Farm

“Gas lighting” fencing

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I had talked to Daughter #2 about helping me fix a couple of fences after work this week so on Wednesday after dinner and dishes we went out to work on ”two” fences. We needed to fix the orchard fence where we had the breakaway panel give way during the flood and we needed to fix the fence from field #3 into field #4A. This seemed fairly simple and I was pretty sure we could do it in an hour, I failed to take into account how a city person from another country would anticipate fixing ”two fences”.

I had gone out to inspect the fence in the orchard the day before and noticed that the deer, specifically a male deer, had torn up several of our fruit trees. They are five years old and I thought the deer could no longer harm them. I was wrong. He tore up the middle of four trees. So now I will need to construct a six foot fence around the entire orchard which means installing seven and a half foot tall T-posts and figuring out how to extend the wooden posts up another four feet. I think I will use smooth wire but may have to use woven, I will need to do more research.

So we head outside, grab the tractor and some tools. Daughter #2 is unsure why we need the tractor. We got over to the panel, after pushing the sheep out, and discovered that the entire panel was covered in mud and grass which made the panel impossible to lift. We failed to bring a chain with us so we just hooked the bucket hooks onto the panel and stood it up with the tractor. Once we had it up we could tear off all of the grass and mud, while fending off the sheep who wanted to come back into the orchard. We managed to pull the top cable tight with a fence tightener and got the cow panel back up and stretched tight. As we were headed to field #4A I noticed that the gate going into our tree orchard was off its hinges and needed to be fixed before we stuck our brand new bull in the pasture the next day! So we diverted and fixed the gate then we went onto field #4A. We had to fix another cow panel in the middle of the fence that was installed to allow us to cut it loose should we have another flood. Since it flooded and we cut it loose we did not lose any of the fence line. This was a very nice win for us. So we reattached it and Daughter #2 was ready to go inside except we still had to fix the spring ditch crossing in the corner of that same fence. So after I announced our fourth repair job needing attention I was accused of ”gaslighting” her on fence repairs. I had to look up gaslighting on the internet because I told her she had to be using it wrong. She told me in the UK they use it for bait and switch situations also. I still think she is confused and I told her that this was normal fence repair stuff! Without fixing both holes in the fence we cannot let the cows into pasture #4A. We fixed it in the dark by tractor light and then went in. On our way out to field 4A we discovered that the sheep had torn into 12 bales of alfalfa hay from last year, that would explain why they are all so fat! The lambs are bouncing all over the place and we continue to have more lambs. There are only about five ewes left to deliver.

Annmarie and both daughters started in on our kitchen cabinets. They are stripping them in place so we can repaint them. The problem is they are built in and have four coats of paint on them. They made great progress and we have a popup shelter and saw horses set out back where they can work on the doors. This means that everything from the cupboards will need to find a temporary home while the kitchen work progresses. Progress is never painless.

Hay torture

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It’s that time of year again where I wish I had a clone. This clone could then work for me doing all of the things I don’t want to do, chief among them is bring in the hay. Last week on Sunday, Mr Tex came out to pickup hay bales, he had informed me he had a friend that would work just as hard as him, so I said yes bring him. His friend has the same stature, lean and tall. Yes, his friend did know the meaning of hard work and did work very hard. We will henceforth call said friend ”Mr Clone 1”. I appreciate it when all I have to do is drive around the fields and someone else loads the trailer. I did help unload the trailer every time and we did get another 10 ton of hay unloaded into the barn! It was hot and they were both worn out by the time we got done, it took about 6 hours. I treated them to lunch at the minimart as we needed truck fuel. We had only driven 57 miles and burned up 20 gallons of gasoline! All of those miles were in the field getting hay. So the barn is basically full, I think I can fit another 3-4 ton only between the two rooms. I currently have 27 ton stacked in the main barn. I am saving the space for our second cutting we are going to get off of field #1&2. This will be the first year ever to get a second cutting on our grass hay that is non irrigated.

Since we had just gotten back from vacation and the rain had finally quit and everything had dried out it was time to get back to haying. I went out and turned hay in field #3, we had 1/2 the field cut and it needed to be turned. The Girls (Daughter #1 and Daughter #2) did chores while we were away and the sheep continued to lamb. We had one set of triplets that the mother could not feed the third baby and by day 4 the Girls had to bottle feed it and give it to our regular bummer caretaker. She gets all the bummer lambs for the price of coming whenever we call. Annmarie saw a family of raccoons running up the creek. We think they are living inside the barn so we set out a live trap in the barn with cat food. Raccoons love cat food! My chicken egg production is down and I am not sure if its due to fright from raccoons or just the heat but the chickens need to lay more! I managed to only spend 13.5 hours outside on my first day back from vacation doing farmwork.

