GAH!!....not AGAIN!!!

So the wife is out on the zero-turn riding mower cutting the grass in the field (something she just loves doing for some reason...but I will admit, the zero-turn is pretty fun to drive). Fine with me! I walk up to her to talk to her about a couple things I'd like to do to one of the corrals. She stops and shuts off the mower and we talk. My parting shot to her is..."Watch out you don't run over any baling twine!"

She tells me "Yeah, yeah, you don't have to tell me that every-single-time!"

I no sooner turn around and take one step and BOOM, the mower stalls and she's hit a big ol' bunch of baling twine in the grass. It's snarled around the mower blades like satan's ball of yarn! I spin around and glare at her. "I know, I know...I know!", she says. We watch this stuff like a hawk, and are neurotic about picking it up, but with as many bales of hay we go through every year some always manages to escape. And because we use big round and square bales each strand is about 20' feet long. And let me tell you, it will stop a lawn mower dead in it's tracks, even a big zero-turn with a 60" deck on it...this is some tough stuff!

So I go over and get the tractor, come over and pick the mower up so we can get at the underside of the mower deck. It's ALL bound up! There's twine balled up on both blades HARD and about 2"+ thick! What a mess! Spend the next 45 minutes in the blazing sun with knives and chisels cutting/prying it out of the blades. Finally get it all out and set the mower back down.

Not 25 seconds later...SHE HITS ANOTHER ONE!! GAH...not ANOTHER ONE!!!

And this time it's REALLY bad, even worse than the first one! Unbelievable!!!!

This time I just picked the mower up with the tractor and hauled it into the barn where at least we can work on it in the shade. Said screw it and broke out the big air impact wrench and just took the blades off this time. What a mess!! Filled up a whole 55 gallon trash can with cut up twine from that dang thing. Put the blades back on, put the tractor back down, unstrapped it and just walked off...I didn't say a thing. She says "thank you!"

"No problem", I said (lying my butt off!). Next one's on her!!!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk




I feel your pain. I have spent a many hours getting to know my diagonal cutters.

First couple of times mowing the lawn shortly after purchase, I hit everything. Barbed wire, SS mig welding wire (I think), bailing twine and scrap metal.

This was an old farm, and the metal pile that most farmers have was everywhere.

I had always pictured you using one of these for some reason....

a reply to: ClovenSky

It'd take like 1000 years to cut the grass with that! We've got like 9 acres of grass to cut, and that's just the grass outside the pastures. We let the cows cut the grass inside the pastures!

I cut my grass. No issues. City lot. Lots of trees and landscaping.
I've seen bails of hay. Both the big round ones and the rectangles. This sounds like one of those country folk issues.
I do have to deal with litter from pedestrians. 711 and WaWa cups mostly. And loud drunk people walking by in the middle of the night while you get the sweet lull it crickets.
Nah ...just kidding ...we have crickets too. You can hear them when the police sirens stop.

a reply to: ClovenSky

Gawd, I can't even imagine how bad barb wire would suck!! I think I'd have to break out the torches for that!!

I guess I should consider myself lucky!

a reply to: Sillyolme

...we have crickets too. You can hear them ...when the police sirens stop.

LOLOL!!

My wife still has the scar from the mandolin veggie slicer that I said, be careful, it's really sharp.

Not 30 seconds later.....

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

use a torch next time way faster....

Sounds like me when I was a kid. Dad told me to watch out for rocks while mowing.

5 minutes later, I hit a rock and it flew and took out a car window.

a reply to: muzzelfuzz

Well, I thought about that, but there's a bearing right above the shaft where the shaft comes through the mower deck. I'm afraid if I used a torch I'd melt all the grease out of the bearing and then I'd have an even bigger problem. It's a 'sealed" bearing (meaning you can't grease it), but grease can come out of it in liquid form. That, or I'd warp the bearing itself which would be equally as bad. Even worse, it looks like the bearing is pressed in, and I'd have no way to press it out because the deck is way bigger than the arch on the hydraulic press.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Ok...
Thought about it most of today.

Why are rogue baling twine out in the path of a mower? Wouldn't you want to remove these hazards before cutting vegetation. Who left these canoodling about?

Also.. beware my deck! Reaper's grow. ( the next butthurt thread ).

a reply to: Bigburgh

Well, you see, we try to clean it up as soon as we can get it out from under a bale, but the bales are heavy (like 1,400lbs. each). So you can't always get the twine off the bale, and cutting it incrementally is even more of a pain (which I'll explain in a moment). So, as we use a bale up, the bale get's lighter, then the twine can come out. Well, sometimes the twine manages to come out on it's own (wind, etc.). You don't always see it on the ground (in the tall grass). We pick up every bit we see, but you have to understand; we're going through 50-60 TONS of hay every 2-3 months, so that's a whole LOT of bales!

As hard as we try, some gets missed, and it lays down on the ground in between the grass so you can't see it. But, when you run a big mower deck over the stuff it gets picked up and just LOVES to snarl up in a mower deck.

Now, if you cut it off incrementally you wind up with even smaller pieces of twine, and these are even easier to escape. They blow out of your hands in the wind, fall out of your pockets, etc. Then you're looking for 50 pieces of twine and not just one long piece. It's a double edged sword. It'd be nice if it was just this controlled environment like inside an enclosed building or something, but we're dealing with the seasonal elements too. I know it's kind of hard to picture maybe, but it's a lot more difficult to get it all than it probably seems.

