Author: Steve Hardin

Used farm truck for sale.

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The time has come to say goodbye to my gently used farm pickup. The wife says I do not need two pickups and since this one has a few issues I should sell it. This means I need to write a little advertisement extolling the virtues of this gem. I have been contemplating how best to do this but as always I think honesty is the best approach.

I have for sale a gently used 1996 Dodge Ram 2500 club cab 4×4 pickup with approximately 177k miles on it. This version has the V10 engine and will give you a calculated mileage rate of 10 MPG unloaded or loaded it doesn’t care. It comes with some dust, dirt but I will remove the trash and tools prior to letting it leave the property. It has current tags on it. The tailgate works! It does have towing rails in the bed for an RV hitch if you desire to take this beast camping. The tires are fairly new, three match. It does have a few cosmetic issues as 4-5 different teenagers learned how to go through (between) gates as they were growing up. The rust on the body is just cosmetic and due to a poor factory paint job. It does get the oil changed on a fairly regular basis (annually).

It is a true farm vehicle so it does not get a lot of miles on it any more. The cruise control does work, you may have to push on button several times, or hold it down or just cycle through mashing on it but it works! The windshield is intact, it does have several cracks all over it but they are strategically located for a medium tall individual. The windshield wipers are new this year. The windshield seal is bending but I have yet to see water coming inside while driving. For air conditioning I rely on the old school method and roll down the window. The heater does work eventually so plan accordingly on a cold morning. It does start every time. It thrives in warm weather! It will start and stay running in warm/hot weather. If it is below 60 F then you will need to drive two footed, one on the gas to keep engine running and one on the brake to stop. It takes some practice, been this way for 2 years.

The headliner has seen better days and the gorilla tape and headliner screws are just delaying the inevitable. I old school the cup holder, I keep the cup between my legs. The cup holder has fallen out. There is a stereo but the faceplate is missing for security reasons and it is totally secure now, no one will ever steal it. The gas gauge is pretty iffy, it says full to 3/4 most of the time. I use the reset odometer and fill the tank every 200 miles. I have never ran out of gas using this method in ten years. The door panels are loose, a failed attempt to replace the speakers for the nonfunctional radio. I do not lock the vehicle so I am unsure if the locks will unlock correctly. There is no remote unlock, only have one key for the ignition. You can roll down the windows from the seat you are sitting in only. Occasionally, the driver’s door side window needs an assist with a hand on the glass pushing up to get the window to totally close.

The transmission is a little loose. Occasionally, you have to wait for it to drop into reverse or just go back to neutral and then reverse again or just give it a rev on the engine and the synchros drop into place. This has never stranded me and been there for at least four years. Four wheel drive does work! The side mirrors work and only one has a small crack, there is no rear view mirror attached to the mirror. It may be inside the cab somewhere but I won’t know until I clean it out.

Bottom line, this is a steal for the low low price of $1300!!

Granary repair

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I was given an old granary this year. It was from a very old combine and had been converted to hold grain for chickens. It had not been used in a very long time and the entire bottom had rusted out. It still had the old pto motor for an auger on the front. It was trashed but it was still there. I have finally gotten around to repairing it. The problem is I have never really attempted a metal project this big before. My one quarter at BMCC with the welding class to learn stick welding did not cover this. Especially since the Gingerman changed the welder to a wire feed system. I have been trying to teach myself to wire weld. It is not quite the same as stick welding.

I have spent a couple weekends cutting out the bottom with a disc cutting wheel on my DeWalt 60v grinder. I have accepted that to work with metal I do actually need to wear some protective gear. I am wearing long pants, long sleeve shirt, leather gloves and eye goggles when I grind or cut anything. I switch out the goggles with a welding helmet and welding gloves when I use the welder. I get popped on the arm or face every once in a while but the important stuff is protected. I needed to buy some sheet metal and when I went to Packy’s the only type they carry is 14 g. I do not have a sheet metal brake. I needed to bend an angle into the sheet metal, both sides. I cut the piece then tried to bend it with a hammer and some clamps. No go. So I then tried to bend it over a piece of angle iron with one piece under and over the bend and beat on it with a heavy hammer. No go. So then I ground. Groove on the bend line and tried again. No go. I then proceeded to cut two inch grooves along the crease line about every six inches, so I cut out about 25% of the material along the bend. I then put it in place, welded one side down and then started to beat on it with a hammer, jump on it and used the forks on the tractor to bend it to my will!! I still ended up with 1/4” air gap in a few places that was painful to fill in with the wire welder. It would have gone faster if I had used the stick welder. But who wants to do the conversion again and then convert it back? I am too lazy for that much swapping around.

