a scythe is far easier than a strimmer, costs less and doesn't hurt the ears ....if your horse is well trained to drive then you could teach it to pull a finger mower. They are about for £50-£100 or so , an old hay rake could be bought for a similar sum . However an old small bale type baler could be used off field if need be . Cut and dry the hay as per whatever way you decide to use , then cart off field to the baler and feed it in slowly with the tractor running out of gear , but with the pto on , running the baler. I have done this before when I was given a few big bales of hay . I had no way of moving them so used a small baler to re-bale . Just broke open the big bales and rolled them out , and then fed it into the baler. I did the same with some big bales I bought for £6 each . Rebaled them small, and sold them at £3 a bale , I got 12 small bales from each big one , so made £30 a bale. There is a very small round baler available also . I think it an Italian make, not sure if it runs off of ground wheel power or if you need a separate engine to power it , but it can be pulled along by I think two horses , or even a small mini tractor, even a 4x4. Cutting 6 acres by hand will take the best part of 2 weeks and that is if you are fit already . They say a man used to cut 1 acre a day by hand, well I have done it , but it nigh on killed me doing it. But my old body is a bit broken up !!!! You could also get an old Allen Scythe to cut it. One of those would do the job too . The reason I say it nearly killed was I was cutting just about 5 acres of hay and I had to cut and turn all of it on my own by hand. It worked out about 12 hours a day for about a week . 8 hours cutting the hay , and the other 4 turning and rowing each day ...phew murder. Each day you cut another acre, the more there is to turn and row. Then after all that , you still have to row up and take off the field , I had a wheel barrow !!!! A scythe is very easy to use , and not too much hard work . Doing it all on your own though gets to be very hard work . An acre or 2 would be fine ...but 5 is a bit too much ...for me at least !!!
cheers
Russ