Our garbage company who we lease our dumpters from are always calling us to complain about the twine. It clogs up their massive hydraulic trucks and tears up their seals. We try to tie it up into bundles, but even they have issues with it. This is some serious stuff. Have you ever seen large bale baling twine? I don't know what the tensile strength of this stuff is, but it's got to be up in the 10's of thousands of pounds. It's about 1/4" in diameter and nylon which is strong as hell.

I have a rule around here...never, and I mean NEVER, carry any twine on one of the tractors when it's moving! If that twine gets wound around something, and wound around the person on the tractor, it will easily cut someone in half, or remove a limb. This stuff is no joke! If you've got some twine to dispose of, you'll walk it to the dumpsters or you're gone! And you'd be shocked at how easy it is for this to happen!

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: Bigburgh

Well, you see, we try to clean it up as soon as we can get it out from under a bale, but the bales are heavy (like 1,400lbs. each). So you can't always get the twine off the bale, and cutting it incrementally is even more of a pain (which I'll explain in a moment). So, as we use a bale up, the bale get's lighter, then the twine can come out. Well, sometimes the twine manages to come out on it's own (wind, etc.). You don't always see it on the ground (in the tall grass). We pick up every bit we see, but you have to understand; we're going through 50-60 TONS of hay every 2-3 months, so that's a whole LOT of bales!

As hard as we try, some gets missed, and it lays down on the ground in between the grass so you can't see it. But, when you run a big mower deck over the stuff it gets picked up and just LOVES to snarl up in a mower deck.

Now, if you cut it off incrementally you wind up with even smaller pieces of twine, and these are even easier to escape. They blow out of your hands in the wind, fall out of your pockets, etc. Then you're looking for 50 pieces of twine and not just one long piece. It's a double edged sword. It'd be nice if it was just this controlled environment like inside an enclosed building or something, but we're dealing with the seasonal elements too. I know it's kind of hard to picture maybe, but it's a lot more difficult to get it all than it probably seems.

Our garbage company who we lease our dumpters from are always calling us to complain about the twine. It clogs up their massive hydraulic trucks and tears up their seals. We try to tie it up into bundles, but even they have issues with it. This is some serious stuff. Have you ever seen large bale baling twine? I don't know what the tensile strength of this stuff is, but it's got to be up in the 10's of thousands of pounds. It's about 1/4" in diameter and nylon which is strong as hell.

I have a rule around here...never, and I mean NEVER, carry any twine on one of the tractors when it's moving! If that twine gets wound around something, and wound around the person on the tractor, it will easily cut someone in half, or remove a limb. This stuff is no joke! If you've got some twine to dispose of, you'll walk it to the dumpsters or you're gone! And you'd be shocked at how easy it is for this to happen!

OOO K!
Now.. I'm on my 7th newest mower in 4 years. ( crank shafts bend.. who knew )
I have some river rocks strategically placed on my 1.5 acre lot. But I have no idea how or where they came from. But they seem to bend metals. Broke last years harqunavanna.. now it's up to Troy B. To give me the 2 inches that looks sleek.


Edit: I know you have over 100 acres... let me feel like a big boy in 1.5 acres.

a reply to: Bigburgh

Hey, that's no small yard! Most people would freak out having to mow that much yard. In fact, I don't think most people understand how big a full acre of land really is. It ain't small at all.

We may have some property, but most of it is fenced for cattle. (It's just a "little" bit more than 100 acres though, about 11x that with the lease). We don't mow it. It's to steep and hilly to mow anyway. What we do have to mow we have some heavy gear for other stuff we can use to mow it with. I actually think cutting a piece of property your size is maybe even more difficult than ours because you don't have all the other stuff to justify bigger equipment. Plus, you also don't have a mountain of debt in it either! None of that iron is free (I wish), and neither is the fuel to run it. We can't just go to the gas station for fuel, we have to have the gas station come to us. Heck, I can't even go to the gas station to fuel up my pickup. Have to go to a truck stop to get 175 gal. Most places cut you off at $100 bucks and then want you to estimate (in dollars) how much more you need before they'll charge your card and then refund the difference (sometimes). Screw that!

Anyway, 1.5 acres is a whole bunch of lawn to be cutting! You could definitely justify a big zero-turn for that, if you don't have one already. My wife can blow me away on the zero turn with the 60" deck when I'm on the tractor with the 160" bat-wing deck. She'll just run circles around me because she can get into all the small spots I've got to back up, lift decks, adjust and move to get into. Plus she's got a way shorter wheel base than I do so I'm constantly having to adjust the deck height when she can just blow and go at full speed. Put me in a flat field and I'll eat her lunch, but there ain't a flat spot around here!!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Have you ever considered goats?

a reply to: DictionaryOfExcuses

Yes, yes I have actually!!!

I'm all about getting some goats! Love goats! Just trying to get the wife to warm up to the critters. She's okay with them, but wants guarantees about them not eating her flowers. Haven't figured out how to do that yet, because flower beds are at about the top of the culinary list for goats.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

One day I will withdraw from society and become a goat farmer.

Lots of footwork to do.

Need land first.

a reply to: DictionaryOfExcuses

Where are you looking to buy land?

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Well I live in Oregon now and I really love it. Land is pretty expensive, at least in my favorite spots, which include the upper Willamette Valley (wine country) and the eastern foothills of the coast range (timber country). Any land purchase for me is at least five years out, but I keep an eye on prices.