Author: Steve Hardin

Rock wall almost done

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Well the brothers Mr Shady and the T-shirt bandit came out for day two of their farm initiation. I wanted to do a little work on the rock wall and it kinda morphed into an all day event! The spring banks, a path to the gazebo and the back creek fence line all got the weed eater treatment. The boys traded off about an hour into it. The T-shirt bandit started out with me working on the rock wall. After 30 minutes of watching him try to pull his pants up every five seconds I was getting frustrated. I asked him about wearing a belt but he told me he could not find it this morning. I finally went in and found an old belt I had thought I had thrown away and was never more grateful to find. He wore it all day and shockingly did not have to lift his pants up again.

Mr Shady traded out weed eating and started to dig on the wall with me. It was going so well I thought that we might even get finished today so I just kept pushing forward and we kept going. We were able to get the entire front wall installed. We did have to go and pick five buckets of rocks off the back hillside. I will need to get the sprinkler to spray that corner so I can drill a post hole with the tractor auger. I will need to set a new wooden corner post about five feet from the current one. I am pretty sure we do not have enough of the small metal fence panels to go across the entire front rock wall. So I will have to build something on one end to make up the distance.

We picked small rocks for the yard side but I left T-shirt bandit alone to make a straight line from one wooden post to the other across the front of the lawn. He said there were a couple of S shapes in the “straight”line. After looking at it I found the old string we had for the front wall and we strung it up so he could see the S shape. I will need to redo that section but it should only take about an hour. I did find myself with less patience today than yesterday. I believe that is due to me being tired and my overall intolerance of teenager behavior. It could be that new vocabulary words were learned today or at least one was used creatively in various contexts. Everyone survived and that is the goal.

T-shirt bandit did get the hole to China filled in again so Chance will now have a new goal over the next two weeks. The birthday party is at the end of the month but I do not think I can get a ton of sand unloaded spread and several hundred bricks laid before the party.

The next thing I need to focus on is getting the greenhouse door assembled and hung up. Once that is done I need to get the chicken enclosure all fixed and bird tight. Once that is done then I can hook up water and lock all of the chickens into the coop area. We have over 30 chickens and I did not get a single egg today! Once I get the coop area predator and chicken proof then I should jump to a dozen eggs/day at a bare minimum.

Unfortunately, we need to sort and worm all the sheep and dump the rams in with them. This will be the very next thing I do. Besides pick more blackberries! There is always something to do on the farm.

Cleanup day 1

Steve HardinLeave a comment

This has been a long week for me. I have been working at the paying job during the day and fixing haying equipment and haying after work. I cut the hay on Sunday and then turned it on Tuesday after I got the tire for the new tractor repaired and installed. I had to tighten bolts on the power rake so I could rake. I was able to do that with a little bit of tractor light. I spent Wednesday after work on repairing the baler. I was able to get most of it repaired but on Thursday it still took me two hours to finish it. I had to clean up hydraulic fluid from the entire outside so I could get to the hose with a micro-hole in it replaced. The dirt and dust and hay had formed quite the layer of gunk all over the baler. I baled Thursday night until 0130 when the grass started to get super wet. I did not manage to get the baler as silent as it used to be but it worked like a charm after I replaced the guts.

Friday morning the Quiet One was coming over at 0700 or so I thought. Annmarie told me that she was here at 0630. Turns out I had said 0600 and forgot. I was out the door and working by 0705. We worked on getting the greenhouse finished. It took us until 1300 to get it all assembled except for the front door which I can do alone. The Quiet One was going bear hunting and wanted to get up there early on Friday afternoon. I needed to finish baling hay so I did that after dinner and was home by dark. I had made arrangements to have a couple of teenage brothers come out on Saturday and Sunday to help me clean up. The plan is to get the yard all ready for the grandson’s birthday party. I won’t have the bricks laid on the floor in the Gazebo but all of the trash and stuff will be put away. At least that is the plan. It will depend on how hard they work. I am sure their father has warned them about my work ethic and expectations.

