It’s the weekend so it is time to do some more haying! I would have cut hay yesterday but we had a high wind and rain advisory so I opted to not cut anything. It spewed a little rain but nothing exciting. The clouds made it look like it was going to be bad at any moment all day long so there was not really a great indicator that it would be safe to cut.
I decided to spray some weeds Friday morning. The wind had not picked up yet and I wanted to get over to the neighbor’s to kill the noxious weeds in the lower pasture. I got a hose hooked up and filled the sprayer. Unfortunately, I did not check that the pump would work first. I could not get the pump to turn on. I thought the pump had gotten sticky so I beat on it with a hammer a few times and that did not fix it. I tried the power and lights in various positions and could not get the pump to turn on. Giving up I went and got a voltmeter and started at the pump and checking each connection for power. I know this will be shocking but I did not discover the problem until I got to the fuse box and found a burned out fuse. For future reference I need to track the power interruption from the source out to the load not the other way around. It would have been a lot faster. We had some nonorganic extra grain delivered. I need to get our granary bottom repaired. It will hold over 100 sqft. I am on the lookout for another small granary that will hold 100-250 sqft of grain.
I got the neighbor’s field edges sprayed and had a nice visit with him in the middle of the gravel road. We made a side by side drive around so it did not interrupt our gabbing. I sprayed the road side of the CRP and most of the upper fence line before running out of chemicals. The wind was blowing so I put the new land plane on the tractor and leveled out the driveway. The land plane makes the driveway flat and smooth plus it is easy to use. I am super happy with it. It also did not leave groove marks in driveway.
Today I had a few honey do chores outside then I worked on fixing the sickle bar mower. I had a couple more loose bolts on the bar so all the bolts had to be tightened. I only found four movable bolts. I had already bent the bolt for the outer flange so I found the biggest bolt that would fit and pounded it in with a hammer. I had to use an impact hammer to get the nut on the bolt. I did take the main piece off and beat it profoundly with a very large hammer on the anvil to get some of the curve out of it. I tried the vice first but a large hammer was the ticket!
Once I had it all working I went out and cut all of field #2 that was good hay. It took about three hours to get it all cut. The upper pond in field 2 still has water in it, which is a first. It is always dry by this time of the year. I have never seen it with water in it this late. Annmarie and I talked about maybe fencing in the pond so the farm animals cannot get into it. It does dry up but if we fence it off they cannot disturb the plants.
I did manage to get a single picture of the first calf. I came back by thirty minutes later and there was no calf to be seen. It had vanished! The first month of their life they are very elusive. The mothers hide them very well.
Tomorrow I have to fix the rake first thing then tear into the baler. Annmarie was less than impressed with the new mistress’s name. She stated that she was not going to call the new Kubota “Juicy”. I suppose there is some rationale in that as most wives don’t like their spouse’s mistresses.
Stewart Creek Somethings 