Author: Steve Hardin

Haying for now

Steve Hardin1 Comment

Friday was spent haying some more.  Annmarie spotted a female calf from our bedroom window and then when she looked with the binoculars there was no ear tag!  We knew the cows were hiding more calves but had finally given up and figured they died.  Nope, now I need to tag it, luckily its a girl.  I managed to only shear two shear bolts all day, one upper and one lower.  The upper ones are a lot easier to fix!  I like to take my fiber directly from the soil.  The coffee gets pretty thick when the dust starts to fly.

Mr Professional and the kid started picking up bales from the field.  I think they are dry but Friday night I started to hit some wet patches.  I truly do not want the barn to burn down. After much discussion I am again using the horse training corral to store hay in.  They are out in the open, and since they are wrapped they won’t absorb a lot of moisture.  This was the best plan and the safest.

The micro hay equipment is nice, once you get used to it!  We are learning a  few things, like don’t row the hay or make the rows too high.  If you do drive over the hay rows watch the drive shaft picking up hay and wrapping around the driveline.  You will need to cut that off before it becomes a problem or it will stall out the tractor and it is a lot harder to get out when it is jammed in there.  Rocks are bad, the baler does not like them.  I am going to have to pick up rocks in the far upper field.  There are too many loose big rocks, even fist sized is too big.  The netting wrap is great but you really have to pull on the cord for about 3 seconds to get the friction roller engaged.  Once the bail is wrapped a couple of times you can let go and the machine does the rest.  The hydraulic rear lifting is amazing.  This is crucial when something goes wrong or you shear a bolt.  On the other the hydraulics were self contained and the pump was reliant on the pto so when you sheared a safety bolt and needed to lift the back of the baler it had to be done by hand and its very heavy.  Keep lots of shear bolts on hand, I recommend 36 of each kind.  It’s a stupid reason to have to stop and go to the hardware store to try and find them.  They are hardness 8.8 which is hard to find, everything easily obtained was harder and you don’t want a harder shear bolt.  Clean out both sides of the baler every time you shear a bolt.  This is probably overkill but you have the covers off anyways and it makes me feel better.  Clean off the equipment every night with the hose, get all that stuff and dirt off your machine.  Remember the bale counter is triggered every time you lift the tailgate on the baler so if you keep breaking stuff and lifting the back the count can be off by quite a bit.  You will need to count bales when you load them unless you never do anything wrong and all goes smoothly.  I have been unfortunate and have not had this problem.  Don’t take a super tight turn as you can catch the pto shaft with your rear tire, this is not good.  Don’t be surprised when you start out if the bale rolls forever.  It takes a bit to learn how to work the baler, we have some bales with 30-40 layers, they will be very hard to get into.  The average is about 8 wraps very reasonable.

The kid left early afternoon and Mr Professional was done loading hay, so he went out to bale hay while I went out to pick up bales.  I went up to the far field and picked up the triticale. We got 61 bales, 2400# not exactly a whopper crop off of 3 acres.  Between the flooding and my inexperience in prepping the field in the fall and planting it it was very lackluster. I tried to pick up rocks but there were a lot and the pickup bed was full of gravel for fencing, the hay and rocks were starting to cause the safety chains to drag on the ground.  I need to do some serious rock picking up here.   I will break out the arena groomer after the next cutting and work this field smooth and pick up rocks.

When I got to the barn I realized that I had not disposed of a winter’s worth of hay cord, that took a while to get them into old feed sacks.  I then had to move last years hay over to the front so we will use it first.  It is old and dry so I will use it as feed/bedding once we get the barn cleaned out.  I unloaded trailer and was about 50% done when it started to rain again.  Mr Professional came by and helped me unload the trailer, I stacked it until there were 10 bales left and I just called it quits!  I was beat and tired and done for the day it was dinner time anyways.  We only got 7/100” of rain Friday night.

 

Week in review

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It’s been a long week, I have kept notes so I could keep track of all the things that have happened.  Monday evening after dinner I went out and turned all the hay.  It just keeps raining.  The hay is not very good after all the rain and flooding.  I need to get it up into bales so the grass underneath can come up and I can get a good second cutting.  I worked until dark and got it all turned and in neat rows.  Mr Professional came out during the day and worked on setting wooden posts in our field closest to the barn lot, I would like to get the sheep and horses off of the hay pasture.  They keep eating the barley sprouts.

Tuesday after work I went out to the field and got the baler to work.  It’s a learning curve and I had to get my memory back up to speed after last year.  It is not quite the same critter as the string non-hydraulic one I had last year. I got it to make about 20 bales up in the triticale before it got dark.  I was happy but I have learned there are some things that are not easy to do in the dark and baling is one of them, seeding is the other.

