Month: March 2022

Staycation started

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Well it’s official, I am on vacation at home for the next 17 days. I had to take the first batch of cows in on Friday morning. Unfortunately, Annmarie and I had a dinner to attend Thursday evening. So I was outside in the dark trying to move animals. We have it set up now so you can push animals through the orchard then through our front yard into the corral. This is infinitely more preferable to just letting them out into the area surrounding our houses. They can run all over and with the buildings and piles of stuff all around it makes herding them very difficult.

The two new alpaca were still in the orchard so I ”let” them out. This sounds easy but they did not want to go out the gate and kept running past the open gate. I did this several times then went out the open gate and tried to drive two of our main herd alpacas into the orchard. This was another abysmal failure. I had a head lamp on and I had a bright flash light that I would shine on the gate opening. I went back into the orchard muttering to the alpaca that they needed to comply or else I was going to have to go get the border collie, Mouse. They have not been exposed to the dogs except through the fence and I did want the conditions to be better before relationships get established. Eventually, with running back and forth I managed to get them to go through the gate, then latched it. I went down to pasture #5a which borders the orchard, latched the gate that goes out into the main grazing area and opened the gate into the orchard. The cows usually come in at night and hang out near my mother-in-law’s house and they were so I did not have to go all the way down to the school house and try and run them back. Again, the cows did not want to go through the gate. The green tag cow kept breaking and running behind me. This reminded me of why we are getting rid of her, she is so painful to deal with on multiple levels. After much effort on my part I was able to get the cows into the orchard. There was no way I was going to get them through the four foot gate, into our front yard then into the corral alone. I opted to go get some help that is used to my working animals language. Mouse, came out with me! It is hard to see a black and white border collie in the dark so we have some collar hanging bobs that strobe white. We used to use them when letting the dogs out to potty at night. They would pretend they could not hear us because we could not see them. The lights stopped that nonsense. I found one that still worked and put it on Mouse. This way I could see where the dog was and only had to worry about finding the cows with the flashlight. It was rough going initially. Mouse still thinks a problem should be dealt with head on hence his propensity for straight lines. Eventually with enough yelling and trial and error we established an effective communication method that allowed us both to kinda get what we wanted. Once we had the cows into the corral area they ran back behind the barn. Unfortunately, all of our cows happened to be in the barn lot and everyone started raising a ruckus and I was afraid the four would go through the fence to join the herd. Mouse and I managed to dissuade this desire and got them locked into the corral area. Now when I came out in the morning and backed the trailer up to the corral the cows can just be encouraged to load up.

The plan worked! I had no trouble getting the cows loaded and taken in to the abbotoir. That was the first four, I will take the last three in for their final destination in a couple of weeks. This is good because yesterday morning I went to pull the pickup over to the flat bed trailer and the pickup would not start, totally dead! Even though I had all the spare parts and tools with me on our Salem trip in case we got stranded this would have been bad. The last time I was stranded with Annmarie in the vehicle we bought a new pickup. She doesn’t like hanging out on the roadside. The pickup just needs some TLC which it will get as soon as I drop off the last three. Mr Professional got the new battery connection installed, unfortunately the old one was glued on and it took some extra tools to get it off the battery terminal without injuring the battery. I drove right over and we hooked up the flatbed trailer. While he worked on the battery I worked to clean up the seeder/fertilizer thrower. I used wire brush grinder to remove and smooth out all of the rust. I had to clean and adjust the window doors and scrape off the old caked on grease. I ended up breaking off one of the grease zerks trying to tighten it and had to use an easy out tool to remove it. Mr Professional put it on the tractor and greased it all up while I was off buying farm supplies.

We had a long discussion about needed supplies and since the price of fuel, spray, fertilizer and seed has jumped dramatically this last three weeks we felt it was best to get it all now. I have to say that I had plans to hold off on some of these items as I was going to purchase them over the entire year. I went to Pendleton and bought railroad ties (entire bundle)- they should be out of them by the end of this week. I bought the very last roll of smooth wire in the store. I bought some woven wire, I only needed one roll but bought two more just in case. I bought enough T posts to redo the fence down by four corners. The gate price had jumped over 20% already so I bought that also. We looked at chemicals to spray on the farm and I picked up the rest I would need for the whole year. I got the tighteners needed for the new fence on four corners. Today I just gave up and bought the ballast box I need for the kubota when using the forks. I also bought another quick hitch category 1 hitch for the Kubota. I bought a chain holder for the tractor also and some bushings for the category one hitch that lets me get away from the pins. I got a speed handle for the Kubota also, they are super nice and the one on the Mistress has been amazing. I just ordered all the lights for the machine shed. Luckily, I already ordered the parts for the baler and now just need to install them.

