EPISODE 393 BACK TO SQUARE BAILS…DID YOU NOTICE ?
alan skeoch
july 20 2021
SUDDENLY MACHINES RATTLED THE SILENCE OF A COUNTRY ROAD
The nice thing about an empty road is the chance to look around as I’m driving. Today there was more action
in the grain field than on the road…so I slowed down, stopped, slipped into reverse and backed up
Something a little surprising was happening…took me a few minutes to figure it out.
SO I backed up and recorded the movement. A whole lot of machinery…new. And
operated by one man.
But that was not the point…there was something else at work in my brain.
And it seemed I was not alone. There was a white half ton truck nearby. The driver must have been as fascinated
as I was. Too fascinated for he ended up in deep trouble as you will see at the end of this story.
Coming straight down the windrow of loose straw after the combine had got the good stuff…winter wheat or barley.
Massey Ferguson tractor…once made in Toronto but no longer so.
AHAH! This is a new version of an old machine. Back to square bails with a difference. No need for a stacker…one man’s job
is gone with this self stacker…when the load is full it is plopped down in the field for a tractor with a front end pick up.
Years ago we were the loaders. The bailer would shoot the bound bails at us and we had to stack them
quickly on the wagon. As I remember there were three of us doing the job. We had to move fast. Occasionally someone
would grab the bail by one string…snap the twine and a shower of loose straw would wreck our system. “Push the bastard off…I mean
the broken bail…not you guys.”
The big round bailers are still working most fields. Problem with them is storage…wrapped in heavy plastic tarps….hundreds of
these sheets of plastic. Terrible waste. “Why not store the round bails in the barns..most of which are empty?”
Simple answer…round bails roll….push out the barns support beams. And the round bails are hard to get in and out
of Ontario bank barns. Have you ever tried to lift a round bail? Can’t be done. Square bails are human friendly …can be lifted. Round bails are
inhuman…cannot be lifted.
So the whole job of bailing straw can now be done by one man…or woman.
Just a bit farther down the fifth line I met a guy who also must
have been rubber necking his way north on this bright summer day.
Seems he missed the road perhaps while watching the combine at work.
But I do not know how he could miss the road…just guessing he was rubber
necking.
