Month: June 2020

Animals contained

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Sunday started off with another surprise, another fairly new calf!  This one has white on it also and has a white heart shaped design on its forehead.  The other heart headed calf has been named “Valentine” so Annmarie wants to call this one “Cupid”.  We are fairly certain that those are the last two calves and as soon as we sort off the young heifers we will turn the bull loose back into the main herd.  This will give us a calving date next year of March 2021.

After breakfast, I caught up on thee blog.  I would like to spread them out a little more but its hard to write when you work until 2200 then shower and need to go to work the next day.  I take notes for every day I work on the farm now so I don’t shortchange myself and take credit for the things I actually did.  I then did the dishes, emptied the compost, emptied the dishwasher, started Roomba and finally ran out of excuses to go outside and build fence.

I grabbed a roll of new wire (my last one), an old 2×6 board, two charged batteries for the sawzall and two cow panels.  I used the hitch on the pickup to pull the cow panels behind me out into the field.  First thing I did was install the bird cross posts.  I am unsure if the birds will use them but I climbed up the post and installed them.  I made sure to crawl up first before I pounded all the T-posts into the ground and hammered in staples for a few hours.  I needed maximum strength and my lackluster enthusiasm is not helping, I am so looking forward to going back to work this week, I need the rest.

I rolled out and stretched new woven wire.  I installed a smooth wire over the top of the woven to hopefully keep the horses from crushing my woven wire at the top.  I got the new side all clipped in and even installed a 26’ breakaway section near the ditch using cow panels.  They are anchored at the top and then nailed along both sides from the back so that the water pressure can just pop out the staples and the panels will lift.  I have a total of 42’ of breakaway frontage in this section of fence alone.  My goal is to install at least 16’ in every cross fence.  I opened the gate and called the sheep through, called Annmarie to verify the horses location and shut the gate.  The sheep and horses are officially stuck in Prime field.  I even hung the panel across the ditch and clipped it in place.  The left side of the fence still needs clips and wooden stays installed.  Once that is done then its onto the orchard pasture so we can get it fixed and sort the sheep. I was back in the house by 1600.

I showered and was upstairs in our closet and spotted a critter out on the ram pasture, it was a rock chuck!  Our score, Steve 1: Annmarie 1, on dead rock chucks is even, not that I am counting mind you.  So it was crucial that I get outside and make the kill.  I jumped into  my slippers, grabbed my 17 HR and ran out the back door making sure to not let the door make any noise on the way out.  Unfortunately for me the sheep and horses are in the barn lot and I had to pick and choose my shot.  I missed twice!  Now in my defense I did not use a rest and my arms feel like rubber after all the hard work this weekend.  They are living under one of my rockcribs down by the back creek and they will dig out underneath it and cause it to fall or lean over.  Annmarie shot this photo below for posterity.  The second coming of Sasquatch!

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The animals need off hay fields

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I started Saturday morning by going out to the freezer to get butter, we were out and I had said I was going to do that the day before.  More importantly, one of the horses was laying down in the ram pasture, I walked out and she let me pet her while she stayed laying down.  Most of the time the horses will not allow this, they stand when you approach them.  I did get the butter this time!  I had a slow start, had breakfast with my mother at our house and then headed out to work on fencing.  I need to get the animals off of the fields.  As I was headed out to the fields I stopped at the culvert and scooped out most of the gravel from the back of the pickup.  This lightened the pickup and the culvert crossing needed it.  I like to do little parts at a time on projects, some would even say I flit from project to project but it works if you keep after it.  Unfortunately its not very timely.

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I ended up pulling most of the T posts from the first section of fence, splicing in an old section and then tightening the whole thing.  This sounds fairly straightforward, but I had to remove all the clips from the broken T-posts and pull them out of the ground by hand.  I finally got it all up and then decided to stretch a single row of smooth wire on the top.  The horses keep leaning over the fence and bending the woven wire I am hoping the top strand will stop that or at least lessen its impact.  I then installed cable and a 16’ brake away section to the middle of the fence.  If it floods again I want the fence to give!   I went over to the front spring and worked on tightening H braces and putting in cross boards.  I was going to reuse the old fence but I was going to have to splice in 2-3 sections and it is just not worth the time necessary to accomplish the task, I will use all new.  While I was working on that I decided that the ditch needed to be dug out as it still has flood mud and cut grass piled up in it.  I stepped down and the bottom of the ditch was firm.  I just need to drive the tractor into the ditch and I can reach up with my fancy new manure fork and get the junk away from the fence.  I went down to the machine shed and put the box blade on the tractor then went in for dinner.  I had a plan and after dinner it would be executed.

