Author: Steve Hardin

Haying

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I have embraced the mechanic option out of necessity. All of my hay equipment is out of Italy and no one around here will work on it. So I have to fix it myself if I want to use it. I had to fix the sickle bar mower before I could go out and cut the first batch of hay on our place. Luckily, when I placed the order for parts I ordered everything I thought I would need except for one bolt that was going to have to come from Italy. That single bolt would have cost me $50. I figured I could find a bolt that would work for less than that.

I got the end of the sickle bar torn off and the new parts on. I was able to find a workable bolt to substitute for the Italy special. I went out and started to cut all of field #1. About halfway through it the mower stopped working. I had lost a bolt on the bar itself and one of the retainers had spun around. I drove back, replaced the bolt (I had purchased spares) and then tightened all of the bolts on the entire sickle bar and regreased everything. I went out and finished cutting the entire field. I did have to work past sundown. I did not want to come back and cut the last section in the morning. It would screw with the drying rate. When I got back I did notice that the Italy special replacement bolt had already bent. I am going to have to tear that fin off and beat on it with a very large hammer. I think I have gotten a sharper angle bent into it than it should have over the years of just normal usage. It needs some hammer therapy on the anvil to set it straight, literally! I know there is a second bolt available so I will replace the bent one when it is reassembled.

I found two batches of pheasant chicks out in the field when I was cutting, both were in the far middle of the pasture. I had to work hard not to run them over or cut them up with the bar. I managed to not hurt a single one.

I went out the next afternoon and turned and rowed the hay. So some of it had just barely had 24 hours or less since it was first cut. It was not super hot out but the hay was drying out fast. I rowed it with the power rake but again by the time I was done with the rake I had broken 8 tines! It was set too low and I had a lot of old tines on it. I do not believe there are very many old tines left. I had to go past dark again before it was completed. The hay was pretty dry so I knew I would be baling the next day. I will now need to repair this piece of equipment before it can be used again. I have instituted a repair personal priority system. The order in which the pieces of equipment are going to be needed are the order in which they are repaired. So the sickle bar mower first, then the powered rake then the baler.

We have our three yearling calves in the orchard near the houses and driveway. We are just tired of the butcher calves just being crazy because they never have to deal with humans until we run them into the pen to be killed. We are hoping that by us being able to talk to them and them being around us they will calm down. They are a little calmer currently than last year. The real problem is that Annmarie thinks we missed a testicle when we banded the calves. So far we have not ran them into the chute for a definitive grab/inspection. We are usually pretty careful about the cows when they are getting banded. Time will tell on this issue.

New tractor!

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Well it was delivered! My new small Kubota tractor was delivered on Thursday with a new bigger 5’ brush hog and a 5’ land plane for the driveway, the total cost was a paltry $32k. Most people buy a new car, I would rather have a new tractor! I can drive a beater car forever as long as I can have two tractors. I am not going to get greedy, I don’t think I need three tractors, two is sufficient for one person. But if I had to get a third tractor I would get another Kubota. Honestly, they started out in the small tractor market and have just been making them bigger. I love the amount of metal and minimal amount of plastic.

Every size and make and model has its own quirks. You just have to get used to how they operate and then figure out what works for you. This new tractor is all hydraulic, no clutch just shove the appropriate lever in the correct direction at the correct time. That takes some getting used to when a clutch is what you normally use. I always forget about the little things that I add onto the tractor. It didn’t come with a speed handle so I ordered that over the weekend. It only has a small plastic tool box so I have these metal tool holders that clamp onto the roll bar so you have have a hammer, crescent wrench, pliers, screwdrivers etc hanging on the side of the tractor readily available. I did remember to have them install lights, weld on three chain hooks on the bucket and a rear set of hydraulic takeoffs. I happened to have an overhead canopy that had not yet been installed on the older tractor so on day three I installed it on the new tractor. I ordered the clamp onto the roll bar tool holders also. I have to add a heavy duty bag to hang from the roll bar so I can store food, drinks and a first aid kit (or blue rag to use as a bandaid). I had to order new caps for the hydraulic takeoffs to keep the dirt and grime out of them. As you can see there were many things still needed to dress up the new mistress.

Annmarie says I need to give it a name but now that I own two Kubota tractors they need different names. My very first tractor was called the “Mistress”. I have been tossing ideas around and think I have finally settled on a pair of names, Juicy and Clementine. Juicy is the new all hydraulic tractor and Clementine is the tried and true with a clutch. Both are Kubota so they are bright orange in color.

The first evening I put the brush hog on it and started to mow down the cheat grass. The seat is quite comfortable! It’s the small things that matter. There is a foot release for the steering column so you can just move the steering wheel up and out of the way as you get on and off the tractor. It also has a flexible screen that catches the dead weed debris to keep it out of the radiator. The screen is super easy to get on and off without having to lift the bucket arms first.

I would say the fuel gauge is par for the course on a small tractor. Which is basically you have fuel forever until it suddenly vanishes in thirty minutes. Of all the things this seems to be an elusive goal for small tractor manufacturers, at least Kubota and John Deere. I have learned to measure fuel consumption by run time and the type of job I am doing.

I am super thrilled and will be spending all weekend on the tractor.