Unfortunately, this dramatic rise in price of everything means we will be doing a bunch of maintenance on all the equipment. We are going to rewire the flat bed trailer and the horse trailer. I purchased those supplies this weekend also. The fuel tank has been emptied so now I can get it filled with diesel, if only I had done it three weeks ago…

Mr Professional went out and spread about 35# of grass seed onto a few thin spots on field #1. We had a nice light rain last night 8/100” so the seed should be wet and now we just need some warm weather. I need about 5-7 days with no rain and I can plant the last 2 acre field with grass seed and the planting will be done until fall.

I have all the stuff to strip and stain the upstairs doors. But I need to empty off the breeze porch first, tomorrow the child and I will be going through the entire house and removing the giveaway. We may even add to the giveaway pile! My goal is to thin everything pretty hard. I went through two kitchen cupboards today and removed a pile of stuff.

Annmarie found the plans for our future outdoor dining area. We just need to find a used grain bin for sale to tear down and use the components. We also looked at my retirement projects using a welder and a lot of horse shoes! Currently, I think I may be able to make the chicken.

Alpaca addition

Steve HardinLeave a comment

We had a thought a couple of weeks ago about adding some more alpaca to our herd. This does require us to be a little selective as we only want males and preferably only unneutered males. This is not because we like or need stud animals, they must merely have the hormones necessary to survive and maintain a spot in the all male testosterone laden fight club. On the plus side they are cheap to buy as they tend to cause problems. So our fiscal requirements match our survival needs and everyone wins. I had reached out to an alpaca farm and gotten a reply and unbeknownst to me, Annmarie had reached out. I got sick last week and gave up on my lead, Annmarie kept after hers as she was going to Salem on Friday already for an event so figured she would be in the area. She found two young alpaca, 3 & 5 years old two hours south of Salem. I merely needed to go with her, drive the pickup, pull the four horse trailer and then drive four hours first thing Saturday morning to go pickup the alpaca in question.

This is where things get a little complicated. What she did not know was that the pickup is dirty, its a farm rig, I had recently taken all of the trash out and emptied it out mostly, but it is not very clean. It is still has straw in the cab from last years haying season. I have had a few issues with the pickup and had been hinting that it may need some work on it. My hints meant that the ABS light is on all of the time now. I am pretty sure its activated all of the time also, one must be careful when using the brakes. The turn signals keep blowing a fuse. The fuse problem seems to only be an issue when a trailer is plugged into the pickup. There is something going on with the transmission. It slips randomly when shifting gears. Luckily, it doesn’t slip once the gear has been engaged but it can take several tries to get it in gear. As an added bonus it is very easy to calculate how many miles to the gallon the pickup gets, its 10 MPG, no matter what, loaded,unloaded, or pulling a trailer it is always 10 MPG. Now this is a bonus as the fuel gage doesn’t work properly. You cannot tell when the last 1/4 tank is getting used up. To further complicate things the positive battery terminal connection keeps getting corroded. This is causing the pickup to not want to start, it feels like the vehicle will not start. The act of turning the key is accompanied by a small prayer and some constant verbal encouragement to get the vehicle to start. The trailer has non working lights, non working brakes and the spare tire has a flat. All in all, pretty standard farm equipment.

I decided that I should try and moderate some of the issues so I cleaned out the passenger side of pickup and back seat. I filled the pickup fuel tank before we left. I had the spare tire on the trailer repaired, stem valve had a leak, and I purchased that metallic reflector tape and placed it all over the horse trailer, on the back and both sides. I also made sure to buy a tire iron as I forgot one when I left the house. I also made sure that I had the new battery terminal part and two crescent wrenches and a standard screwdriver in case I had to tear it apart and replace it because the pickup would not start. I had enough time to fix it in the parking lot while I was waiting for Annmarie to finish teaching but I was unsure what would happen if I disconnected power to everything. I knew what the problems going into the trip were so I did not want to add in any unknowns, this sounded like a totally logical statement at the time.

Once we headed out and got on the freeway it occurred to me that I should have put 2/3 yard of gravel in the pickup bed. Since it gets 10 MPG no matter what the gravel would have helped stabilize the back end of the pickup. The trailer does pull well but hitting rough patches of road is not super fun. I kept it around 65 MPH the entire trip. I also used the cruise control sparingly. I didn’t like the way it towed when I did not have my foot on the gas. Besides, the cruise control failed to set 30 miles from Pendleton when I finally tried to use it on the way home. This is a new thing so I am unsure why this is occurring and it could have just been a one off problem because some times the cruise control buttons can be very finicky.

