Farm

Chores

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Today was catchup day. This needs to happen every once in a while. The cows needed food but I didn’t want to go outside twice into the cold. So I held off going out until early afternoon and I could do all the chores at once.

We had our first set of twin lambs two weeks ago, then a second set a week later and a third set two days ago and another set today! Eight babies from four deliveries is mighty nice. The babies don’t know to be scared of humans and are very curious. Today this little nugget would not leave me alone and tried to follow me out of the barn as I was trying to shut all the mommas and untagged babies into the baby area. They are very cute and cuddly at the one week old mark. The ones born today were born this afternoon outside. They were still wet and the momma had not delivered the afterbirth yet. She was super flighty so I ended up having to close off the end of the barn and use her babies as bait to get her into the barn. We usually throw the afterbirth outside the barn window and the cats or magpies eat it.

The vet came out to the house yesterday and cut away the affected portion of Mika’s hoof. The White Line disease came back but its not near as bad as last time. An added bonus was not having to haul the horse into the vet clinic. We are still searching for an affordable used stock trailer.

The dogs have to help when I feed the cows. Especially, when the cows think they are starving. There was still a little alfalfa left where the feeder should of been. The cows had tipped the feeder over, I suspect that was the work of the bull. If I don’t take the dogs the cows will not stay back and let me put the collapsible feeder around the large bale. Its hard to move the feeder around when 13 cows are bum rushing the bale of feed.

I took the time today to dig out a loading platform out of the hillside. It actually looked like there night have been one there in the past. It doesn’t have a fancy platform but you can back a trailer up to it and load a piece of equipment onto the trailer. We may need it for the old tractor we sold and since the ground is not frozen solid yet I figured today was the day to make it happen. Especially since I think it will snow before Christmas. I even fed Bob in the machine shop. He has been sneaking down to Donna’s to get extra food. I saw one of the new feral adult cats in the window of the barn two days ago when I went to feed. Other than that I have not seen any of the three new cats. One died a mysterious death. Annmarie spotted another dead cat down on the main road. We honestly think its an owl or hawk. We have a resident hawk that is now coming up to the house and flying over all the time. It hollers and screams when it sees the dogs or cats or humans. We are the interlopers in its world.

I have had to change the way I am billing feed for the chicken spread sheet. Now that I cannot store large quantities of food (thank you mice) I can store up to 200 pounds in two large metal trash cans. I am just expensing out the feed for the month I buy it even if it goes halfway through the next month. I did manage to collect seven eggs today from 25 chickens. I usually do about 33% production rate in the winter so 8 eggs is what I would like to collect on a daily basis this Winter, not quite there yet.

There is one pregnant ewe that is almost as wide as she is long. It is a sight to see. I sure hope she only has triplets and that they are all alive. I didn’t have very good luck last year with keeping the ewe I had to pull lambs from alive. I have a 50% survival rate after pulling lambs from two separate ewes in the last eight years. Honestly, only having had to do it twice is pretty amazing considering we have had over 300 babies.

There have been several Mountain lions killed in the immediate vicinity of our farm. There is not even snow on the ground yet. We suspected one was hanging around the barn last winter so hopefully this year will be a better year or I might have to get a tag.

I am getting ready for the house floor tile install. I ordered screws off of Amazon and some extra driver bits oh and I did do a little Christmas shopping online and all of that will be here by in three days!! It is truly amazing how fast a purchase can get to us in rural America. Annmarie reminded me I need to calculate how much grout is needed and get it ordered. It takes two weeks to show up and its a custom order. So I will get that ordered next week.

I wanted to paint

Steve HardinLeave a comment

This morning as we consumed breakfast, me fried potatoes, onions, Italian sausage covered in cheese with hot sauce over it all while Annmarie ate a homemade smoothie with Greek yogurt, frozen and fresh berries (consistency trick), and a raw farm egg with a single slice of toasted bread, Annmarie mentioned that I should go outside and fence. She specifically wants me to fix the lower fence on our back hillside so we can use the ram pasture. I had only had one cup of coffee and the prospect of going out and battling fence did not sound fun. I used the fact that the fence repair would take me about 25 hours and the weather was most likely going to change before I could get it finished. I instead voted on painting the stairwell. I still need to get the upper stairwell painted the chocolate brown. I continued to nurse my coffee while Annmarie went out to feed the horses, cats and check on the sheep and let them out of the barn. Before I knew it she was back inside telling me I needed to come help as we had new babies and she could not get the mother and babies separated from the herd.