The boys came out this morning and we started to work immediately. I had them bring lunches so we could stop for lunch and they would not have to go anywhere. Especially since they are not driving and had to be dropped off. My plan was to just start out by the driveway and slowly work our way toward the house. I figured it all has to be done but doing it this way creates a systematic plan. Plus, to clean up the driveway we had to empty out both broken cars that are going to the scrapyard. The pickup we were able to tow with the tractor. I tried to start it and it actually tried once to start so when we towed it to the machine shed I put the battery charger on it. I would love to drive them both to the junkyard. Weeds got pulled, trash got tossed, vehicles cleaned out, scrap moved to the burn pile or metal pile. The bags of soil that I had not taken out to the garden got loaded into the tractor bucket and taken over to the garden, cut open and both troughs are now full of soil. After a couple of hours on the driveway we hooked up the flat bed trailer to the tractor and drove over to pickup all of the hay I had just baled. They picked up almost 90 bales of beautiful grass hay. We are going to trade the grass hay for some large alfalfa bales that can be easily fed to the cows this winter.

Mr Toad was on the front hillside just jumping around. I might have disturbed him when I was pulling up thistles.

After we had filled up the troughs with soil I noticed a couple of buzzards flying around and landing in the apple tree. I love the buzzards. We did not used to have any and it was hard to tell if something had died. Nowadays I can always tell when there is a carcass on the farm as they show up and circle it. Today was no exception, there was an old dead ewe under the apple tree. We left her and I said we would come back later today and take care of her.

After lunch the vehicle items migrated into the house or out back of it to be addressed at a later time. I am sticking to the plan and cleaning as we go. I had been working on knicknames for them all day long. I had Mr Shady (older brother) doing weed eating after they cleaned up all of the branches. I had the T-shirt Bandit raking sand in the gazebo. The sand had gotten all blown up against one side of the gazebo. I looked over once and he was on his cell phone. There was a round of verbal prompting on the correct location for the phone and it was never an issue for the rest of the day. After he raked it was time to go deal with the corpse. I was able to get the tractor bucket fairly close to the corpse. The T-shirt Bandit kept trying to hold his T-shirt over his nose like a bandit would in an old time stagecoach robbery. I think he thought it was going to make things smell better, it did not. It was pretty rank.

Once we got that carcass dropped off we came back to the yard and beat up on the trumpet vine. I am trying to get it to grow on its trellis so we wound it around the trellis and tied it up in several places in the hopes that it would grow where it is supposed to. I cut away every thing that was growing against the house. Occasionally, I get a little overly excited and cut out too much of the vine but it cannot grow under the expensive siding we just got done last year!

We still have some holes to fill in yard and I am going to clean off the old house porch plus clean up the garden area in the back of the house. We are doing so well I am thinking about trying to get the rock wall completed also! Mr Shady kept his sunglasses on the entire time and just kept working. It was refreshing.

Granary progress

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Well the granary situation has improved dramatically. It was going to cost almost $700 in sheet metal and welding wire to make another 5x5x5’ bin and one of the nephews sent me a link for a local person selling two large upright bins! I did not need both of them despite their willingness to sell me both. So for $750 they delivered it to the house on Friday. I had cleared a spot and dropped a bunch of gravel in place but after looking at the container I think I need to level the area and then drill five holes in the ground, add some wire and fill them up with concrete. I can take a piece of all thread and put it into the concrete when it’s wet. I don’t think I will try and line up the holes with the grain bin. I will just weld some plates and bolt them in place.

I also managed to get some paint sprayed on the finished bin I repaired and got the slider door installed. Of course when I used a chain to roll the bin I bent the brand new door. I crawled inside and beat it back into shape with a hammer. It works now, it’s a little stiff but that is not a bad thing as I want opening the door to be an intentional act. It looks like the bin has a ladder built into its side so someone can climb the bin and open the top when filling it. This is a good thing as long as you are not scared of heights. I will have to get the cap removal process down before we lift it into the air. I would like to stand on the ground while learning, not holding onto the ladder with one arm 25’ into the air while fighting the lid with the other.

The Naked Gardener called on Thursday to say that he thinks his field is ready to cut again. I swung by on Friday and he is right, it is ready. So I spent most of the day Friday tearing the baler apart. I figured out that it is a lot easier to work on if you remove the front arms and some extra pieces. It took about an hour to disassemble the front but it was a lot easier getting to everything else. There was one guide piece I could not remove but I just worked around it. I was going to have to grind the nuts off and it is just not necessary as I am not replacing it. I replaced about 1/3 of the pickups and tubes. Anything that was bent got tossed in the trash. I have about an hour left to get the races lined up and then I can spend another hour putting the front all back together. I also need to replace a hydraulic hose. The entire thing is covered in hydraulic fluid. It needs a wash down.

