Month: July 2020

Is 107 hot for Oregon?

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Well it was time to get back at some outside work, the real problem is my timing is totally dependent on when I have time away from my paying job.  So when the weather person predicts that it will be 107 F during the day I still plan on working as I have time.  This is more of a needs based time decision and not a will it be convenient type of decision.  Mr Professional and I were at it by 0630 and spent some time cleaning off vehicles, gathering all the needed tools and filling the tractor up with hydraulic fluid.  Now that we use the hydraulic takeoffs there is some inherent amount of leaking with making the connections.  The tractor moved and the bucket was amazing after we got the hydraulic levels corrected.  We are still trying to organize things in the machine shed.  It will take another month of moving things out from the old house to get everything settled into its new home in the machine shed.

Mr Professional and I went down to the feed field and tore out the spring fence crossing. The old cross fencing up by the apple tree had already been removed earlier in the week.  That new section of fence parallels the ditch instead of crossing it twice.  We hand dug three holes for reused railroad ties.  I also want to add in a rock crib on the East side of the water.  We made a triangle out of 2×8 and tossed all our loose metal pieces, wires and fencing wire into the center and will fill it all with rocks.  We did not have time to get rocks today.  We added an H brace and then used an upper and lower cable strung between the posts to create  a breakaway crossing.  When the water and garbage pile up on the up water side it will cause a dam.  This creates pressure on the fence and the lower clips are breakaway clips and they will spread and break allowing the panel to be lifted off of the ground.  The upper part of the panel is attached permanently to another cable locking the two posts together.  It took us about four hours to get it all apart and back together.  I had to use a scoop of precious gravel.  I have a small pile left and have had no luck from two different suppliers to get gravel delivered out to the house.

 

When we pulled up I set my coffee and speaker up on the H brace and spent about 10 minutes feeding apples to the cows.  No one could get to the apples that are falling on our side of the fence.  I was choosing our music selection and the bull really wanted me to give him more apples.  The long sleeve shirts are what I normally wear during the summer but it is essential when it is super hot outside.  Music selection is important as I don’t want to listen to country music, I prefer girl singers or Disco.
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I am no longer in running shape

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Last weekend we needed to work the cows again.  It seems like a never ending need but we had two more calves sneak out unexpectedly and they needed to be tagged and banded.  Mr Professional and I were going to show Annmarie and go out and just get the cows in and then she would not have to walk the entire length of the farm several times.  I opened the lower gate behind the house but did not go to the top of the fence and open the upper gate.  I didn’t think I would need to…

We walked down and pushed the cows towards our house.  They wanted to go into the orchard but we had the sheep in there so I did not want to run them through the sheep and alpaca.  We would have to sort species after that which would cause more drama, best to be avoided.  We had the cows almost to the fence and one female cow decided she was not going and bolted straight up the hill.  I had to sprint up the entire length of the hill to cut her off.  We left the dogs at the house also.  I sprinted up the hill a second time and cut her off.  The cows wanted to go in the closed upper gate.  The third time she bolted for the top again I started to sprint and just said “piss on it” and quit.  My foot had a blister and I was tired and this was obviously not working.  Annmarie came out and opened the upper gate, I went and got the dogs and we pushed them over into the field behind the house.  We again had a horrible time getting them down near the back creek.  I will need to fix the gate opening and put the new opening in the corner of the field so we can easily push the animals through.  We did get them into the barn lot and tagged a little girl and tag and banded a little boy.  The calves were small enough they were easy to handle.  Unfortunately we had a 5 month old girl that the bull kept paying too much attention.  So we had to sort her off and who we thought was momma.  7E97FB6A-EDE9-40A3-963A-B0801C0E070A
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The three cows above got sorted off and sent into the upper pastures with the other isolated cows.  No bull up there.  Annmarie pointed out another problem after we sorted them off.  The old green tag cow that she wanted to make into hamburger and we sorted off early to prevent her from getting pregnant is very pregnant.  So now she is going to have another calf and avoid the dinner table for another year.

We had the dogs out chasing cows with us and since this entire process took four hours they were “dog tired” afterwards.  Kittens were spotted down in the blackberry bushes hanging out.

