I have ridden by this location bunches of times and always cast an
eye at the old rusting farm machinery. Turns out it's an official
display by the Antique
Mechanics Club at UC Davis: their Agricultural Equipment
Collection. Well that just cried for a cache so that others would
stop and look. Apparently while you're here you can also visit more
of their collection which is hidden away in some nearby airplane
hangars at the UC Davis airport. I'm not a farm kid so I have no
idea what this piece of equipment is...but if you know send me a
message and I'll update this posting!
A million thanks to RadioMom for
figuring this out for us. He writes: The machine is a Petaluma Hay Press! according to Victor Duraj of the
Ag Machinery Collection: "The machine is a Petaluma Hay Press, a
horse-powered hay press that is over 100 years old. Most of the
machine is there. Straw or hay would be pitch-forked into the unit,
a horse would pull a chain that compressed the straw, more straw
would be pitched in, and the process continued until there was a
bale. At that point five wires would be wrapped around the bale and
the bale ejected."
You can see an old add for this machine at
Haypress Ad or your can browse a number of machines including
photos of a wreck of another Petaluma
Happy Browsing!