Make One Bale of Straw - PEP BB animal.sand.strawbale

Here's a bit of information about the difference between straw and hay

This was very difficult. It was my first time using a scythe and it was custom fit to my husband and thankfully we are pretty similar in size but not exactly. Also a lot of the plants in our field did not want to be cut while others did. So I spent quite a bit of time trying to find the spots that would actually let me cut just so I could figure out the motion and get some practice in. Eventually I started getting it but it took several sessions and several blisters to figure out how to move right to use the scythe. It's hard to figure out if you're doing the motion right if nothing wants to cut.

Check out my baler here!

This is where we got our scythe. This is not an affiliate link, I just want to let you know where we got it in case anyone is interested: https://www.scythesupply.com/. At first we started with a grass blade but once we got to the thick stuff in the middle of the field we had to upgrade to a ditch blade (which we only got a couple weeks ago) and it's still not cutting everything. I'm curious if cutting at a different time of year will make it easier and if starting to regularly cut our field instead of leaving it to do whatever it wants will in time make it easier to mow. But it was clumpy and thick and resistant to cutting. I've cataloged at least a couple dozen species of plants in the field so it's definitely not a monoculture.

To complete this BB, the minimum requirements are:
- you must scythe or gather dry straw
- you must make at least one bale of straw

To show you've completed this Badge Bit, post pictures or a short video depicting:
- your straw source
- an action shot of harvesting/gathering the straw
- your straw pile next to where the straw came from
- the straw going into the manual baler
- your one bale of straw

I did two different patches because the first patch was super hard to cut. I had a lot more success with the second patch.

This is the first patch:


You can't tell that I cut anything!


The pile.


Loading it up in the wheelbarrow. You can see the much larger pile that my husband cut right behind it.


Bringing it over to the baler.


It filled the baler but didn't have enough to be compressed.


The ditch blade.


Action shot. It's cutting something!


Patch two, next to the pumpkin experiment. I buried a pumpkin to see if it would grow.


If you look closely, you can tell that I cut some of it.


Here's the pile.


Loading it up in the wheelbarrow.


Bringing it over to the baler.


All packed, crushed, and tied.


My bale that I cut all by myself!


Here's me finally getting the scythe to cut. Hopefully the video embed works.


If not, here is the URL:
https://youtube.com/shorts/P87RKnJZqdw