This week after work we set up the storage shelves and made a spot for a very large toolbox and the welding job box.  The welding tables also got moved around to the front of the machine shop.  Once all the tools get put away the drawers will get labeled and I will bring out a grinding wheel/wire brush combo and bolt it down to the table.  We should be able to manufacture about 80% of our needed things.  It’s just that I hate getting organized.  I ended up getting bins and each piece of equipment is going to have a bin of new parts.  This is necessary when all of your hay equipment is made in Italy.

Ouch, is it quicksand?

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It has been a long two days already and there is one more left in the weekend.  First thing Friday and Saturday I got out of bed, made coffee and went out to spray fields.  We are trying to eradicate the star thistle and other thistles.  So I am spraying 2-4-d and Milestone on the fields and so is Mr Professional, between the two of us hopefully we will have it finished this week.  I keep running out of spray, last year we didn’t buy hardly any spray which may explain why we are spending so much this year.  I suspect we will end up with about $1500 worth of chemicals on the property, for around 70 acres.  The amount of rain we have gotten this year is causing the weeds to just keep coming out of the ground.  This has led me to the conclusion that the battery I got for the side by side is too small.  We keep having to use the external battery to jump start it.  I should have just gotten the kit that allows me to install a large marine deep cycle battery under the driver’s seat.  I will be doing that and getting a new battery that will just fit in the battery holder.  I need as much battery as I can get, even the trickle charger is not helping.

I did have to pump up the front right tire on the tractor on Friday.  I suspect I may have run over a nail.  I still need to replace the left front tire rim and both front tires are the originals and are almost 8 years old.  We now park the tractor in the machine shop but it used to sit out most of its life In the weather and sun which is reflected in the tire condition. It is time to get new ones.

Annmarie and I spent the late morning spreading out the rest of our ground cover tire bark on Friday and she took me to town to feed me lunch so we could get the rest of the parts needed to install a drip line on all the berries.  The berries and the lavender are both now on timers and drip lines.  We have about 20 bags of tire chips leftover.  I want to get the greenhouse up and use it on the floor as a heat sink.  Our wheat fields should be harvested next week.  I love the wheat when it is at this stage, I think it is at its most beautiful.

We spent Saturday morning fixing the drip lines on three herb containers in the back garden and I finished spraying the far field.  After breakfast and conversation with my mother I went out and put away the baler in the machine shed and decided to go up to the second field and dig more ditches.  The ditches I dug last week had water running in them and the surrounding ground has firmed up nicely.  I would like to move some dirt and fix all the runnels in the field that the flooding caused but there is still a pretty wet spot in the middle of the field.  My plan was to just dig some interconnecting ditches to help the water flow better.  I took flags with me and walked around the wet area and marked the borders so when it dried out I would know what was going to be super wet ground again in the spring.  I have pretty much convinced myself I am going to have to install pecker poles, some people call them vineyard poles, they are only 2” around and pressure treated.  I can drive them into the ground and they should stay for about 7 years.  I need to know where it is wet when I am cutting hay so I don’t inadvertently get out into the mud.

Why you ask would I like to avoid the mud?  Well it is wet and sometimes the bottom of the mud hole is hard to find.  I started to dig right at the top of a running waterway and got the front tires stuck.  I tried to back out and push out with the bucket but the bucket kept sinking and not finding a lot of firm ground.  I then went forward deeper into the hole and tried to pull myself forward with the bucket.  This let me get forward another three feet which put me nose down into a hole.  I was at the far end of the property and had no tools or vehicles except for two railroad ties laying over by the gates.  I had seen them there and was saving them for use later.  I hoofed it over and grabbed the first one, put it on my left should and walked the 200 feet to the tractor.  It was heavy and I could feel it digging into my skinny shoulder.  I wedged it under the front left tire and went back for the second one.  I simply could not squat down and get it up on my right shoulder, damn thing was over 100# and I was hot and tired.  So I put one end of the tie on a cross beam about three feet off the ground, lifted the other end and got under it.  I hoisted it onto my right shoulder and made it about 50 feet before saying no way and tossing it on the ground.  Mind you I think the tractor is sinking into the mud as I mess around with the railroad tie.  I grabbed a 3/8 chain I keep on the tractor and wrapped it around one end, made a yoke by hooking the other end to the tie, stepped in and started to pull it toward the tractor.  I was able to use my legs and whole body to move the railroad tie and got it to the tractor, I tossed it under the right front tire and a piece of cattle panel went under the back tires.  Nope, all this did was cause the ties to stand up when the front tires starting putting weight on them.  I needed a shovel to dig out a horizontal path for the tie.