Wednesday after work I went out to check on Mr Professional.  He was hot!  He had broken 9 shear bolts already and the hay was too thick.  It was a constant battle.  I went out after dinner and threw the hay back out.  No rows, the tractor carriage is too low and the underside hits the hay pile.  I really need a side pull but I did not think of this.  I may be able to accommodate this at a future time.  The real answer is just don’t row it.  Just throw it around and pick it up with the tractor.  The little baler does better if it is not plowing through super thick material.  It can grab a bunch and pull it in and shear the safety bolt before you know it.

Thursday I had off and Mr Professional and I had to go to town to find a bolt as one had broken on the arm for dumping the bales.  The arm got bent in shipping and I did not think it was a big deal.  It is turning out to be a problem.  I will need to order a replacement soon.  I forgot about it when I placed the big order last week.  We may have found the right size shear bolt at hardware store but we did not have any to compare.  We left them at home.  When we got home I found the dozen spares I knew I had ordered last year, they were not with the others.  It took us 2 hours to clean off the baler, replace the shear bolts and grease and oil it so it was ready to go.  I baled about 100 bales and only broke two shear pins, one low and one high.  I hit some wet grass and sheared the lower pin.  After spending 30 minutes digging it out I just gave up.  It was dinner time and I was beat, I took it all back to the shop, we can get it ready tomorrow morning.  Mr professional and the kid worked on the fence.  My manure clamp on hooks for the tractor bucket arrived!  I used them to move mud and hay away from the fence, they are great!  I am thinking that cleaning out the barn this year may be a lot easier than normal.   The tractor can push the spikes into a pile of mud and hay where I never could have gotten it into the bucket before.  The only thing is it makes the tractor pretty front heavy, I need to attach the box blade on the back for counterweight.

 

 

 

 

 

Rain again.

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Last weekend was no exception to the rain all the time theme.  It rained Friday night and our triticale hay was on the ground.  I went to Pendleton and tried three different stores looking for the bolts needed to attach my front tire.  The tractor place did not have them as they are a fine thread 1.5 pitch 14 mm x35 mm.  No one had one that was that short.  I ended up buying ones too long and taking them home and cutting them off with grinder, flattening the cut and chasing the threads with a nut I purchased.  This does not taper the end for ease of inserting.  It took me about 35 minutes to get all four bolts in and tightened up but I did it, otherwise there was going tot be no tractor use this weekend.  I had to go up around 1500 into the far pasture and turn it again until the clouds and lightning strikes got too close.  It did not rain until I made it back to the house and was headed inside.

On Sunday Mr Professional and I worked on the upstairs bathroom.  We had gotten >1/2” of rain on Saturday and the hay needed to dry out before I could do anything with it.  We worked on closet area and the back wall.  We had to go out and get more lumber from the old chicken coop so we could keep lining the walls.  I got behind as I was the one digging out bug damage from the boards with a nail so we could finish the installed boards easily.


As we were working Mr Professional wanted me to install a window where the light access panel is located to allow in some natural light.  The bathroom has all interior walls.  He then suggested a stained glass window as all our lights are stained glass.  We then talked about adding it between the lights on the opposite wall of the mirror.  I actually liked the idea but this level of change requires input from the design boss.  I drew out the area on the wooden wall and when Annmarie got home we pitched it.  She liked the idea and I had a stained glass piece downstairs that was unused.  It was in a cupboard and we purchased it many moons ago at a yard sale or auction, I am unsure which all though I think yard sale.  The window will be removable and the hole will be directly across from the hallway fan and above the fan blades.  We will have to use blue tape to protect the cut edge of the Sheetrock and tape a bag to the outside wall to catch the mess.  It’s going to be hard to not get Sheetrock dust all over the house.  I want to be able to remove the window so I can easily clean the top of the fan as an added bonus.  This got me to thinking about the shelves I want to add to the bathroom and I may make the shelf holders out of horseshoes.  I can weld them up and make sure they are all the same size.

