June 1979, hay time.

Here is a pic I thought Capt. Dana would enjoy. My dad is at the top of the load, he stacked. My uncle is driving the D-17, he picked up the bales and threw them on the trailer, that dad built from an old truck frame. I am on the fender, turned around, facing the camera. I drove while loading the hay, I was 12. When I started at 7, my uncle had to come to the tractor to stop when the trailer was full, I couldn't reach the foot clutch and the hand clutch was to far away on the high side. My brother, behind me in the pic, 6 at the time, road with me, standing on the tread plate. Would not do that today! Trailer would hold 103 bales. I remember thinking after I couldn't see dad, "Isn't it full yet...". Got my butt chewed a time or too for running over a bale so Uncle Kenny didn't have to walk to far for the 2nd row. The next year my brother got the driving job and I got to load with uncle. D-17 was the workhorse in hay season at that time. Side mount mower and a New Idea pull type conditioner to knock the alfalfa and grass hay down, then it baled and hauled every bale all summer. If you look close, dad welded a vise table to the front of the tractor for "in the field sickle" section replacement

Great picture, cool story!

That’s a good idea pushing the twine end into the bale. If it comes handy, I’d be interested in seeing a picture of the twine poker tool.

My uncle had a 1959D 17 that we used to pick up bales along with other jobs. I was about 10 years old in the mid 1960s when I got to drive it. We had a flat bottom skid that was made of plank dragged on the ground Loaded bales on it and took them back to the yard. We used bale hooks, but my uncle had a hired man who used a strong handle pitchfork to toss the bales up in the air. I still have the fork I can manage straw bales, but he did 50 to 60 pound bales quite easily good memories.
I still have the D 17. that long handled power director let a pretty small kid take the place of another man in a lot of situations. I loaded thousands of large round bales with that D 17 in later years still has the original clutch. If you use the power director properly, the clutch will last a long, long time.

Paul, thanks for shooting a pic. I might be interested in one of your pokers. I’ll send you a pvt msg.

Edited by Bverwolf - 10 Apr 2025 at 11:40am

That is such a great picture to have - side mount mower still on the tractor. Thanks for sharing.

I run a 82S on my D17, a great combination and the AC conditioner behind it when I want to go old school hay mowing. Otherwise I mow the pasture fields with it and along the driveway. It’s a great mower. Never ran a roto-baler, until 3 years ago never seen one operate and that was at my first GOTO in MD. Neat machine, a shame AC gave up on it and didn’t get into bigger round bale machine.

AC did buy a patent or machine rights to a big round baler in the early 70,s - Hawk , I think, just didnt follow thru with it; its in one of the history books 

One other method in our area for square bales was to pull a sled.  Spent many hours there also stacking maybe 15 bales on the sled, carried a hefty rod-stick it the ground while moving and go non-stop.  Got a little dirty back there and we'd come back later with a rack and load them again.  The good old days soon to be forgotten.