This problem could be fixed if we would just finish off the ram and make summer sausage out of him. He is not safe, Annmarie cannot get in the same area with him as he tries to run her over. So I went out and we moved the sheep around and managed to start letting a few out of the gate at a time. This resulted in the ram being on the same side of the fence as me and nearby. One time he thought about ramming me but decided not to, I kept turning my back on him and Annmarie kept an eye on him while I kept an eye on the momma ewe so we did not accidentally let her out. So as we are sorting the sheep all run down to the creek. There is a dead end that ends in a “V” shape. The sheep were literally squirting under and through the fence. It looked more like a strainer than a fence. Just prior to this Annmarie was grabbing loose strands of wire from the same fence and telling me it needed to be fixed. I blamed the horses as they are the ones who push down the top wire. After we got the momma and twins sorted off (little twin boys, very cute) I capitulated to the fencing needs and told Annmarie I would fix it.

I tightened the fence from both ends, I cut out the lousy metal twist on stays that I put in place years ago when I thought they would work. The horses bend them when they lean on the fence, so do the cows. I now only use tamarack wooden stays, they last a long time and the animals cannot bend them or spread the wires apart. I also fixed the little bridge, placed it on some rocks and cleaned out the creek through this section. Since the sheep know there is a weakness in the fence they will keep testing the fence in this spot. It looked great when I was done but I was afraid with continual pressure they would be able to loosen it up again. So I put in a used 16 foot cow panel and wired it in place, now the sheep cannot get through. I also used a five foot chunk of cow panel to close off the last four feet of the “V” shaped dead end. This way the animals cannot pressure their way out of the fence like cheese whiz coming out of a can. I had to replace a large amount of fence clips as they had been knocked loose from the force of animals hitting the fence. All of this took me a measly five hours.

I had also told Annmarie I would clean up the front hillside from the leftover summer fencing mess. She wanted me to remove it totally. I guaranteed it would be picked up and placed in a neat pile so that I could return later and remove it. This still took me another hour to get it all contained and straightened out.

We are having issue with the feet on one of the horses again. Its the same one that had white line disease and we spent 6 months getting better. The farrier says she has it again and the vet is coming out next week. The area behind the barn is very muddy. I put the straw from the barn there in an attempt to create some soil so I can get grass to grow. Today I made a bare patch down to the ground in an attempt to get the horses out of the much when they go down for water. What I really need to do is dig another channel next to the barn a couple of feet deep and fill it all with gravel and make it go to the front creek so the water runoff won’t sit next to the barn. Maybe I can get that done next year. Every year we try and improve the water runoff in the barn lot.

Today while I was working on the fence my fence stay guy called! I had paid for 500 stays early this summer and had only picked up 200, he wanted me to come pick up the rest. I did this as soon as I finished puttering around with the tractor. The bad part about this is I discovered an antifreeze coolant leak in the pickup. I think it is coming off of the radiator but I cannot see the leak only the results. Its not horrible yet but as soon as my car gets out of the body shop. The pickup needs to go to the shop. Tonight just before dinner Annmarie tried to toast some pumpkin seeds in the oven. I had made homemade pumpkin soup last night and cleaned all the seeds so she could roast them. They started popping in the oven! They were splitting open and bouncing all over the oven. We had to keep the door closed as the oven cooled down so we did not end up with seeds every where. Once we tried again after dinner they did just fine, they must of had quite a bit of moisture trapped inside of them. They still taste very good.

Burn day, commonly known as fence fire day

Steve Hardin2 Comments

It was another one of those days, where I thought I was going to move forward all day long. Alas there were a few bumps along the way, there usually are on the farm. I would like to think that after 9 years I would have this down and some things would be routine but that is just not the case. For example, how hard can it be to light some weeds on fire? Seems pretty straightforward but something always comes up. I really wanted to burn the upper field but it keeps raining and with all those weeds and gaps between areas I need it to be tinder dry when I torch it and the rain is just frequent enough to stop this plan. Its not like there is nothing else to do so I opted to burn the weeds alongside the driveway.

Cattle guard, right side

I started at the far end of the driveway near the road. It had some good thick piles and everyone that drives by won’t be disturbed by 10 foot tall flames in the middle of the day. Most of the road traffic is in the early morning and evening as people travel to and fro work.

