Back in Time - Sickle Bar Mower

cutting alfalfa with a sickle bar mower
early 1960s

Before my brother purchased a windrow (aka a swather), he and my Dad cut hay with a sickle bar mower behind the John Deere B. The mower cut the alfalfa about four inches from the ground and it fell flat. Before the hay could be baled, it had to be raked. I don't have a photo of a rake, but it is pulled behind the tractor and off to the side over the cut alfalfa. It has long, thin teeth that fluff the cut alfalfa into windrows

In the mid 1960s my brother bought a windrower (a piece machine that is a mower and a rake in one). You can see the difference in the appearance of the cut alfalfa from a windrower in this 2013 post

The sickle bar mower was not put into permanent retirement as it was often used to cut weeds along the ditches in the fields. 

No matter if it's cut with an old fashioned sickle bar mower or a fancy windrower, the alfalfa smells wonderful right after it is cut. It's even better smelling that freshly plowed soil. 

Comments

  1. Yes indeed the smell is wonderful......

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  2. Our guinea pigs ate alfalfa. It does smell good, even when it is packaged.

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  3. We had alfalfa fields around us where I grew up. I still remember the smell!

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  4. What a great photo!! I mowed and raked a LOT of hay early in my marriage, when we were farming. Really is was more of a small ranch, because the limited amount of row crops all went to livestock feeding. But we spent all of the warm months putting up hay. For a "town kid" it was sure a new skill for me! That freshly mown hay smelled so good even though it triggered my allergies.

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  5. I'll bet Gang-Gang (Fletcher's grandfather) used one of those on his farm!

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  6. It's been interesting watching the comings and goings on the few little farms we have left here. There are lots of big machines showing up and slow moving vehicles to get stuck behind right now as they prepare their fields. I am reading Farmer Boy at the moment and can relate to all this spring activity.

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  7. I enjoy these pictures. Thank you for posting.

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  8. Farm smells are the best! i miss the barn smells

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  9. This is so far out of my experience. We always lived by an ocean both Pacific and Atlantic. No farmers in our family back two or three generations.

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  10. I do miss the plowing, sowing, growing of the fields around our farm in NY....
    a very nice glimpse of yesteryear!

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  11. Yes and these mowers could be dangerous too...for Fawns hiding in a field or stupids dogs...:(

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