Unfortunately, I am on a timer now. I went over and cut the field this evening. So the new tractor “Juicy” has had a flat tire for two weeks in the upper field, I had to go up and remove the tire tonight so it can be fixed. The hay turner is on the back and it needs about 45 minutes of TLC before I can go turn the hay. Once that is done then I will need to spend three hours with the baler to get it up and running so I can bale the hay!

I also will need to install the two new gates on our stairs to prevent the grandchild from crawling up and falling down from the bottom or falling down the stairs from the top. This is what happens when your grandparents work in the hospital and see bad stuff all the time.

The new chickens area settling in nicely. All of them are staying out of the yard which is good for them as being a play toy for the dog tends to an eventual slow death.

We now have three kittens living under the old house porch. We have installed a temporary fence to keep Mouse away from them as he is a definite kitten killer. He only comes on weekends with the kids. Of course, the kittens don’t know this so they were going through the fence as they are now starting to become very active. So we now have a plastic chicken netting zip tied to the fence so the kittens cannot get through the fence. Milo likes the kittens so we will work on socializing him to them. He still does not like their mother and barks at her whenever he sees her.

Greenhouse build

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I have plans to get Annmarie’s greenhouse in place and put together so she can use it. We would like to grow vegetables through the winter so we are going to give it a go. We will probably put a remote thermometer in the greenhouse so we can track the high and low temps throughout the year. This will not be possible if I do not assemble the thing. Rainman and I had already built the base earlier in the year we just needed to assemble the actual greenhouse, or so I thought. The Quiet One and I worked on changing out panels down by the spring first. I had purchased some old metal panels and we swapped out the newer horse exercise ring panels for some old ones that can stay forever. I of course found a deep spot with my rubber boots and ended up getting water inside my left boot first thing in the morning. My foot stayed wet for the rest of the day.

Before we could even assemble the first part of the base I had to bring over almost two yards of gravel to spread around the outside of the base. The chickens had spread out the gravel and were eroding the base. Once we got that corrected we assembled the base and the instructions said to bury the base. We brought in another three yards of gravel to fill the base but kept it away from the metal. I wanted to get the entire thing assembled then use some metal to wood screws to attach the greenhouse base to the wooden base we installed. We also bolted the wooden frame to three foot ground anchors screwed into the ground in the spring. I do not believe it will be able to fly away. It might fly apart due to the wind but the base frame will stay attached to the ground if it does! All the videos said it would take two days but we were making stellar progress despite reading the instruction booklet. That is until the instructions started to tell us to disassemble one piece for every two we attempted to add. We will have to change out some longer bolts for shorter ones as we used up all the long ones and we need them for the roof.

I ended up on my back after attempting to jump off of a ladder at what I thought was a foot or so. It was more than that and I did not stick the landing, my feet slid out from under me and my back stopped my fall when it pounded into the ground. Surprisingly, I did not knock the air out of my lungs. I did end up bruising the bottom of my left foot. It hurts to walk now and I have a slight limp until I get used to the pain. I also wore a short sleeve shirt, it was hot, and I don’t usually do that so I got an impressive sunburn on my arms and neck. At 58 years old I am not near as spry as I used to be.

We ended up almost getting the roof truss pieces in place before quitting. The Quiet One did bring over chickens! I now have an extra approximately 25 chickens. So there are about 40 chickens running around now. They need to figure out that they have to go to the front spring if they want water. I got a dozen eggs today, so the dog is back to getting an egg on her food twice daily.

Our Ring camera is getting a lot smarter. It can now tell you that the critters it sees are a flock of chickens! It is pretty amazing. They now need to work on the logic so the camera tells you when a dog enters the picture.

Granary repair closing in

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I should really break this up into a couple of blog entries but I did a little bit of everything over the weekend so I am just going to lump the whole weekend into one big blog. Let’s start off with the great news, the wheat has been harvested and it did very well for this place, it came out to 47.65 bu/acre, anything over 45 bu/acre is very good for this soil. This is even more amazing considering how little rain we had to finish off the growing season. They disced a fire break around the entire outside of the field so that worry is gone.

