With our homestead increasing the number of sheep we have, and adding a steer, we needed to start buying round bales of hay rather than square bales. Now square bales are great, easy to manage, easy to stack and store. However, round bales are usually cheaper when it comes to the amount of hay/dollar ratio. So we decided to start including round bales for our big barn to save a dollar or two. The only problem was that we didn't have a hay spear for our tractor and the price of one was out of our reach at the moment. So as Poppy does, he decided to see what he could contrive to be able to unload a round bale from the trailer, and load it into the hay rack.
He came up with repurposing the 16 pound tamper he used to pack the dirt around all of our fence posts, as a spear. He would place the edge of the tamper in the round bale and use a sledge hammer to drive the tamper through the bale. Once the tamper is through the other side, he would wrap a chain would the the tamper and connect the ends of the chain to the chain hooks welded on the tractor bucket. This allowed us to unload, store, and load heavy round hay bales. In case you didn't know it, Poppy comes from the land of make do.
Did you know we also operate a small business on the homestead. We make homemade, handcrafted soaps, shampoo bars, hair and beard products in addition to offering our pasture raised pork, lamb, and 100% raw honey. You can find out more about our products and ingredients by visiting our website at www.mimiandpoppysplace.com. There you can shop our products and sign up for our monthly newsletter that highlights a soap or ingredient, gives monthly updates about the homestead, and also lists the markets, festivals, and events we’ll be attending that month.
Website: https://mimiandpoppysplace.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100040741193922