After the first stop for fuel and the strained sound of a starter barely getting enough juice to turn over I tried very hard not to shut the engine off until we made it to the hotel in Salem. Luckily, they had a very nice large parking area in the rear of the hotel for large vehicles. Now mind you I had to take everything out of the pickup that I did not want stolen as the key does not fit the locks. If the doors get locked I cannot get into the pickup. I overcome this small obstacle by leaving the rear sliding windows unlatched so if needed I can pry them apart with a knife and crawl inside and unlock the doors. Oh and the passenger window can only be lowered and raised by the controls on the passenger door. The ones on the driver door no longer work to control the passenger side. I left some food and water in the pickup in case any homeless explored the vehicle at night. Nothing was taken or removed during our stay in the hotel. I dropped off Annmarie at her event and headed two hours south to get the new alpaca. At the rest stop I barely got the pickup started. So when I had to stop for fuel I bought two bottles of Coke. The pickup battery and I split one. I popped the hood and started to pour small amounts of Coke on the battery terminals in the hope that I could eat up some of the corrosion and the connection would improve. I am unsure if this is the reason that the ”GEN” light kept popping up intermittently as I was driving down the highway. I did this twice on the drive back to pickup Annmarie and when we stopped for fuel in Salem before heading home the pickup started up like there had never been any problem. Thank you Coca Cola!

We discussed the option of buying a new pickup on the drive home. Honestly, I am not real enthusiastic at the proposal. I want to take our current pickup in and get a quote on fixing the ABS, GEN, transmission issue and then seeing if I can get another 60k miles out of it. We only have 161K miles on it and got it around 90K. I am putting less than 10K miles on it annually. We are going to see what the final repair quote is going to be before we make a final determination.

We made it home with out a ticket or a breakdown! Go Farm truck!

The two new alpaca are named Padre and Mad Max. Mad Max is the light colored one and every time you touch him he makes disparaging noises at you. It sounds like he is grumbling nonstop. The Padre is very relaxed and easy going. We let them loose in the orchard field so that they would have a fence separating them from the other alpaca. This morning when we looked out everyone was gathered at the fence line talking to each other. We figure we will let them stay in the pen for a week with just the two of them then we will introduce 2-3 of our old herd and then let them all stay together for another week then we will let them all hang out. The previous owners gave us a book on alpaca’s that Annmarie skimmed on the drive home. Live and let live is our motto and high plains desert living is what they are used to and what they are going to get at our house. They are super soft compared to our animals so we are excited to see what the fiber will be like.

February catchup

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I got behind again on the blog. This is so easy to do if you do not just sit down and write every week. It can get away from you quickly. Kind of like the weather at the end of February. We got snowed on and it persisted. The alpaca were getting used to green grass then there was snow all over the ground and it was cold! It dropped down to -1 F! This of course caused much consternation as I have half a barn full of straw, not really hay. There are not enough nutrients in it to keep the animals going but I have a lot of it! There is so much I am unsure where I am going to store it all to make room for this year’s perfect and awesome hay that is going to be baled and stored in the barn for next winter.

Mr Professional and I went and bought another three ton of alfalfa from the rancher we had just purchased some from 6 weeks earlier. Both times we went over scales and paid per ton. The bales lost 6% of their weight in those six weeks. They went from 100# bales to 94# bales. I have never looked up how much weight is lost over a year when you talk about bales and dry out over a year even if stored inside. We have enough hay now to make it until spring to not have any leftover.

I had two of the new chickens die. One stayed outside and got eaten by something. I am not sure what as it tore its head off, tore both wings off and only ate a little of the body. It was pretty weird. But we did see a bald eagle flying around the property but I doubt it was a large predator bird as I would have expected one of them to just remove the chicken from the premises.

A week after the cold spell the snow just up and vanished. Our back runoff creek did not go up at all. This is very good news as it means that moisture dropped into the ground and soaked in. Now our front ditch which is fed by a spring has gone up quite a bit. The springs on our place are putting out a lot of groundwater. The fields all look really good!

Mr Professional also found a great deal on some cow scratchers and a pto driven seeder/fertilizer. All of it together was very reasonable. We just need to get them mounted, one on the upper property and one down on the lower property so the cows can use them both. We are going to hang fly powder directly above them so when they scratch the fly powder will fall down at the same time.