Winter is the best time to buy hay gear

As I sit here on the couch drinking a coffee and listening to the blizzard roaring outside I am very thankful for yesterday. What happened yesterday you ask? Well we bought yet another piece of equipment that I said I would never want/buy/have ?. We bought a New Holland 479 haybine. Last hay season I used a terrifying piece of equipment to cut the fields down to make hay, a 7 foot long bar mower. Think of a hedge trimmer that is 7 feet long with razor sharp teeth that are 3 inches deep. That thing will take you finger off on a heart beat even if it isn’t hooked up to a tractor. It worked well enough but it was prone to clogging, your max ground speed while cutting was about 5 km/hr, your cut width was 7 feet wide and even in direct blazing sun the grass would take 2 or 3 days to dry because it obviously didn’t have a conditioner. The new to us haybine has a 9 for wide cut, has a conditioner, shouldn’t clog up as much and you can mow at around 15 km/hr. With the crushing rollers (conditioner) the fresh cut grass will be ready to rake and bale in a day, or two. I am actually looking forward to hay season now ?