Author: Steve Hardin

More priorities

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I was forced to finally tear into the instant hot water propane tank. We had gotten past the decision to run the dishwasher or washing machine; washing machine or shower; shower or washing machine, if you tried to run two at the same time no one gets hot water. I have to do it every 1-2 years. I do run vinegar through it every year to minimize the hard water deposits to prevent the pipes from corroding. However, there is no warning about the flies. The flies come down the exhaust pipe and then die in the squirrel cage fan. They get stuck in the fan and get smeared inside the circular part of the squirrel cage, creating a drag for the air so the heater is not cooled down enough. This causes an error when there is too much demand on the hot water heater. I have to unplug some electrical connections and remove the fan then clean up the fan and then wipe out all of the bug guts from the inside wall of the fan housing. It takes a couple of hours to get it all cleaned and dried. Annmarie was wondering why her hair dryer was out and plugged in upstairs when she got home. I used it to make sure the fan was completely dry before reinstalling it. I only forgot to plug one thing back together and I figured that out when I tried to start it and it threw a code immediately and refused to heat up water. We are now back to unlimited hot water of any quantity!

We had a fire scare last week. Someone had one of their hay stacks catch on fire on the edge of Pilot Rock. The trouble was it was the edge closest to our house and the wind was blowing almost 20 MPH directly towards our house. The state police stopped and gave us a warning to get ready to evacuate. I went out and hooked up the disc to the tractor and started to disc next to the fence and next to the road and around all of the buildings. Normally, we have fires a little later in the season after the wheat field is harvested. They disc in a nice fire break all around the wheat field as soon as they harvest the outside. In a month there would have already been a fire break in place. The Gingerman is working on the brakes of the old truck so we can get it set up to fight fire. I ended up getting very dirty and will be spraying the area in the early spring to kill the vegetation so that it will be easier to disc.

One of our neighbors offered to have me cut one of their fields that had been flooded out in the spring. It had random cheat grass throughout it and it took some driving around with the sickle bar before I figured out what parts of it were worth cutting for hay. Of course before I could even cut anything I had to repair the tractor tire that got punctured while discing for a fire break. Of course, the tire could not be repaired the internal side wall was breaking apart, I am sure it is from moving the large bales. I need to keep more air in the front tires. I had to go in and pickup the tire on Friday.

I had a hard time getting to the sickle bar mower as it was on the tractor with the flat. I got the sickle bar off but had already taken the flat tire off of the tractor. So I just started the tractor, leveled off the bucket, lifted the front tires off the ground and slid forward on the bucket, Clementine did just fine. I did this so I had enough room to squeeze in Juicy behind and hook up the sickle bar. I had to fight, wiggle, cuss and lever the sickle bar to get it hooked up to the new Kubota. The five foot mower is lot for that little tractor. I was able to get the field cut. The next afternoon I turned the hay and it was going to be ready to be baled on Saturday. It is drying out very fast. I just needed to finish reassembly on the baler.

It’s all fun and games till pickup time

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Well I spent most of Friday being a mechanic. I was able to bale hay for a while until I had the baler explode again. Same problem, one of the entire rows of pickup tines gave out when I tried to push a huge clump into the baler. This of course got jammed inside the baler and I was done. So then I proceeded to tear the baler apart again except this time I broke one pickup tine on the left side and an entire row on the right side. So I had to take off all of the pickup guidance channels but three. Of course I had three bolts that I could not loosen. Those hex key heads might be smooth for the incoming grass but there is no room inside the baler to really put some English on the bolt and I had to grind off three more bolt heads. Luckily, they were not any of the bolts I had just installed last week. I am sure that the bolts are kinda welding themselves to the channels with rust. Once I grind off the heads I can turn the lower part of the bolt with my fingers. I am even hosing them with some penetrating lubricant prior to attempting their removal. Luckily, I performed no blood sacrifice on their removal. My hands are still trying to heal from the first attempt.

I wanted to use the tractor to haul the trailer instead of the pickup. There is a tight corner at the far end and there is no reason to use the pickup. Unfortunately, I could not find the correct bar with a 2 5/8” ball mounted on it. I ended up chaining it to a three point bar. Not exactly secure but it lasted for two days and I ordered a premade three point hitch with a 2” receiver for a stinger so I can use a 2 5/8” ball and the trailer will be secure. I ordered it on Saturday and it should arrive by Monday, that is pretty fast! So on Saturday Annmarie and I went out and started to pickup bales out of the field and unload them into the barn. I only turned about 75% of the bales in field one and it was noticeable. We had some wet soldiers so those got set outside the barn on their side to dry. They will be fed to the boys in Alcatraz and the yearlings in the orchard. Nothing goes to waste. Every time we picked up a load we grabbed two bales that had to be dumped and were not wrapped. Those go to animals in Alcatraz, orchard or the horse. We made four trips to pickup hay and unloaded three loads into the barn (191 bales). The two of us got 4 ton loaded into the barn on Saturday and one ton of soldiers drying out (51 bales).