I had put a pitchfork in the back of the pickup but to pitchfork it all away from all the fence would take me a couple of weeks. The tumbleweeds are bad this year. So I opted for expediency and just lit the weeds off while they were in the fence. This has caused me some heart ache in the past with burnt up fence posts. It’s always the old frayed railroad ties that catch on fire. They always catch on fire in the middle of the post and it is near impossible to put them out. I was determined to not let this happen this year so I tried to burn around the posts and then tried burning up to the posts in an attempt to keep the heat down near the posts. Several posts caught on fire but then went out in the wind. Cattle guard, left side

There is a long driveway and both sides needed to be burned. It took several hours to get to the end of the driveway. Once I got down near Donna’s house I burned a small stretch of fence line behind her house and continued on down to the corner and around up to the fencing supplies. I decided to stop as the next stretch of fence was piled high with weeds and our nephew’s camp trailer was only about four feet from the fence line. This would not have gone over well with the camp trailer. It would have made for an impressive fire. Driveway towed the houses

The tumbleweeds were bad this year, our driveway fence is starting to lean on both sides. The wind pushes on the weeds and bends the T posts. When the ground firms up I will need to go along and straighten all the posts.

While I was burning my mother-in-law stopped to ensure that I would go feed the cows. We have this discussion on a regular basis as I think they can always go another 1-2 days, especially with this weather we are having. I agreed that I would go feed them that evening. So there was a small fire burning on the hillside when I went to feed the cows. I brought the dogs as the cows really will mug me when I try and get the feeder pulled around the big bale. The cows think that the sound of the tractor means mealtime so they always come running. Mouse is much sneakier than Zeke he likes to lay flat and silent and then leap up and into the cows. So instead of following the tractor I looked over and Mouse had decided the cows were too close to the tractor as we were driving to the far end of the field. He tried to jump on the calf! Why go for a big defensive animal when you can pick on the helpless baby? Momma was coming to its defense even as I was hollering at him to back off. I got the hay all packaged up and surrounded by the feeder and we left the cows to eat. They only had a little hay left in the feeder. They maybe could of gone another day but it was time to feed. Now this is not always the case! If I feed them too early they just waste the hay and try and eat only the choice parts of the alfalfa.

It was just starting to get dark so I decided to just look down the driveway and spotted this column of flames near the road. I tooled on down in my tractor to find one of the old railroad ties next to the cattle guard on fire. This thing had sat dormant for over 2 hours before taking off. I had to go back to the house and get some water as the fire was inside the post. This needs water to take the heat out of the post or the fire will just reignite. I want back home and grabbed my gallon plant water jugs and filled them up with water. While I was doing that my phone rang and the neighbors were being helpful and everyone that drove by was calling my Mother-in-Law to let her know that a post was on fire out by the road. As I started driving down to the fire beacon to put it out I saw Donna drive up to the inferno and spray a cloud of white stuff on the post. The fire went out but by the time she drove off and I arrived it had already started back up. I poured a gallon of water on top of the railroad tie and it all went into the middle of the tie and dribbled throughout the cracks and crevices. After four gallons I managed to get the fire out and most of the heat so it would not reignite. I stank of smoke and was covered in soot so I opted to call it a day and go inside and shower. I was in my pajamas when Sarah called me to tell me that another post was on fire! I put my coat and rubber boots over my pjs and filled up my four gallons of water and head out into the rain to put out another post. It was raining at this time but not hard enough to put out my wooden post fires. This one was in a rock crib right behind Donna’s house and was easy to get out. This would have caused me problems as I would have had to rebuild the entire rock crib.

I have decided that I need a new plan when it comes to burning weeds in the fence lines. I need to pitchfork out and around all railroad ties before burning the weeds. This will be a bunch of extra work but anything that can prevent me from replacing wooden posts every time I burn is a good thing. Don’t get me wrong, I think the cattle guard needed large 8 inch steel pipes next to it to make the fence and cattle guard look good but I could have waited another 1-2 years.

The new chickens appeared to be getting smarter. After having to put 5 of 10 into the coop every night the last two nights they all made it back inside on their own. I was ready to declare victory until I went out tonight. There huddled outside were another five chickens, not even the same five that I had put in previously. To top it all off I have 25 chickens and I am only getting 3-5 eggs/day now. I keep thinking they will start laying but it has not happened yet.

Stock trailer in our future!

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It is now a reality, we can have a stock trailer. I listed the three items for sale on Saturday and by today I had four people lined up for the trailer. They kept asking more questions and wanting inside dimensions and inside pictures. One guy would have had it on Saturday but his pickup lights were not working and by the time he got back to me I had two people ahead of him. I sold it to a gentleman from Burns. He asked me this morning if I would save it if he made the trip. I said I would as it is not fair to sell it out from under him while he is making the trip. Do people really do that? I realize they must or he would not have asked. He inspected the trailer and paid the asking price without hesitation. I only had one person try to low ball me and he was the fourth in line. I was happy to tell him that it sold for the asking price.