House cannot be neglected either

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It’s time to get the hay done, the flood damage fixed and the bathroom done, the only question is what order will it happen in and how long will it take?  I am making a valiant effort to get it all done but that is not leaving me any time for the blog.  I have been working until 2100-2200 every night and after my shower I am ready for bed not the blog!  In an effort to maintain some continuity I have been making notes on paper so that I do not forget what happened on that day.  So I am now going to play catch up on all the activities that have occurred in the last six days.  Friday of last week Mr Professional came out with two kids to do some manual labor.  They got the unit of lumber unloaded into the bull enclosure, Alcatraz.  It goes across the old granary foundation so it stays fairly straight and not on the ground.  I let the weather “age” it.  They then kinda mowed the front lawn with the broken mower and a weed eater.  It looked much better than before they started.  They also weeded the back garden area as it was starting to look like a jungle.  I took a pole saw out and cut all the low branches on both the maple trees by the house.  You could not see under them and they were too low.  The kids piled the branches across the creek in a pile to be burned later.

I took the trailer and pickup into Pendleton to pick up fencing supplies.  I got 12 of the last 15 railroad ties at the store and they were all rejects.  I paid $12/each but they were rough looking.  They will work fine for what I want but they will not win any beauty contests.  I also picked up some cable, clips, eyebolts, clamps and utility panels to make the breakaway fence sections.  We then drove around the farm and deposited all the supplies at various locations to be utilized when we get to that section of fencing.

After unloading I noticed a 3’ deep pond at the base of the culvert from the water washing all our rocks and concrete chunks away.  So I climbed down and started tossing rocks and chunks into the hole and spreading out the rocks to slow the erosion.  I got the pond down to under 1’.  Mr Professional had to call it quits as one of the young men was dying of heat exhaustion.  It was hot and he was not used to hard manual labor.  He could not keep up with the 50+ and 40 year old men.

After they left, I had dinner with the beautiful wife and then went back out to row up the triticale that Mr Professional had cut 1.5 days ago.  It was very thin and I had to make several passes to get a row built up.  I was almost done when I noticed the tractor was making a funny noise and had developed a vibration.  I did notice it but it was dark and I was almost done so I kept going until the front left wheel fell off!  All the lug bolts had fallen out.  I hoofed it home and called it a night.  The tractor place is open on Saturday from 0730-1200, I will get it in the morning.

 

Flood recovery is slow as it’s not the only thing left to do

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It’s Memorial Day weekend and I had plans to fix my haying problems and fix some fence.  I managed to get “some” fence fixed and did not fix my haying problem.  Friday was very nice and I figured I was going to get loads of stuff done.

I managed to tear apart and rebuild both spring crossings in the yard.  They are now dog proof.  On the plus side, both of these crossings faired very well.  The panels lifted and bowed and moved out of the way of the water.  I will be making every crossing just like these two.  I managed to fix both crossings in under four hours.  I took some measurements for the span down by the propane tank (big picture below).  Annmarie is going to make me some plans for a new bridge.  She is making me plans for trusses, I will build two trusses and install them onto my concrete footings I will be installing then I will be bolting them down to the concrete.  I am going to pour “L” shaped footings so that the truss will rest on the lower L part and push against the upright part.  I will install two large bolts so I can bolt it down.  I will be using all thread, I love that stuff then I can just stuff it down into the concrete.

I did go up and tried to turn the hay in the upper prime field.  It was full of mud, I finally gave up and just started to shove the grass into large piles.  I have a set of manure forks that clamp onto the bucket coming.  I ordered them last week after the flood.  I think we will just burn the piles in place in a couple of weeks if it ever quits raining. I tried to go into the upper prime squared field but it still had water running through it.  I cleaned out the culvert and ended up having to dig out the ditch in about five places to get all the water flowing into designated channels.  I will need to wait a couple of days and go up there and try it again.  I think I may be able to salvage at least 2 acres of grass that did not get mud in it.  But if the rain keeps up it is going to start rotting on me.

The horses LOVE this no fence world as they are gorging themselves on all you can eat grass from all over the farm including my ruined hay fields.  They are so full that both of them were laying down and taking naps in the shade.  So far none of the dogs have escaped the yard after my repairs and they have had ample opportunity over the last three days.  

Yesterday, I decided to focus on our yard.  Sometimes the house needs to be prioritized also and it was time to knock everything down.  I spent the day on the weed eater.  I had to watch a YouTube video to figure out how to get the weed eater to work.  I have to do it every spring as I always forget the ins and outs and after pulling it 50 times in an effort to get it started I figured some help was warranted even if it was unwanted.  The YouTube lady had me up and running in under five minutes!  I also trimmed our lilac bush and some other bush we had in the back that was trying to take over the gate area.  I was getting tired of fighting the plants to get in and out of the back gate.  I burned over 1/2 gallon of gas in the weed eater getting the hillside cleaned off.  I forget how my body feels after five hours of using the weed eater.  My single biggest complaint is what the vibrations do to my hands, they ache.  I love getting old.