I was keeping the tractor running because when I manipulated the bucket the front end of the tractor would fall into the water submerging the exhaust pipe.  My next trick was to pull out one of the ties and lay it just in front of the bucket.  The tie was wider than the hole I made so I figured I could push off the tie with the bucket.  This may have worked but when I lifted the bucket I rolled the tie toward me.

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I wanted it to be in just the perfect spot, unfortunately I rolled it too close and was unable to push off of it with the bucket.  I could kinda keep the front end out of the water only.  I then took the other tie and tried to get it under the front of the tractor.  Nope, it was just sinking faster and now the exhaust pipe was fully submerged.

In desperation I jumped off the tractor and gabbed the closet railroad tie and tried to stick in under the bucket at 90 degree angle to the other tie.  I figured the bucket could easily push off of that but I was not fast enough.  I tossed it quickly as the tractor had blue smoke coming out of it and was making a funny noise.  I tried to use the bucket to push me up but had to just turn off the ignition before I sucked water into the engine.  I had managed to get stuck more than any other time in the tractor’s life or my experience.  I called a friend, Mr Richard Hemphill who came out, looked at it and went back to get a bigger tractor.

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I tried to take a nap while waiting but surprisingly the ground was very warm with the sun beating down on the ground.  I gave up and drank more coffee.  The very large tractor showed up, we hooked the tow strap on and it just pulled me out of the ground!  Once out Richard said start it, I had to dig mud out of the exhaust pipe first and since the water never got to the air intake I fired it up and it started on the first try!

I spent over an hour with a hose getting all the mud off the tractor and out of the radiator.  There was mud caked all over the engine and both side of the radiator.  I am going to leave it to dry overnight and will move it in the morning.  I will be done with the tractor until I get new tires, the front right tire is flat again.

On the plus side, my baler part from Italy will be here in two weeks!

 

Weed wars & Water ways

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Since I could not cut more hay it was decided that I would spray weeds on Saturday.  The plan was for me to get up early and do this.  I did not get up early, I cooked and ate breakfast, learned from Annmarie that she heard the enemy, racoons, chittering through our bedroom window at 0400.  I suspect they were eating cat food from our back porch.  I have not seen them since our initial skirmish.

I had to call Mr Professional to get the side by side started.  He had not plugged the trickle charger onto the battery so it was low.  I used the external portable battery jumper and it fired right up.  I managed to put about 50 gallons on the ground before the wind picked up and it was time to stop.

It was only about 1030 so I got back onto the tractor, dumped off the manure forks and went up to the pasture flooded out the worst this spring.  I needed to finish the ditch I started last summer and since there is still running water and a mud pit in the middle I need to get the water diverted to my front ditch.  So I spent a few hours creating a ditch and a berm.  My hope is that if the back creek jumps the bank again it will hit the berm and get diverted toward the back ditch.  I did this in both fields, even if they get flooded out it only floods 1/3 of each field instead of 1/2-2/3 of both fields.  The water started to really flow once I dug down a foot.  I will keep working on the berm for the next 2-3 years until I get it 3 feet high all the way across.  I can then plant some grass on it to help hold it in place.  My poor right wrist was getting tired from making the bucket dig, then shake the mud out then use the bucket to push me back out of the ditch.  It was a very nice day.  This field looks much better, last year at this time the entire field was covered in 7 foot tall thistles.  I need to spray again.

On Sunday I did get up sorta early, I was out spraying weeds by 0600.  I realize in farmer time this is late.  I sprayed the barn lot, the ram pasture and all of the field I had just dug the ditch in yesterday.  I really needed to get the hay put up so I can let the sheep and this years eating cows up into the green fields.

