Wiss 607 flower pruners.

Jason came over to the house yesterday to take a load of scrap iron to the recycler.  He showed up bright and early with a deadline of 1100 to be done.  I had told him there was a lot of stuff out in the old chicken coop that we had not gone through or dug out yet.  So we headed out there to do a little collecting before going to the junkyard.  Four hours later we managed to get most of the scrap iron out of the chicken coop.  I need to make a burn pile out there from all the scrap wood that was left over.  We did score some cool things.  I found another cast iron pot.  This one is designed to be hung from a chain over an open fire.  I may have to sand it to get a smooth finish inside the pot.  I found a pair of old Wiss flower pruners that had some rust on them.  I spent an hour cleaning them up with steel wool and a file and they are as good as new, incredibly sharp.  Jason never did get a load taken to the scrap yard.  He did fill up his flat bed with old parts.  I have an old gas stove that I am going to take out to the fruit stand to see if she wants it.  It is only really good as a yard decoration.  Gannon and Sarah got the cows separated and now the boys are in the barn lot and upper prime pasture with the horses.  They seem to be cohabitating well.  Gannon started digging the old straw out of the barn.  My compost pile is huge!  A ton of straw plus all that animal poop makes for a big pile.  I am hoping to get it spread out this year.  It is really a time issue.  Annmarie and I are talking about a manure spreader.  We may need to get one. 

Some dirt cleaned off, still needs a lot of work.

I washed out the old cast iron pan.  It needs to be bead blasted and then I may have to take a grinder to the inside to smooth it out.   I won’t be able to tell until after the bead blasting. 

  I did my first four corner points in a square and got 9 acres but still had a portion of the swamp in that 9 acres.  I ended up utilizing a straight Z shaped pattern to get acreage that can be tilled and hayed that is not part of the swamp or active spring system that is popping up.  I need to recalculate the acreage but I am betting it is right at 9 acres again.  This will make the fencing more difficult as I will have to put in two corners.  Off one of the corners I will put a gate.  This will let me trench up the upper secondary pasture and build 3-4 more small 4×8 foot ponds.  I wanted our animal side to have the running water.  There is also another spring right next to the fence even farther up the pasture.  I am truly amazed by the water just coming out of the ground and forming a running stream. 

When I was spraying the orchard the new baby calf was right by the gate.  I opened the gate and drove right next to the baby, less than three feet away.  The mother started huffing and pawing at the ground and shaking her head at me.  I totally ignored her and jumped out of the mule on the calf side.  She charged me!  I hollered, waved my hands in the air and scrambled to get to the other side of the mule.  I caught a horn to my left forearm, no blood just a small scrape.  I was more careful after that to heed her warnings.  The baby is a little girl, our first heifer.  This has necessitated me to get back on the fencing.  I want to separate the bull and the steers away from the female cows.  So I installed two more gates and drove the metal T-posts in the old fence line along the wheat field.  Gannon helped me tighten and restring that fence.  I have run out of the horse shoe chains I had made for gate latches.  At the rate I keep installing gates I am going to have 10 made this next time around.  I already need two for installed gates and have four more gates on hand that need to be installed.  Maybe 15…

Jason is making great headway on the old granary.  It will be done tomorrow, no more demolition necessary.  I will dig out some of the old dirt that had settled through the floor boards and then put up a temporary fence to keep the horses off the foundation.  I tried to put the boy cows into the barn lot but they did not cooperate and Zeke was not very helpful.  Today, Gannon and Sarah pushed them all into the barn lot.  Now I just need to finish tagging the sheep and sorting out the ram and a couple of wethers as buddies so we can regulate the ewes.  We need to sell off 60 sheep this summer!  I don’t know if I can do it without making a run to the animal sale.  The trouble with that is the sale can be very low dollar.  We have cut the price to $50/animal.  Dirt Cheap!  I will be posting them on Craigslist this month.  Time will tell.  Tell all your friends! 

New spring in upper pasture.

The weather was perfect yesterday morning for spraying.  I managed to get the entire driveway sprayed down with Roundup.  In two weeks we should have a real gravel driveway again instead of a grass path.  It seems minor but left alone the weeds and grass start forming dirt and then next thing you know the driveway is a mud path in the spring and a dust path in the summer.  Roundup just takes a while, about the time I think it didn’t do anything the plants just up and die.  The wind did pick up during the early afternoon so I had to divert my attention to something else.  Drifting Roundup is not good. 

I took the tractor up to the upper field to check on the new springs.  They are still there and the swamp was only a little bigger.  I took the tractor and found the old drainage path and dug it out a little in hopes that the water would collect into the ditch and dry the field out a little instead of forming a swamp.  The water was running through the field in several places.  I also drug a path down to the other ditch on the back side of the field.  I used the box blade to clear the vegetation and then lifted the rippers so I could just use the blade.  It took about 12 passes with the blade to get a ditch started.  I figure the running water will finish the ditch for me, it just needed a little direction.  The field is dead because it was sprayed down last fall.  The area above this was leased out for hay production and a large area was sprayed.  We are not sure that hay will be able to go in this spring.  He may just keep the field killed with spray and disc up the soil so it will be ready for a crop in the late fall.  The producer will do what he wants.  This new cut ditch is through the upper prime squared field I will fence in next year.  We are secretly hoping it continues to run year round and I can then develop a series of small ponds up here to attract the waterfowl.