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Today, Annmarie and I went out to work on the lavender patch.  I dug about 14 rocks out of the patch that I had not removed and cleaned up a pile of ash.  Annmarie wondered how we were ready if I had not done all the prep.  I reiterated that one cannot have all the prep work done ahead of time and it was not very much.  She laid out the ground cloth while I carried in the fake bark.  We have colored recycled shredded tires.  I put out 1200 pound of the stuff and it didn’t even make a dent!  We quit laying out ground cloth because I did not want the wind to tear it all up and we ordered another 10k# of recycled tires.  It will be here in 10-14 days.  The nice part was I just scooped it up into a five gallon bucket by hand and spread it out with the bucket.  It worked great and stopped me from having to try and rake it out over the ground cloth.

Once we ran out of that I went out to help Mr Professional, it was supposed to rain so he was not going to spray.  Instead we took the spare wood out to the old chicken coop.  This meant he pulled the down fence mess off of the culvert so we could drive the trailer and pickup across.  Unfortunately, this exposed the torn out corner near the culvert.  It was not bad only a couple of feet but enough that the trailer was not going to get past.  I had moved some rocks into the barn lot that I was going to use on the flat spot I made behind the barn.  I had expressly collected huge rocks as that was what I wanted to go there.  So we used those rocks to fill in the hole that allowed us to drive the trailer across the culvert.

While he was getting ready to unload the wood, he had to clear a spot I tried to straighten out the Alcatraz water area, I cleaned off the grass on the side that was supposed to allow water in and then chained onto it.  I moved it about two feet before it hit resistance and I just started sliding all over the muddy hillside.  I need it to actually dry out for a few days.  We unloaded the wood, while it started to rain again.  We staged about 20 pieces of blue pine for the bathroom on the front porch.  The plan is to start working on the bathroom for a few hours every evening and get it done!  I so want a second bathroom and our bathroom lights came on Friday.  The rosettes I ordered to go around the mirror came but they only had 1/2” nails with them and I wanted at least 1.25”.  I ended up ordering another 6 rosettes from a different place with longer nails.  These are all hand forged and come with 1.25” nails to hold them in place.  They will hopefully be here this week so I can install them and remove the board I have propped across the entire room leaning onto the mirror.

I did go out into the orchard after we finished with the ground cloth.  I realized that the culvert was still plugged up and it was causing water to run across the orchard.  I spent an hour hand digging and pulling out weeds and branches from the ditch until I got the backlog down and the channel cleared out for 20 feet.  I then went down to where the water ran under/through the far fence.  Ouch, there is a three foot drop off that is about 14’ wide.  I am going to have to just cut the fence, install two H braces on either side, put a cable across the top and hang cow panels down.  I can fill up the one side with large rocks but I am running out of easy access to large rock piles.  I have one rock pile in the orchard that I  had been building up from all over the orchard.  I think I can hang some weights on the panels so that the cows cannot lift them but if the water rushes by again it will just lift the panels.  This is my new plan, all water crossings need to be able to “float” out of the way if we ever get flooding again.  Annmarie tells me that we beat a record rainfall set in 1894 with this flood on this day.  I would believe it but that surely does not help when you are cleaning up.  As always, we are grateful and fortunate that none of the houses or buildings were damaged.  We are just cleaning up fences and losing hay, less than $20K dollars worth of damage.  The amount of work it will take to fix it is the hard part, that took several years to install.  On the plus side our bridge for the barn lot survived!  I just have to hook onto it with the tractor and pull it back.  I will have to find another extra railroad tie as I was pretty much the only one who could drive the tractor across the four foot bridge.  You cannot get a straight shot at it so it makes it very hard.  I am making a list of more things to by now.

I even went down to the barn lot crossing and fished out all the blocks today.  It was a mess.  I am going to buy another 200 blocks and then rip out what is currently installed and replace them all.  I want to extend the blocks out along the sides and then stick the crossing on top of the blocks, this should gain me another foot of clearance and prevent the bridge from being eroded out.  I am fine with it being lifted off its footings as this is a safety feature.  This many blocks will take 3-4 people about a day to install.  Once those are in and the bridge is back in place then I can worry about getting the fence back in place.  It’s going to be a long summer.

I am going to have to focus on the cross fences above first to keep the animals out of the hay fields.  So that is the next priority project, once I have those done we can sort the cows and pull the young meat heifers off of the main herd and then let the bull back in with the cows.  The steers and heifers can go in the upper prime pasture and we will get two fences between the bull and them.