I was able to get the first half welded on and welded the gate holder in place. I marked the drill holes for the gate but I think they are wrong. One side looks good but the other looks like I let it slip while I was marking holes. I will just drill one hole. Put the gate on, mark and drill a second hole, insert bolt then I can get the other four in the correct spot. It will most likely be the very last thing I attach and I am going to bolt it on instead of weld it on. I bought a grain gate just for this purpose.

A full sheet of 14 g sheet metal cost roughly $110. So I think I can make it all with this one full sheet, if I piece the other side together. It will be close. I want a second granary, five feet on each side and five feet high. I have been looking to see if there is one out there available. The reason I want that size is I can fill it with the bucket of my tractor. If I get a real tall one I will have to use a grain auger. At this point I may have all the structural material in scrap and would only need maybe 2 pieces of angle iron for the lid and all of the sheet metal. Each side could be done with a full sheet of sheet metal, I would need one for the bottom and one for the top, six full sheets plus the grain door and it would cost $700 in materials, plus $100 in welding wire. I am thinking that this is the way to go to get a second one. An old water tank would be the bomb! I may keep looking, if I mounted the tank on a downhill angle I could just put the gate on the low side, a fill lid on the high side and I would be set!

My welds are improving as the project progresses. I have had to lower the voltage to minimize burn through and I have had to increase the speed of the wire. I had turned it down but had to adjust it faster on three separate occasions. I will need to move over a couple of railroad ties to set it on. Slow and steady progress. Eventually, I would like to have enough storage to be able to go get our wheat truck filled with 3-4 types of grain/peas and then store it on the farm. One wheat truck full would get us through the winter for the sheep and the year for the chickens.

Haying done for now.

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Well we do actually go on vacation occasionally, we spent a week in Cove at Ascension summer camp. I am the nurse and Annmarie is the priest. I spend the week working on my jewelry as I am always too busy at home. I was able to complete three chains that were in various stages of completion. While we were away the Quiet One mowed the entire property again to knock down all the cheat grass a second time. It takes two mowings to get it knocked down. They did all the main fields. I spent one Sunday mowing around the buildings and along the road and up top a single time around the CRP. They had already gone around twice on three sides. This helps keep the weeds from creeping in from the fence lines. I did not see a single rabbit while I was mowing. We did have a second calf born while we were away, it is a little buy and he is already bigger than his three week old sister. He is a beautiful brown color. This is the second boy that has been brown.

I did try and mow on the back side of field #1 but it is tough. I just knocked down the high stuff. There is still a tipping point from the old hole that I did not get completely filled. So you have to be careful with the tractor or it will tip over. I really need to get the Gingerman over here with a dozer and cut a road on the back side so I can fence off the stream-bed. We might even be able to even out the side to the point that I could grow some grass on this side. I might be able to get 1-2 acres planted in grass. It’s a long term goal. It is going to require a dozer. I wouldn’t mind planting a couple of trees back there also.

The chickens have been getting decimated so we decided to upgrade our security. We now have a Ring camera on the backside of the old house and it watches the coop and entire ram pasture/back of barn. We should now be able to see coyotes, raccoons and other predators. It is a lot easier to review footage when it gets marked because something is there.

Our garden is pumping out herbs and we just picked all our fall planted garlic. The nice part was it was free! We saved garlic from last year and planted it in the fall, we will do the same thing again this year. We use an entire large brown paper bag of garlic over the course of a year. Garlic is a root vegetable, not a spice. We are picking raspberries also. We are getting about a quart every day now. Annmarie has started to freeze some for use during the winter. We are not going to get much tree fruit this year. The late freeze killed the buds, plus last year was a bumper crop and the trees like to rest after a great year. But our thornless blackberries and the wild blackberries are incredible this year. I picked almost 25 gallons last year. I will probably have to fill in the missing fruit with blackberries this year so I suspect I will need to pick at least 40 gallons this year. If you equate that to the price of buying fruit we probably save $800-1000 in fresh fruit by freezing our own. Plus, I don’t mind picking blackberries, it is fairly relaxing.