The tractor sold today also! It went to someone who can fix it up and will take care of it. This is great news and I have already put the word out that we are in the market for a stock trailer. To cap off the evening when I went out to get eggs none of the chickens were sitting outside! They had all gone into the chicken coop before the door closed. I even collected 10 eggs from the last two days from 25 chickens. This doesn’t seem like very many but since three days ago I only got 2 this is great. The chickens hate change and adding new hens always screws up the pecking order and the laying patterns of all the hens. Now we just need to wait and see if the guy who said he was mailing a cashiers check for the car actually does it, I have the potential to score a trifecta this week.

Another internet failure

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We gave up on Hughes net. After a week of Annmarie spending 6-8 hours on the phone with Hughes net and getting an upgrade here and there we still could not stream television shows. I find it interesting that our DSL is only 1-2 MBS and we can stream TV with all other devices in airplane mode but with Hughes net speed test saying 23 MBS we could not stream any TV. She cancelled it and the only thing they wanted back was the modem. We can “have” the dish.

What are we going to do with the dish? We are already planning on turning it into a bird bath.

The wind was howling today and as I look out the living room window I can see the flashing on the end of the old house flopping around in the wind and the now defunct internet dish moving in the wind. I decided that there is no better time than right then to go out and fix this problem. So I grab my impact driver, several bits, some sheet metal roofing screws (silver not the matching red colored ones) and proceeded to attempt to get the ladder up onto the end of the building. This proved harder than expected with the wind. I set it just under the peak and climbed up to the top, there were a bunch of empty old hornets nest attached to the roof so I just decided to scoop them all down. After I got stung inside the left arm of my coat I realized that they were not all empty! I killed three hornets and finished cleaning out the peak. I fixed the peak and tacked it down with some more screws and then had to move the ladder to the left. I had to go over the defunct dish so the angle was pretty shallow and the ladder was not very secure. I made it to the roof line and was leaning out to the left and trying to screw in a screw when my Apple Watch started making this weird noise. So weird I stopped and looked at it. I had somehow pushed down on the watch continuously and activated an emergency 911 call! I quickly started hitting buttons telling it I did not want to do that and it asked me three times if I was sure. I was very sure. So I am still trying to drill in the same screw when my phone rings. I would normally ignore a phone call while I am leaning over the side of a ladder in the wind while trying to stay on the ladder, but I figured this could not be a coincidence. I was right, it was the 911 dispatch center asking me if I was alright!! I had to assure her multiple times that it was an accident and I was still on a ladder in the wind and was fine.

I finished screwing down the flashing and then removed the dish from the side of the old house. I figured I might as well get it down as it was ugly and I was there. We would have tolerated it if it had worked!

I have the ladder out in the stairwell so I can wash the walls and start painting. This is day three with the ladder out and all I have managed to do is fix the overhead fan, change out two light bulbs, vacuum out the lights, the upper window well and wash the upper window. I keep thinking about beginning the painting process, i have the whole thing planned out in my head.

I also installed a few motion activated lights in our downstairs closets. Now when we open the door there will be light! I also glued down our closet door tracks that Annmarie made on the 3D printer. Today was a catch up day to get on top of all the little things that have been piling up.

We advertised the old tractor for sale (International 504, gas engine with farmhand loader and hay grapple with blown head gasket) for $3500. We also put up the 2004 Aveo (child hit deer and ruined radiator and popped off the timing belt) for $400. Our third listing was our 16 foot enclosed single axle Sharpe trailer for $2500 all done yesterday afternoon. Cash is king and first person with it in hand takes whatever they want. I have had 3 enquirers on car, three on the trailer and one on the tractor. We are hoping to sell enough stuff to buy a stock trailer.

Tonight when I went out to feed it was pouring down rain, our rain gage said 6/10 of an inch when I dumped it out but that was over the last two weeks. I will try and keep better track of the rain on a semi regular basis. I went out to the barn in the pouring rain and noticed the gutters were overflowing. I fed the sheep, horses and cats then went and got the ladder. The gutters had filled up with a few leaves and a lot of mud! All this dust from this summer ended up in the gutters and a few leaves created a dam. I had to dig out dams from both of the gutters. I really need to bring in about four more scoops of gravel to go alongside the end of the barn near the barn wall. There was a small stream running next to the gravel I had already placed. I just need to fill up the whole area with gravel.

On the way back to the house I swung by and checked on the new chickens. Five of the ten new idiots were standing out on the ramp locked out of the coop by the automatic chicken door. I had to throw all five of them back into the coop. I keep hoping they will catch on soon.