Due to the fantastic rain throughout September and October, our river flats recovered enough from lambing to be able to bale the predominantly rye-grass pasture.
Some years ago we baled with an old B47 IH square baler which is a lot of manual work with picking up and stacking the small squares afterwards. Aside from the manual labour, the square baler is temperamental at the best of times. So as to reduce stress associated with the consistent break downs, we decided to buy a round baler. We have been searching online over the last few months, but crunch time had arrived. We contacted a helpful farmer called Justin (of course he is totally awesome with a name like that!) who was selling his Case 527 round baler. A long drive down to Stradbroke and a handshake later we were the new owners of a round baler.
This was fortunate because the spanner in the works for November was Justin’s engineering work requiring him to go to Latvia! For 2 meetings! Right in the middle of baling season!!
Never fear, Katie is here!
So after getting the baler attached thanks to a muscular father-in-law, reading the baler manual fifty times, ringing the previous owner on a Sunday afternoon (told you he was awesome!), and trundling the tractor and baler around the paddock, I finally got a bale. I was more excited than a kid on Christmas morning, and my jubilant jumping around confirmed it for my kids.
When Justin returned from Latvia, he finished off the rest of the flats getting 59 more bales off 5.5 hectares. Our Linners Lamb lambs are all set for fattening up now!