Predators 19/ Farm 0

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We have multiple fires around us so sunsets are now very spectacular.

Monday after work the Quiet One and Annmarie came out and helped me pickup 6 ton of hay from the neighbor’s place. We stacked all of it over by the grain bins then used the new corral pieces to keep the alpaca and deer off of the hay. We picked up another 290 bales. We did have to dump off one bale on the edge of the field. It smelled very bad. I am sure there was some dead animal inside the bale but I never saw anything when I was baling hay. It was so bad there was no way I was going to take it back to the house and unroll it.

At some point I am going to have add it all up to know how much is actually out there but it is enough! I do know that. I will still need to cut the Naked Gardener’s field a second time and that will generate over 2 ton plus I may need to cut field one a second time but that will depend on when I can get the baler rebuilt.

We are going to buy a ton of bagged cattle feed to supplement the grass this winter. We are getting a heck of a price on it. It is very high protein so it will help offset the low protein count in the grass hay.

Our back creek is starting to dry up. It is barely flowing, this is about two weeks early for us.

The chickens are making me crazy. We had 27 hens after all the “Townie” chickens were taken in. They were laying eggs like crazy. Then I got busy haying and kept forgetting to get eggs. Something started to eat all of the eggs. All I would find were shells in the coop. So I had an egg thief. Last week I went out after dark to pickup eggs (don’t want the egg thief to get them) and I actually counted chickens! Holy smokes! There were only 8 hens and 3 roosters. We have lost 19 hens and one rooster. All of the town chickens have succumbed to the farm hazards. Annmarie thinks I need to lock them into the coop yard but after the cows tore into the backside of the enclosure I will need to spend a couple of days of rebuilding the entire chicken yard to make this a reality. I am unwilling to give up two days of farm work for the chickens yet. The chickens are still laying more eggs than our household can use so we are still winning. If we have to buy eggs for ourselves then I count that as a loss. We have not had to do this since I got chickens. The few chicken customers we had are going without again. It is feast or famine around here when it comes to having spare chicken eggs.

We purchased a ring camera to watch the coop and ram pasture. I will get it figured out so an end can be dished out to the offending party. It takes 6-8 months to raise a chicken until it can lay eggs.

Haying again

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I had more haying to do over the weekend. I cut down what looked good at the neighbor’s. The weather was so warm that I had to turn it in 24 hours and was baling it the next day. I did have to finish putting the baler together before I could bale anything. I have decided that I will need to chain up the baler next time I work on it. I need to take both of the support arms off of it so I can get into the internal pickups much easier. I am wasting time trying to squeeze myself into a little area and work in a cramped space. If I chain the front part up so it does not fall then I can just chock the wheels and work on it with nothing in the front. I only need to remove two bolts to get it off.

I took some time on Friday to go over and pickup an old horse arena, some homemade panels and scrap pipe from the Naked Gardener. I think I will use them to circle the hay pile I am putting up next to the grain bins. The four homemade panels are for the spring crossing. I have panels from another horse arena set installed there now and this will allow me to pull all those panels back together to form a circle.

I baled Saturday until it got so hot that the grass would no longer bale. I came back out after dinner and worked until 2330. The grass was baling very well but I was tired after a 16 hour day and was ready for bed. I busted a shear bolt because I was not paying attention to what I was doing, I think I dozed off so the quitting time whistle was blown and I went home, cleaned up and went to bed so I could be out by 0730 and baling again. I needed to bale in the morning before it got too hot. I was able to bale for two hours before I heard a clang and the shear bolt snapped again. I tried to replace the shear bolt but I could not turn the pickups by hand. So I had to move some grass around and I discovered the broken pickup string of three pickups that had broken loose and jammed the works up. I was talking with Mr Rainman and after the baler rebuild last year with all new chain sprockets and new chains we think all of the slop is gone and now the weak point is the old bolts in the pickup area. I had already placed an order for more parts and now I need to wait until they come then order the rest of the parts to change out all of the internal pickup forks and all of the bolts. I have 2-3 bent pickup guides and those will need to be changed out also. A total rebuild of the internal pieces so that all the weak spots go away.

We got some hanging baskets and I installed two hooks on the front porch. We are going to see how the baskets do in the wind before we install more hooks. We would like to have hooks all across the entire front porch with flowers hanging down. It would look very cool!