This is a small rabbit hole that proved more interesting than I thought.
I’m on all sorts of auction mailing lists because I buy and sell science fiction first editions, but on some of the aggregate mailing lists, things other than books show up. One auction was for a piece of farm equipment called a tedder, and since I had no idea what a tedder is I did some research. It turns out it’s a tool made in making hay, specifically one to spread out the hay for drying and uniformity before the actual baling operation.
Since I didn’t know the details of how baling works, I went searching for some videos on it. I came across this video on the economics of baling hay on a ranch in Wyoming, where the cold weather and low precipitation means the window for baling is very short.
Ironically, maybe because of the low precipitation, he doesn’t seem to use a tedder…