We were able to get a great view of the new calf. I ended up dumping six bales off the side of the trailer right near the gate and the cows got free food. She was very visible.

On Sunday I went to TJ Hooker’s house and sheared his alpaca. I ended up shearing it standing up. I only cut it once, but it had not been shorn ever and it was three years old so it was a little wild. I was able to trim its toes and even had to grind its teeth straight. I did not need to cut off its fighting teeth as they were quite small. I will probably have to do that next year. I told him to not wait so long. I am still trying to decide if trading shearing for fencing material is a realistic business proposition.

Afterwards I went home to pickup more bales of hay. The Quiet One and Rock Slayer came out to help. We unloaded the load waiting for us into the barn and it was time to take the stack from 8 feet height to 16 feet, that top half is the hardest! The Quiet One did most of the crawling around on top of the bales while the Rock Slayer and I tossed them up to her. We picked up five more loads and put three of them into the barn. We added another 7 ton of hay into the barn and then stacked another 3 ton over by the grain bins. Rock Slayer had to leave but the Quiet One was game to keep going until we picked up all the bales. We had to make three more trips to get all of the bales. We did open up field two so the cows can get in there and eat the downed unbaled hay and eat the green grass. Field one is all closed up and if we get more rain I may get a second cutting off of field one.

We did stop and look at the Gingerman’s hive up outside of field one. It is still alive and kicking. Not a ton of bees but they are working and are present. They were pretty calm, I picked the lid off without any protection and peeked inside the hive.

We ended up piling another 435 bales or 8.7 tons of hay over by the grain bins. The bales weigh around 40# so they can be thrown and moved easily but after 1000 bales it starts to add up! I did learn that I can only throw the bales about ten feet into the air. I just cannot get any higher. I only ended up with three blisters between my fingers from the hay hooks. Even with gloves those parts of my hand don’t get a lot of friction. I do change out which fingers the hooks go between on a regular basis in an attempt to slow down the blisters.

Overall, I am super excited about the hay. I had a neighbor offer up about 3-4 more acres to cut and I still need to cut down by the schoolhouse plus I still have a second cutting on the Naked Gardener’s property. We are going to not purchase any hay this year for the cows and feed out what we have. I will need to get the hay rearranged in the machine shed so I can put more small bales in there. I also need to fix the wall of the old lamb shed so that I can stick bales in there for the winter. It’s a good hay year.

Mechanic blood sacrifice

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Sunday I spent all day repairing equipment. The eight tines that I replaced on the power rake did not take too long. I was missing a bolt and had to dig through a three gallon bucket to find the correct size bolt and nut. I had cut late Saturday morning but the hay would not be ready to turn until Monday. It would have to wait until after I got off of work.

I do like the Abbriata M50 round baler but I snapped off two pickup tines on the same support bar and they created a stopping pin effect. The tines cannot be turned. I don’t have an overhead lift so I have to just lay on the ground and work on it. I also can crawl between the arms and reach inside the machine. It is not super comfortable and requires a lot of crawling around and stomach crunches to lift your upper body 6-8” off of the ground. I of course could not get three of the hay guides removed and my large 60V DeWalt grinder would not fit inside the opening and allow me to move it around enough to grind the heads off. I ended up driving to Pendleton and buying a 20V DeWalt grinder that is much smaller and fits inside the baler opening. I had all three bolt heads ground down in ten minutes. Of course once I got the guides out of the way I could hand turn the stubs of the bolts out of their retaining nuts. I was able to change out and install the new rake teeth and support bar.

There was a lot of swearing and I kept tearing up my hands and bleeding all over the equipment. I actually had to stop working and slide my hand into a leather glove so the blood would quit running down my knuckle. The leather glove absorbs blood and puts pressure on the wound. Eventually, I found a first aid kit on one of the tractors and used a bandage and some cleaning solution to treat the injury. There was more swearing before I was done. Once my abdominal muscles started to cramp up on me while I was reassembling the equipment I wanted to quit. But I knew I would just have to get it done eventually anyways so I might as well just get it done. My abdominal muscles still hurt two days later.