My outside plant is now on a drip line so it is loving having all the water it can drink. It is blooming for the first time ever! Our deck plants have water also but we got it to them a little late so one planter has died and the other is struggling. Our system is working, so we are going to add two more hanging spots so we can have flowers across the front deck next year.

I was cooking breakfast yesterday and saw a black cow out the back window. I asked Annmarie to go out and let our cow back in. I thought that one of our cows had gotten out and wanted back in. I saw Annmarie go out to the ram pasture and open the double gates. This was the go signal for all the sheep in the barn lot. They ran Pell Mel for the open gate. Annmarie blocked the gate and told the sheep to stay but when she moved the sheep bum rushed the gate and ran out onto the back hillside and then down to the orchard. All the cows ran out onto the back hillside. Annmarie came running inside for help and I made it to the lower hillside gate before the cows got down below. We tried to push them down but then we realized it was not our cow! Instead we just left the gate open. There is not really any food on the hillside we knew they would come down eventually.

I posted a photo of the brand to Facebook and we eventually had someone call us today and say they thought it was their cow as they are now running cows on the Broken Spur land. They came up today and we walked up and pushed the cows back to the corral. Their cow sorted right off and the cows loaded right up. Chance got to go out with us and work the cows. I am sure he thought it was a little weird when I started hollering at her to go “left” to circle around the cows and she did! She does know her left from her right when she wants to pay attention. We get someone’s cow about every two years, they wander onto the property.

My goal for the weekend was to get the granary bottom welded and together. Since I am a fairly inept welder and am now learning to wire weld instead of stick weld I have been having some problems. Mostly I have not figured out how to fill in with wire when I have air gaps between the metal. I am also having a hard time adjusting the wire feed speed to match my use and hand movement. I started at 180 speed and ended up at 250. I was having some pushing back going on at that speed so I probably need to be welding at 240-245. Using the higher speed I was able to keep a continuous bead going. I did figure out how to fill in but it was not very pretty, but I got it done!. I welded the wire to the copper center thingy on Saturday. I watched a video that said there was a tool you could use to clean out the hole so the wire would thread easily. I do not own such a tool but there were three extra tips with the welder so I swapped out a tip. I kept a longer wire by speeding it up so I was not welding so close to the tip.

Saturday after the cow debacle I decided to go pick blackberries. We are not going to get hardly any fruit this year so I will need to fill the freezer with blackberries. I figure I will need to pick about 30 gallons. I spent three hours picking and managed to pick three gallons. Annmarie got them all packaged up for her breakfast smoothies. I will need to pick some and package them in 6 cup increments, we use those for pies! The wild blackberries make the best pies, especially if you keep the sugar to a minimum.

I spent three more hours on the grain bin today and got the entire bottom welded on! I just have to drill the holes for the grain gate and get it installed. I am going to put a foam seal on the lid so it doesn’t leak water but it should not. I will need to install three bolts to block off three holes in the side. I am going to just install the bolts and washers instead of fighting with welding something over them. Basically, I am going to take the easy way out! Once I get that done I will need to make an elevated wooden stand about 16 inches off the ground to place the granary on and it will be in service.

I was going to make another grain bin but the sheet metal alone was going to cost me $660. I was able to purchase a 28’ tall grain bin for $750 this weekend on Facebook Marketplace. I have already leveled a spot and filled it with six inches of gravel. We will need to get our large grain elevator functional. I would like to get it running off of the tractor’s pto instead of the old gas engine that is on it. I think I saw an old fill trough somewhere on the farm but I cannot remember where. It slides under the feed opening of the auger so the grain stays clean.

We purchased some cow feed and I was able to get it unloaded and moved into the machine shed with Clementine. This doesn’t sound very exciting but the lift capacity on the tractor is only 1100# and the pallet weighed 2000#. The guy dropping it off stood on the back of the tractor when the back wheels came off the ground as I was trying to slide it out of his horse trailer. It was all the weight I needed to get the feed out of the trailer. I was then able to drag it backwards with only the front tires touching the ground. You have to steer backwards when the front tires are the only thing touching the ground! Once I had it lined up with the machine shed I was able to just push it into place! I was sure I was going to have to break it up and move those 50# bags by hand. Where there is a will there is a way!