rides shotgun and provides moral support.  

Success! The mailbox remains unmolested; the truck and trailer are right-side up on the road; the gooseneck hitch is unscathed. 

We’re on our way to pick up a load of trees.

We arrive at the pasture two miles away. All "STOP" and road name signs are still standing at the corners along our route. Meanwhile, Bill moved the trees close to the road and stacked them in piles using his tractor and the bale fork attachment. I park the truck on the road parallel to the open gate. He’s ready to load. 

Once the trailer is loaded, Bill waves at me to head home.

“You’re not going to secure this wobbly load with chains or tie-downs?” I ask.

“Shouldn't be a problem. You’re only going a couple of miles and will only have two turns. I’ll follow behind at a distance and pick up anything that falls off.”  Bill replies.

Did he say “Shouldn't be a problem”? Okey-dokey.

We head for home. I navigate the truck and trailer wide through the first turn and check the rearview mirrors to verify my load is intact. No tree trunks in the road or the ditch. A few minutes later, I approach our driveway and execute another wide turn. Oops! My driver’s side mirror nearly executes the mailbox! Cricket and I make a pact to not tell Bill and seal it with her licking my face.

I make it into the driveway without any more close calls and wait for Bill. Molybolt, the cat, jumps into the truck cab to wait with us.

Bill arrives with an empty bale fork which means I didn’t lose any of my load. 

He gets in the truck and positions it where he wants to unload. He uses the tractor and bale fork to scoot the logs off the trailer.

Now we go back to the pasture for another load. Unfortunately, on this trip there’s a casualty during the loading process. Bill scoops up a couple of trees, one of which has several branches on it. As he drives toward the gate opening, the load shifts and the multi-branch tree falls partially off the bale fork and on the open tubular steel gate. The impact bends the top steel tube in two places, warps the center divider, knocks the gate off one hinge and bends the other. I didn't get a picture of the damaged gate hanging crookedly on one bent hinge, but here it is as Bill moves it out of the way with his bale fork.

Bill keeps the casualty from becoming a fatality by reshaping some of the bent pieces using the bale fork, and by stomping on the top rung. The hinges are straightened and we rehang the gate. We won't have cattle in this pasture until spring so Bill has plenty of time to get a replacement; but, for now, this will work.

When we took the second load home, we brought back a chain saw to remove branches and avoid any more casualties.

Side Note: Bill forgot to notify our pasture landlord about the gate mishap. But one of her family members noticed it and asked her about it. She called one day when we were both gone and left a voice mail message: "What happened to my gate?!" Bill returned the call and assured her he would fix or replace it before spring.

We finish this project with no more gate wrecks. All stop and road signs are still standing. Ditto for the mailbox. I didn't leave any trees in ditches or along the roads. Best of all, we have a huge supply of wood to burn this winter.