Recovering run-away hay bales

Much of the open fields on my property were used to grow hay, I have started to find bales just laying around. They are in spots where it appears it rolled down a hill and the farmer at the time did not want to deal with recovering them. I took a day as part of my cleanup and recovered these three bales I found. Two of them were not much of an issue, but the third one was down in my spring blocking the pond. It seemed like it was lowering the water level a little. Or maybe that was due to the small amount of rain we have had in the last month. But either way I went ahead and got them out and placed over by my lean to barn where I plan on breaking them down and using as ground cover.

These bales weigh upwards of 1000 pounds dry, so I started off recovering those first.. the two I started off with were like that and not much of an issue to move. Just needed to drive my tamping rod through and hook up straps.

Tow straps can be used to recover vehicles or for any other pulling need, these are rated up to 5000 pounds. So not much of an issue for the dry bales.

Loops in the straps made it easy to set up a lashing, knots would have been very hard to pull out once I put some tension on these.

As long as the lashing was tight it would not pull off as the pointed end flared out.

This rod is huge, taller than me and quite heavy. I found it at a local tractor supply store.

Here we can see the mighty rod next to a dry bale.

Pretty sure is not what it was designed for, but it will do.

The first two bales went quite easy recovering, but I saved the worst for last. This one is down in a muddy ditch.

I guess the farmer had no way to recover it, or maybe they were just lazy.

Using the hookup points to my truck I connected shackles, which are rated at 3500 pounds each.

The hardest part was getting down in the ditch and not sinking in the mud.. lol

Next was pulling it out, at first I thought my Jeep would not handle it. And I would need my pickup truck, but right now I am getting some work done to it so I thought I would try with my Jeep first. And sure enough the Jeep pulled it right out! We can see it rolling behind me.

Lol my back up camera was not so happy about the bale being right there

I got all these of them over to the lean to barn, now its time to start breaking them down.

First though I need to recovery my tamping rod, it would not come out so easily on the last. I would realize why soon enough.

I bent the rod! Damn, was not expecting that. Though it did not break.. so thats good.

Even one of the tow straps frayed, it should be rated up to 5500 pounds so maybe this wet bale was pushing its weight limits..

I was covered in seeds from plants down in that ditch, and wore my mucker boots as it was very muddy.

At the end of the day the bales were moved to where I wanted them, and I was glad to have my strong truck on hand to do this work. My boots, tamping bar, straps and shackles really made it all possible. And I think this was the most heavy thing my truck has ever pulled, so quite the milestone for me. Glad the bar held up long enough to recover all three bales. I would have sucked for it to break on the last one and roll all the way back down the hill.. so the day could have gone much worse.

But in the end it was a good day.