With that thought in mind I just decided to give making hay bales a try.  I hooked up and started the baler up.  It took me an hour to get the first three bales made.  The first two bales I could not get packed tight enough and could not get the netting to wrap correctly.  It kept going around a single roller.  I forgot my pocket knife and luckily found one in the tool bag we made for the baler.  It was so dull I am pretty sure it could almost pass as a safety knife.  I also had to remove the packed hay from the pickup tines.  After an hour I managed to get the netting to wrap the third bale.  The key reason it was not working was I was going too slow.  If I drove as fast as the tractor would go and got the hay feed jammed up the hay packed in well.  We ended up with 50 bales of gorgeous grass hay.  The best I have ever made, unfortunately it was only 50 bales.   Annmarie, Mr Professional and I went out and picked up the 50 bales in 30 minutes then loaded them into the barn.  We took the border collies with us and they killed four vole while we picked up hay.  I would love to have them when I cut the hay but I am afraid they would get too close to the sickle bar.  There are hundreds of voles running around when I cut.

Mr Professional has been working on getting our lavender garden planted.  The ground cloth is in, grid laid out, drip line installed and then he takes out 5 gallons of soil and replaces it with premium soil and sets the plant.  I managed to kill about half the plants from forgetting to water.  So we have an order in for next year to replace them.  The tire rubber bark is working out great!  I am looking forward to seeing it all done and in about three years the lavender will be approaching full size.

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I also cut out part of the flooded fence and then used the box blade to flatten the area and get it all prepped for new fencing.  We will install another breakaway point in the field cross fence if the water should break through my new ditch and berm.  I am hoping to get that fence done in the next two weeks.  Their our two alpaca that need shearing this upcoming weekend.

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Mechanic I am not

Steve Hardin2 Comments

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Since I was stuck home due to the quarantine and felt great finally, I decided to get some more farm work done.  The upper three fields need to be cut so they can be turned into hay.  The Upper Prime Squared field is going on its third year as a grass field and it looks great!  It is the best field we have and one I am aspiring to get the others to duplicate.   So I opted to start on it.  The real problem is it is still covered in some flood damage and I was unable to get it all cleaned up.  When I was using the sickle bar to cut the hay I kept running into the dirt/grass piles and it did not like this.  I had broken all three of my spare bolts when I realized I had only managed to cut 2/3 of the first field.  I spent an hour on the phone with the micro hay equipment company.  They did not have any of the needed bolts or parts.  The arm that had some cracked bearing casings had to come from Italy.  He did not know of anyone else that had broken theirs in the past so it was not on hand in the parts warehouse.  He is supposed to be getting me a quote from the Italian company.  I am starting to get desperate enough to look on Italian websites for the company and purchase my own spare parts cabinet.  I am just trying to figure out how to do it.  This may come as a necessary evil.  If anyone knows someone who can read Italian and knows about micro hay equipment, give me a holler.

So I am still on the hunt for 3-4 metal cabinets, one for herbicides, one for oil products, two for spare parts for the haying equipment.  I need to get organized.  I could not cut any more hay so I developed a plan for Annmarie to pick me up some bolts and nuts that I can weld a slant onto then grind them to some semblance of a cone.  Mind you I only have access to a wire fed welder and I never got to practice with a wire fed in my welding class, that was the next class.   Of course that night it rained 3/100 of an inch, me cutting hay so far this year has 100% rain predictability.

 

On Friday, I spent two hours welding and I use that term very loosely an approximation of a cone.  On half of them I welded directly next to bolt head and on the other half I sandwiched two bolt heads together and welded a small bead around the second nut.  I then ground all eight down to form a cone.  To get it to fit inside the hole I had to take some of the protective pieces off of the sickle bar.  I then had to figure out how to use an easy out to remove the broken bolt.  This  went on and on and on for a total of seven hours before I finally got it all back together.  It got greased very well, two zerks are missing and need to be replaced, I ordered them the day before from parts warehouse.  I started it up but there was still this weird clanging.  I went out and finished the last 1/3 of the field and made it one time around the second field before it broke again, 2 hours of run time only.  The arm part now has a deformed head and bearing which means I need a new part.  I am not a gracious mechanic.  There were lots of explicatives used throughout the day and some blood letting.  No more hay gets cut until I get a new part.

It was getting dark anyways.

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