{"id":1687,"date":"2009-08-14T10:40:32","date_gmt":"2009-08-14T17:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eaf.net\/mvp\/?p=1687"},"modified":"2017-08-06T08:03:20","modified_gmt":"2017-08-06T15:03:20","slug":"chasing-bales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2009\/chasing-bales\/","title":{"rendered":"Chasing Bales"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every summer (for the last eight?!), we try to get down to the mid-Willamette Valley to take rides with Russell in “his” bale stacking outfit.<\/p>\n

We almost missed it for this season.<\/p>\n

But after lunch yesterday, Ruby and Andrew and I took off.<\/p>\n

Here are eleven photos I took. <\/p>\n

\"Releasing<\/a>
\nRussell hitting the “gas” to pull away.<\/p>\n

\"Standing<\/a>
\nBacking up to and releasing a load at a stack in the field.<\/p>\n

\"Andrew<\/a>
\nAndrew running the Bale Chaser for the first time.<\/p>\n

\"Older<\/a>
\nRussell riding as instructor and shot-gunner.<\/p>\n

\"Off<\/a>
\nFirst load dumped, Andrew heads off for his second (and last) load.<\/p>\n

\"Caught<\/a>
\nThey’ve caught up to the baler, so they came over for the Mountain Dews we brought.<\/p>\n

\"Looking<\/a>
\nView of the Bale Chaser from behind.<\/p>\n

\"Bale<\/a>
\nNow look at it from the back right.<\/p>\n

\"Bale's<\/a>
\nHere’s what a bale “sees” just before getting caught.<\/p>\n

\"Some<\/a>
\nHoses everywhere under the Bale Chaser “deck”!<\/p>\n

\"Inside<\/a>
\nThat joy stick controls the Bale Chaser.
\n<\/center><\/p>\n

That’s fantastic equipment.<\/p>\n

And Russell is “famous” in that part of the Willamette Valley for his stacking skills and speed. I hope he’s unlike his Pappy and doesn’t let it go to his head.<\/p>\n

And I think it would be neat if Andrew could land a job next summer, running the second Fastrac and stacker. He would be 16 years old then, just like Russell was (as I recall) when he started.<\/p>\n

I’m glad Andrew got earlier experience running a different kind of stacker for his brother-in-law Luke Mullet. Thanks, Luke, for teaching him how to run your equipment and then trusting him to use it!<\/p>\n

Oh, one other note: I think in earlier comments here and\/or elsewhere, I identified the bales in the photos above as 500-pounders. They’re actually half-tonners (ie, 1000-pounders). And those Bale Chasers handle a load of twelve with amazing ease.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every summer (for the last eight?!), we try to get down to the mid-Willamette Valley to take rides with Russell in “his” bale stacking outfit. We almost missed it for this season. But after lunch yesterday, Ruby and Andrew and I took off. Here are eleven photos I took.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,463],"tags":[404,706,24],"class_list":["post-1687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech-stuff","category-thisandthat","tag-family","tag-gratefulness","tag-oregon"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prJUJ-rd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}