More hay movement

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Friday we went to an estate auction and got a few trinkets. One of the best things was an old fashioned counter/clicker! There were two of these and I should have bought them both instead of just one. I can now officially count hay bales and sheep easily. I used this to count the hay as I loaded it up into the barn. I can only throw the hay bales about eight feet high. I have to have help to stack them higher. One person throws them up and the other stacks them higher. I spent two days picking up hay bales and then unloading them into the barn until I had all 170 bales in the barn. I can only get about 30 bales into the back of the pickup. So it takes a few trips for me to get it all loaded and unloaded.

I ended up having to feed about nine bales to the boys in Alcatraz. The bales were too wet. I used to measure the moisture content in the bales but I can pretty much tell by picking them up whether there is too much moisture in the bale. The wet ones just get fed to the boys. They love the green grass and eat them before they spoil.

The next thing I need to do is to get some spray on the neighbor’s field. I need some on ours also so I can do them all at the same time. As fast as the grass is growing I will be getting a second cutting in 6-8 weeks and maybe will get a third cutting in this year. The grass is really growing. We are working on getting water out of our irrigation ditch and onto the field next to Donna’s. This will give us about 3 acres of irrigated land. We are going to pile on the water and try and get the cheatgrass to sprout so we can accelerate killing it. I would like to see it sprout three times this year.

Sunday I did not really want to move bales so I went down and cut on the broken apple branch that was blocking the gate. I cut on it until I had a path for the animals to get through. My hope was that if I opened up a path and locked it open the four alpaca would come into the area near the houses. Otherwise I am going to have to chase them in so they can be sheared. We are going to shear this upcoming weekend.

All three of our bee hives are still alive! We are having to feed them for a short time between flowers blooming. Pretty soon the blackberries will start to bloom and the bees will not need any supplement. But for now all three hives are getting some.

Hay needs a home

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I needed to get all the baled hay from the neighbor’s place moved into our barn. The real problem is I needed to move the hay from two years ago out of the way first. We have an overhead walkway in the animal area that I keep “straw” on for the barn floor. We have just started to use the oldest hay for the floor covering instead of buying straw. It works pretty good and keeps our costs down. The only hard part is getting the bales up onto the walkway! I cut a bigger hole from the walkway to the second storage room and just started grabbing bales from the top of the last two rows. As you can see the raccoons are having a fine time in the barn and have created another huge poop pile. They are so annoying. They make a mess of the barn. I will need to get up there in a couple of years, next time the hay room is empty and clean all of that poop off the stacked wood. What I should really do is just remove that wood and stack hay on top of that hallway. The raccoons don’t do that in the other hay room because I store hay on top of the walkway.

I only managed to smash my head twice on the roof beams. Luckily, I did not knock myself out. I only had a cloth tied over my bald head so I ended up with two big abrasions to the top of my head. It is too hot to wear my safety helmet. Honestly, I did not think it would be possible to hit my head while I was on top of the pile. I got the overhead walkway about 80% full and then moved all of the old hay in front of the doorway. It will be the first hay I will be able to pull for feeding. I may even just pull about 15 bales once I have the floor cleaned off so the sheep can spread it around and I don’t have to pull it from the overhead walkway!

There was a lot of sweating involved for this old man to get it all moved around. I still have a pile of netting that will need to be taken out of the barn and tossed into the trash. I gotta get all of this old hay moved around before I can bring any of the new hay from this year into the barn.

I do need to go around and fix my 12v overhead light system. The damn raccoons pulled some of the wires loose. I need to use those zip ties with screw heads so I can anchor the wires in place. This needs to happen this summer as it was very inconvenient not having lights in the hay rooms.

Kubota Days!

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I have been trying to buy a new Kubota tractor. I need a replacement for my little John Deere. I had been working with the local dealer and he had wanted to display mine at their Kubota Day sale. If I went down and finalized the sale I got a discount. The tractor was in a crate the first time I saw it. They had welded on the three hooks to the bucket and the rear hydraulic takeoffs were installed. The takeoffs were too small. I had never seen any that small before. I also realized that I had not asked for overhead front/rear facing lights. So those will be added before I finalize the contract. It is easier to just get exactly what you want from the beginning. The dealer has been great to work with Farm Equipment Headquarters (FEH). I bought my other Kubota from them also.

This one has some nice features, since it is under 25Hp it does not have to have any emissions equipment on it. The engine is so simple, it is amazing. It has this luxury seat with springs that should remove most of the bumpy herky jerky movement that wears you out when you sit on it for a few hours. I do realize that most people do not sit on their mini tractors for hours at a time but it takes me 30+ hours to dig out the barn and I usually spend 80 hours haying. I don’t think I will use it for spraying as I would need to add a power switch and plug to the wiring. I already have it on the bigger Kubota and when you get that 50 gallon tank full of water it’s heavy!

There is no clutch! It is all hydraulic, even the pto. You just move the levers. It does have a cruise control, it is a manual lever but it’s there and that is what counts. Hell, it even has the bucket level cheater indicator. I have not had one of those on a tractor in years, they are usually the first casualty of any abuse or tight space kerfluffall.

The tires are not as aggressive, so they should be nicer to my field. It has 4WD because every tractor needs it! A 2WD tractor is worse than a 2WD pickup. I am really looking forward to having it on the farm!