Annmarie was headed into the hospital for rounds and it had just started to rain slightly and she questioned my wisdom in going back out to dig in the ditch.  It’s fine, I just put on a neck warmer and a jacket.  First thing I did was dive right into the ditch with all four tires, within 10 seconds I realized that this was not the smartest move I had made.  Unfortunately, I seem to have these thoughts on a fairly regular basis.  It took me about 20 minutes to get out and I had to use the bucket to pull myself out of the ditch.  I then ditched the manure forks and started to dig out the ditch with tractor bucket.  I had a neighbor offer their small backhoe to help clean up the flooding problems.  I am going to have to take them up on it later in the summer to dig out the ditch and silt and grass that has piled up. I am going to use the mud and weeds to create a berm on the North side of the ditch.  This way if the upper creek jumps its bank again it will flood out the upper two fields but protect the 1.75 fields.  It will also create a boundary so we don’t fall in the ditch with the tractor (done that already this year).  I am going to widen the ditch slightly and dig it down another foot.  While digging out the ditch in the rain I spotted the double rainbow and took a picture, it was beautiful!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haying for now

Steve Hardin1 Comment

Friday was spent haying some more.  Annmarie spotted a female calf from our bedroom window and then when she looked with the binoculars there was no ear tag!  We knew the cows were hiding more calves but had finally given up and figured they died.  Nope, now I need to tag it, luckily its a girl.  I managed to only shear two shear bolts all day, one upper and one lower.  The upper ones are a lot easier to fix!  I like to take my fiber directly from the soil.  The coffee gets pretty thick when the dust starts to fly.

Mr Professional and the kid started picking up bales from the field.  I think they are dry but Friday night I started to hit some wet patches.  I truly do not want the barn to burn down. After much discussion I am again using the horse training corral to store hay in.  They are out in the open, and since they are wrapped they won’t absorb a lot of moisture.  This was the best plan and the safest.

The micro hay equipment is nice, once you get used to it!  We are learning a  few things, like don’t row the hay or make the rows too high.  If you do drive over the hay rows watch the drive shaft picking up hay and wrapping around the driveline.  You will need to cut that off before it becomes a problem or it will stall out the tractor and it is a lot harder to get out when it is jammed in there.  Rocks are bad, the baler does not like them.  I am going to have to pick up rocks in the far upper field.  There are too many loose big rocks, even fist sized is too big.  The netting wrap is great but you really have to pull on the cord for about 3 seconds to get the friction roller engaged.  Once the bail is wrapped a couple of times you can let go and the machine does the rest.  The hydraulic rear lifting is amazing.  This is crucial when something goes wrong or you shear a bolt.  On the other the hydraulics were self contained and the pump was reliant on the pto so when you sheared a safety bolt and needed to lift the back of the baler it had to be done by hand and its very heavy.  Keep lots of shear bolts on hand, I recommend 36 of each kind.  It’s a stupid reason to have to stop and go to the hardware store to try and find them.  They are hardness 8.8 which is hard to find, everything easily obtained was harder and you don’t want a harder shear bolt.  Clean out both sides of the baler every time you shear a bolt.  This is probably overkill but you have the covers off anyways and it makes me feel better.  Clean off the equipment every night with the hose, get all that stuff and dirt off your machine.  Remember the bale counter is triggered every time you lift the tailgate on the baler so if you keep breaking stuff and lifting the back the count can be off by quite a bit.  You will need to count bales when you load them unless you never do anything wrong and all goes smoothly.  I have been unfortunate and have not had this problem.  Don’t take a super tight turn as you can catch the pto shaft with your rear tire, this is not good.  Don’t be surprised when you start out if the bale rolls forever.  It takes a bit to learn how to work the baler, we have some bales with 30-40 layers, they will be very hard to get into.  The average is about 8 wraps very reasonable.

The kid left early afternoon and Mr Professional was done loading hay, so he went out to bale hay while I went out to pick up bales.  I went up to the far field and picked up the triticale. We got 61 bales, 2400# not exactly a whopper crop off of 3 acres.  Between the flooding and my inexperience in prepping the field in the fall and planting it it was very lackluster. I tried to pick up rocks but there were a lot and the pickup bed was full of gravel for fencing, the hay and rocks were starting to cause the safety chains to drag on the ground.  I need to do some serious rock picking up here.   I will break out the arena groomer after the next cutting and work this field smooth and pick up rocks.

When I got to the barn I realized that I had not disposed of a winter’s worth of hay cord, that took a while to get them into old feed sacks.  I then had to move last years hay over to the front so we will use it first.  It is old and dry so I will use it as feed/bedding once we get the barn cleaned out.  I unloaded trailer and was about 50% done when it started to rain again.  Mr Professional came by and helped me unload the trailer, I stacked it until there were 10 bales left and I just called it quits!  I was beat and tired and done for the day it was dinner time anyways.  We only got 7/100” of rain Friday night.

