I don’t know how many of you remember when hay came in bales that weighed about 50 lbs. I remember them being heavy. Now they weigh in the tons category. Anybody want to come out and heft those for a day or two? Well, I know I don’t! I am not even sure I could lift the little (50 lbs little in comparison!) bales. The solution is a better mouse trap… I know it is an old saying. But it still applies.
The new mouse trap? In this case the new bale buster is a Roto Grinder. Never heard of it? Wow! OK, I never heard of it either. It takes bales weighing in the ton category. This would be the place where I show you the grinder grinding up stuff. Maybe in the future. In order to load the grinder you have to have another tractor to lift it up there. Did I mention how HEAVY they are? The inventor’s grandson even came out to set it up. The “little tractor” as the yellow tractor, will now be know. Is was in the shop. I am not sure when it was suppose to be here, but it wasn’t here.
See the big orange tub? That is where you lift up your bales and drop them in. Simple? Yes? Then why didn’t I think of it before?? Like Velcro, post it’s and white out?? The simple answer was given by Jessie (? the inventor’s grandson) he just said “Grandpa saw a need and filled it.” Sounds reasonable. I guess since I never knew that the hay bale issue was actually an issue. ‘Nuff said.
Now comes the complex issue of hooking it up. How many farmers does it take to hook up a grinder? I guess the answer would be that it takes at LEAST one more than what we had. 
Yep, you guessed it. Trouble from the “get go”. First the PTO (I know that the last two are TORQUE AND OPERATION – I think!) had a different size thing then the green tractor (here to for to be known as the BIG tractor) had. Step one, make sure that the parts match, they didn’t. Step two take the old one off and find a new smaller one. Great, they have another one. Then the fun starts. Don’t grease it too much… slippage is an obstacle.
Being a veteran of many a “Camping Trailer” hook-up I knew enough to stay out of the way. Funny when Harvey started backing it up the old hand signals came into play. Back when the process was achieved by Mom AND Dad – along with a few neighbors! Then it was just simple back it up move the tongue of the trailer (usually done by the boys and a few neighbor boys!) and then plug in the “pig tail” that was suppose to work the lights – most of the time anyway! This new job has hydraulic this and air pressure there and yes even an electric plug in.
Memories of the days when we use to hitch up the trailer and go camping. Maybe that is why I stink at backing up! The toughest part was just getting out of the back yard! That is where our trailers stayed in the winter. At least once Mom would yell “If you can’t do it right I am not going! Take everything back to the house! We will sell the trailer and you can just forget about camping!” Usually about another half hour or so would see us driving down the highway. It never failed that something always got left behind, once it was the silverware – thank goodness for plastic. One other time it was the pans, Frisco had a second had store – thank goodness or we would have been eating raw chili! Sorry I ramble sometimes – old people get to do that!! Meanwhile back at the grinder…
You may net be able to see it from this angle but I am standing right under the brown “shoot out” part. Jessie was nice enough to tell me that I may not want to stand there – they were blowing it out. What ever that means – but either there is a bird somewhere running around in it’s underwear or sad to say – the feathers were all that was left. I wonder if they have a LID for that thing. When I asked Harvey said “my city” was showing again. The on going saga of the Roto Grind will be played out next weekend I am sure! We will either have the “Little” tractor back or make sure that one of our neighbors will be around. They are all in the mitts of fall farmer stuff. Yep, I know I am still not country – but I am trying!!
BLOG UPDATE!
Still more toys. This dark and dreary afternoon they dropped off a log splitter. Now for those of you who don’t know (like me!) what it does. It is hooked up to the big boy tractor via the PTO. Yes, they told me several times what it means but I can’t remember, OH WELL! Then it takes the big blocks of wood and makes them smaller blocks of wood. Got it? Me either but they seem happy with it so there it is!
We have a tree that will be hitting the ground soon, well as soon as the sun shines and the hydraulic fluid gets back to where it is suppose to be. We have changed the hose that split and leaked it all out so now it needs to be put back in. As soon as we figure out where!
Stories that take me from city girl to country woman 
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