This is the last year, also, that our wonderful neighbor will be putting our hay down for us. He is retiring from the cattle business so will have no need for our pasture once the hay is off the field (which has been the arrangement for many years - he puts down the hay for the use of the pasture for his cows afterwards).
My Dad does have some farm equipment, but it needs alot of work. We have decided not to repair the old swather but instead get a sickle-bar mower that hooks up to the PTO of the tractor and lays the hay down flat. There are a couple benefits of this method over using a swather, in our opinion. There is alot less mechanical parts to go wrong and it allows the hay to dry more evenly before it is put into rows and baled. So we will be looking to buy a hay cutter before next year.
We have a hay rake for turning the hay into rows, and a tractor - it's an oldy but still turns over the first try! Eventually we will want to upgrade to a four-wheel drive model with a front bucket.
We also have a hay elevator for putting the bales up into the barn loft, and a baler but it needs a new transmission. Again, one of these days we would like to get one that lays out groups of bales instead of just one at a time because we want to get a bale grapple to assist with getting the hay out of the field.
I hope we can squeeze in time to work on the coop, we have to have it done in 10 days when our new chicks will arrive!