Monday I came home and spent four hours rowing hay. I had plans to row hay Sunday evening but the hay was still wet and instead I rolled bales that were on the ground in field #1. They were getting a wet spot on the bottom. I cannot pickup hay bales yet until I get them all cut. One the neighbors offered to have me come cut one of their grass fields so it doesn’t go to waste. I am still figuring out how to squeeze it in.

I did go out and work on making some bales today after work. I have about 1/3 of the hay put up but I was running out of shear bolts. The hay is in large rows and it keeps sucking in too much and snapping the shear bolt when I am close to full. I think I just need to dump lighter bales to avoid this issue. I will pick up more bolts tomorrow and hopefully finish tomorrow.

Haying will end eventually

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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.

Getting lucky

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By the third dayI figured that a little bit of sunscreen on my face was not going to help if I spent all day on the tractor again. I had already managed to sunburn my lips. I took the, still in the box, sunshade that had been purchased for the older Kubota (Clementine) and installed it on the new one (Juicy). It took a couple of hours to get it all pieced together and up on the tractor. This one has a very nice locking mechanism that virtually makes it impossible for the shade to blow off the tractor. It is quite clever. After baling hay for an hour I asked myself why I did not do that two days earlier! Keeping that direct sun off of your face is a huge relief.

The hydraulic takeoffs do work! I only need one to get the dump lid on the baler to work and it worked great once I got the port all cleaned up. It had a lot of dust and dried grass in it. Unfortunately, I did order dust caps but do not order them by the size of the plug. They are ordered by the size of the hose. I did not know that until the wrong ones arrived in the mail. The correct size is now on order.

I spent all of Sunday baling hay until 2330. I really wanted to keep baling but we had scheduled help to come out on Monday at 0800 and help us with shear the alpaca. The haying got a lot easier once the sun went down. The moisture started to come out and the grass was not as slick. It baled super nice, no jams and it just wound up without any difficulties. I made twice as much progress after darkness hit. I started to just pick the big rows to bale as it was so fast. I figured I could get the smaller rows after we sheared the alpaca.

We had four alpaca that I had managed to get pinned on the back hillside. I thought they would cross the back creek. Nope, I ended up taking a header into the creek when the alpaca I was attempting to drag across the creek suddenly jumped and scrambled up the opposite side. Of course that same alpaca ended up jumping back across the creek to be with his buddies. One of the babies kicked Annmarie in the lower leg. It was a solid blow. That same alpaca proceeded to try and give us all the rear kick anytime we walked up behind it. So we grabbed it from the side when we drug it into the shearing area. It has grown significantly, it is probably our biggest alpaca now.

We did eventually get all four alpaca across the creek and I did not end up in it again. We only have six to shear, trim feet and inspect/cut teeth.

The shearing table makes it pretty easy to do everything. Our helper, the Quiet One, had never sheared alpaca before but she had just paid someone to come out to her place and shear her two alpaca. It was decided that she can just bring hers over to our place and we can just shear all of them on the same day. We had all six done within three hours. After three days of riding on the tractor my upper shoulders were killing me but I am getting much faster at shearing the alpaca than I used to when I started. I passed the trimmer off to the wife and Quiet One but ended up going back to it as I wanted to be done. I only cut three of them with the razor. No stitches have ever been necessary.

We dragged a tarp with the last two years worth of discarded hair over to the garden so we can use it as weed barrier. It makes great barrier. I showed the Quiet One how to work the new tractor and she will come out and mow the cheat grass down during the week. It needs it. I have been trying to mow the cheat grass while haying but once I started to bale nothing else gets done until hay is all formed into round bales. Once the bales are made I will leave them in the field for a couple of weeks. This is why I like the round bales so much better. They work for my delayed schedule.

I called in to the house and the wife brought me coffee out to the field! It was one of the best cups of coffee ever. I needed that coffee. Going around and around and watching the baler is monotonous. Even if I did manage to knock out two audio books over the weekend.

I went out and started to bale for another seven hours. I had enough material on the ground for approximately 12 more bales when the big boom was heard. The shear nut gave on the baler and I tried to replace it. I could not get the baler tines to move so I figured I better look closer to see what made that noise. One of the pickup tines exploded and broke some stuff that pinned the pickup shaft solid. I need three hours to tear into it and replace all the parts. It is close enough to finished to call it finished!

I now have to fix the sickle bar mower, the rake and the baler before I can cut some more hay. My plan is to fix the mower, cut hay, then fix the rake, rake and then fix the baler! As long as I get it fixed before I need it I am good to go.