 

Week in review

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It’s been a long week, I have kept notes so I could keep track of all the things that have happened.  Monday evening after dinner I went out and turned all the hay.  It just keeps raining.  The hay is not very good after all the rain and flooding.  I need to get it up into bales so the grass underneath can come up and I can get a good second cutting.  I worked until dark and got it all turned and in neat rows.  Mr Professional came out during the day and worked on setting wooden posts in our field closest to the barn lot, I would like to get the sheep and horses off of the hay pasture.  They keep eating the barley sprouts.

Tuesday after work I went out to the field and got the baler to work.  It’s a learning curve and I had to get my memory back up to speed after last year.  It is not quite the same critter as the string non-hydraulic one I had last year. I got it to make about 20 bales up in the triticale before it got dark.  I was happy but I have learned there are some things that are not easy to do in the dark and baling is one of them, seeding is the other.

Wednesday after work I went out to check on Mr Professional.  He was hot!  He had broken 9 shear bolts already and the hay was too thick.  It was a constant battle.  I went out after dinner and threw the hay back out.  No rows, the tractor carriage is too low and the underside hits the hay pile.  I really need a side pull but I did not think of this.  I may be able to accommodate this at a future time.  The real answer is just don’t row it.  Just throw it around and pick it up with the tractor.  The little baler does better if it is not plowing through super thick material.  It can grab a bunch and pull it in and shear the safety bolt before you know it.

Thursday I had off and Mr Professional and I had to go to town to find a bolt as one had broken on the arm for dumping the bales.  The arm got bent in shipping and I did not think it was a big deal.  It is turning out to be a problem.  I will need to order a replacement soon.  I forgot about it when I placed the big order last week.  We may have found the right size shear bolt at hardware store but we did not have any to compare.  We left them at home.  When we got home I found the dozen spares I knew I had ordered last year, they were not with the others.  It took us 2 hours to clean off the baler, replace the shear bolts and grease and oil it so it was ready to go.  I baled about 100 bales and only broke two shear pins, one low and one high.  I hit some wet grass and sheared the lower pin.  After spending 30 minutes digging it out I just gave up.  It was dinner time and I was beat, I took it all back to the shop, we can get it ready tomorrow morning.  Mr professional and the kid worked on the fence.  My manure clamp on hooks for the tractor bucket arrived!  I used them to move mud and hay away from the fence, they are great!  I am thinking that cleaning out the barn this year may be a lot easier than normal.   The tractor can push the spikes into a pile of mud and hay where I never could have gotten it into the bucket before.  The only thing is it makes the tractor pretty front heavy, I need to attach the box blade on the back for counterweight.

 

 

 

 

 

Rain again.

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Last weekend was no exception to the rain all the time theme.  It rained Friday night and our triticale hay was on the ground.  I went to Pendleton and tried three different stores looking for the bolts needed to attach my front tire.  The tractor place did not have them as they are a fine thread 1.5 pitch 14 mm x35 mm.  No one had one that was that short.  I ended up buying ones too long and taking them home and cutting them off with grinder, flattening the cut and chasing the threads with a nut I purchased.  This does not taper the end for ease of inserting.  It took me about 35 minutes to get all four bolts in and tightened up but I did it, otherwise there was going tot be no tractor use this weekend.  I had to go up around 1500 into the far pasture and turn it again until the clouds and lightning strikes got too close.  It did not rain until I made it back to the house and was headed inside.

On Sunday Mr Professional and I worked on the upstairs bathroom.  We had gotten >1/2” of rain on Saturday and the hay needed to dry out before I could do anything with it.  We worked on closet area and the back wall.  We had to go out and get more lumber from the old chicken coop so we could keep lining the walls.  I got behind as I was the one digging out bug damage from the boards with a nail so we could finish the installed boards easily.


As we were working Mr Professional wanted me to install a window where the light access panel is located to allow in some natural light.  The bathroom has all interior walls.  He then suggested a stained glass window as all our lights are stained glass.  We then talked about adding it between the lights on the opposite wall of the mirror.  I actually liked the idea but this level of change requires input from the design boss.  I drew out the area on the wooden wall and when Annmarie got home we pitched it.  She liked the idea and I had a stained glass piece downstairs that was unused.  It was in a cupboard and we purchased it many moons ago at a yard sale or auction, I am unsure which all though I think yard sale.  The window will be removable and the hole will be directly across from the hallway fan and above the fan blades.  We will have to use blue tape to protect the cut edge of the Sheetrock and tape a bag to the outside wall to catch the mess.  It’s going to be hard to not get Sheetrock dust all over the house.  I want to be able to remove the window so I can easily clean the top of the fan as an added bonus.  This got me to thinking about the shelves I want to add to the bathroom and I may make the shelf holders out of horseshoes.  I can weld them up and make sure they are all the same size.