Stewart Creek Somethings

I was unable to get out and work on the farm on Friday as I ended up covering at work but I had high hopes for Saturday! The bull corral is usable, so in Steve speak this means I am about 90% complete and have moved onto a new project. I still need to put up four rails, attach about 8 upright sandwich boards to get the woven wire locked into place on the wooden boards and I need to put away a few more tools. I also need to move all the lumber out of weather and into the barn. That moving job is going to be a bigger deal. I may end up moving most of the lumber to the old chicken coop, so functionally done.

I need to get the two upper fields ready for alfalfa which means knocking down weeds again. I have the new disc set I just needed tot get it working. I figured this would be an easy endeavor on a Saturday morning. It took me almost two hours to get the discs working correctly. There is no instruction manual and the seller was in and out in under 10 minutes after he delivered them. There is a handle missing that controls a release arm to let tension off of the locking mechanism to get the back set of discs to swing out. I tried pushing on the discs. I tried backing up and jerking them forward to get them loose. I had to use an old dog leash to hold the arm locking mechanism open. I figured that part out early. After hooking onto the back set of discs with a chain and pulling and jerking from various angles I gave it some more attention and started to figure out every single little mechanism and discovered the locking arm was missing its handle but I could turn the pipe manually. Once I had that disengaged I got the arm to pop loose with WD40 and more tractor manipulation. Then I had to drag it around in circles to figure out how to adjust it and where it needed to be to get me maximum effect without bogging down the tractor. I also had to gas up the tractor and blow out the radiator so dirt and weeds didn’t cause me to overheat her.

So two hours later I was able to start discing the upper prime field. This is very monotonous. Around and around and around you go. It is a must that you wear your seatbelt as tight as you can get it across your thighs. The tractor is constantly jumping around due to ruts and bumps and dirt clots and it starts to wear on your back and shoulders. After 8 hours with a seatbelt my back was starting to holler at me for doing it so long.

I refused to come in for lunch and just kept after it. There are deer absolutely every where in the upper fields and harvested wheat field. There must be at least 50 living on the property now. The amazing part is even with no rain and 100+ degree temperatures I was able to find dark brown moist soil in several areas of the field. This is very good news for our dryland alfalfa experiment we are doing next year.

My chickens hate the heat and are only laying 3-4 eggs a day now. The babies have not started to lay yet with any consistency.

My practice area below, I am going to toss out some dryland grass seed and hope it takes in the spring. The big win was I managed to even out the small area. It had a bunch of different holes and has been needing some attention.

We have killed one badger so far and no coyotes.