Hay underway, after some delay

Hayfield season is solidly underway.  As a kid this season was often 10-12 hour days and involving 4-6 people when stacking hay.  Now, 20 years later two guys can roughly keep pace with the larger equipment and moving from stacking hay to baling hay.  We had a rough start, my first day running the baler I managed to make every mistake I think one could make.  

Overwrapped a bale:

Under-wrapped a haybale:

And did whatever happened here:

and this is a belt overlapped on itself and jammed when the operator closes the gate incorrectly:

After the first day things went much better, well mostly, except for the time I started a tractor on fire.  It was a one of those particular hot days around 95 degrees and I was running the baler a little too hard. In my defense I was trying to avoid plugging up, as I had been doing a lot of that.  But with the combination of a very hot day, an old tractor, and some hay dust caked onto the engine along with some leaky oil, I started to see some smoke from the engine.  After inspection it seemed to be a low simmer so I slowed things down and took it easy. Well I received an error on the monitor of the gate not being latched so I stopped, opened up the gate to clear out the hay and when returning to the tractor I noticed that I wasn't just getting smoke but smoldering on the engine, nice little red coals one could start a camp fire with. I called my dad over and at seeing that my dad said to run it home and clean it out and come back out to the field later. I head south into the wind and after 100 yards or so the engine burst into flames by my feet. Apparently you only need three things to start a fire:  

heat - check  

a fuel, preferably small tinder, like hay dust - so check 

oxygen, now with a hot south wind - big check. 

Blessedly and providentially I believe, I was only a 30 yards sprint to the pickup, so I leap over the flames, (oh, and no I didn't have the fire extinguisher you're supposed to have on the tractor, and yes I do have it there now), call my dad while running to the pickup shouting, "thetractorisonfirewhatshouldIdo?!?!?!" He said something about a water jug in the pickup so I my eyes found the blue jug, grabbed it, ran back, dowsed the flames, made sure it was out and got this clip while my heart was still racing.  

Once the engine was cooled my dad drove over and surveyed the damage.  Not seeing a lot thankfully he told me to go ahead and try to drive it back.  I told him, "sure if you take care of my children when I die."  He mumbled something like, "ah you know I would, ah".  But then decided he'd drive it back after all. I followed him at a safe distance in the pickup.  Once at the place I got the tractor air blown out and power sprayed. Damage assessment: the kill-switch seemed to have melted to it's cable, and the water temperature gauge bounces all over the place now, but other than that old 4040 seems to be working okay.  We'll have the John Deere tractor guy take a look when he can fit us in. But in the mean time I drive much slower and lower RPM now, but that old girl is back at baling hay.      

After all that hay season has gone really well.  Oh, except for rain delays.  In July my dad added up we got roughly 8 inches of rain.  Which the farmers love, but ranchers trying to put up hay, have something to grumble about. Oh well, the Lord gets to choose whose prayers He says 'yes' to and which ones He says 'no' or 'not yet' to.  But the rain has delayed us a fair bit.  I think we're roughly 40% done as of the end of July.

For those who don't know the ways of putting up hay here's a montage video.   

Another odd thing,  I managed to put a metal fence post through the baler and didn't tear it to shreds, so that too was a blessing.   

Anyway always look for the ways the Lord is protecting you from your own stupidity. And look for the beauty in how He got you through it.  Grace and Peace.