Annmarie found a 18’ grain bin that is disassembled and 8’ high with all of the roof pieces for sale. It was delivered and we were able to unload it in four loads with the Kubota tractor and a set of loader forks. It is so much nicer to use the pallet forks instead of your back. We just stashed it all in a pile out of the way. That is totally next years project and when they delivered it was when I realized there was no top cap for the roof. I am going to have to try and hunt one down or else make one. The real question is how fancy do we get? I know I will be running some conduit to it so I can put in some outdoor outlets. I am even thinking about tapping into the water line but I am not sure how to do this as I only need 1/2’ line and want to use pex tubing and an antifreeze fixture. I may even go so far as to put an underground shutoff valve that will drain the above ground line so I can just shut it off in the winter. But I have to keep reminding myself that this is next years project and I need to just let it go.

Daughter #2 has managed to get the tractor stuck out in the field twice already. Once she hit a bad culvert with some undercutting from the flooding and the other time she hit a spring and got stuck in the mud. The springs and mud are really bad this year. I am going to have to move some more dirt around to mark the edges of the muddy spots so we don’t get stuck in the mud as often.

The puppy, ”Chance” missed us while we were away but the Girls managed to get her to not holler every night when she is kenneled so that was very pleasant surprise when we went to bed. You still have to get up and potty her at 0400 but that is a small price to pay for the whining and yipping to be gone.

Lambing progresses while haying goes on hold

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Annmarie says I need to quit complaining about there being too much hay this year, since last year I complained that there was not enough hay! I told her I am embracing my inner farmer it has just taken me a while to internalize the dialogue. We were going to leave the farm for a whole week and I was super nervous that the hay would just lay on the ground an not get baled. Luckily for me a nasty weather front moved in and it has rained for the last three days! This has put the haying process off at least several days so now I can enjoy my time away from the farm guilt free. Our lavender patch is really shaping up this year. The bees from our hive love it and no plants died this last winter. We are hoping that by next year the plants will be nice and mature. Every year they get a little bigger.

The baler had a broken pickup tooth, so on Saturday first thing in the morning I decided to be a mechanic. Now honestly I don’t like to mechanic, but I do realize that it is a necessary evil. Mr Professional usually does all of the repair work. It was too early to bale so I decided to take on changing out one set of pickup rakes as that was what I was told was broken. Well after having broken a bolt and breaking out the grinder, hammering a piece straight on the anvil and discovering a second broken pickup rake I was two hours into the repair before I had them both changed out. I decided, after searching YouTube for a repair video and finding nothing, that I needed to start recording repair videos and posting them for everyone else who cannot find anything. So I took snippets of videos while I was doing my repair and now I just need to learn how to edit and mash all the snippets together into one video. I may even have to do voice over on the videos even though I did talk while filming the snippets. I am trying to work on a TikTok channel but I am not sure if I can figure that out or not. Somethings I don’t understand well but daughter #1 tells me I need to get with the times.

The girls are managing things while we are away. So daughter #1 and daughter #2 are in charge! Daughter #2 has been watching the sheep and so far it is going amazingly well. We have had triplets, twins, single, twins, twins, triplets. The last set of triplets today the single mother took over one of them! We are so keeping her, if she will foster out an extra baby every year she is worth the effort to hold onto her. It is hard to find a non-picky ewe and having 1-3 of them in the flock is a true blessing. Lambs don’t go hungry when you have a few in the herd. So far this year our lamb productivity is at 200%! This is the best start we have ever had.

Daughter #2 could not start the John Deere tractor this morning. She texted me and I was sure that the battery was acting up again, nope, she did not have it in neutral!

Lambing is now officially commencing

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Again, the haying continues. We are still using the Micro hay equipment from Italy. Everything has done alright but the rake. The back wheels fell off last year and we attempted to weld them back on twice but the metal is not very good and it it keeps weakening and breaking so we now just use the front half and sooner or later we will have to repair the back half. It works for now and that is really the fact that continues to be pertinent.

I spent all day today on the tractor turning and rowing field two and then going back over it and cutting under the rows with the sickle bar. I was doing this after the rowing when I heard a change in the way the sickle bar was mowing and yes, I broke a bolt and the mower was not functioning correctly. I went back to the house and called it good.

I needed to be cleaned up early as our summer guest is arriving today, Monica! Monica was our foreign exchange student 8 years ago. She is going to vet school in the UK and came to spend summer with us instead of flying back to Taiwan, yeah for us! We are excited to have her and to teach her about the animals. She came at a perfect time as we just started to lamb today. Our first ewe had triplets this morning and was watching and feeding them all. This round of lambs is the first from our new ram we purchased last year. By this evening we had another set of twins and a single.

I let the sheep in the front yard to mow. Eventually, I am going to have to mow the lawn but that means I need to not be on the tractor all day and so far that is not happening. But, the lawn continues to grow so I have to do something. The sheep mowing will need to happen for another few days to really put the lawn in its place.

We have been talking about putting in a grain bin silo gazebo for outside cooking and entertaining. I realize we are not exactly social mavens but having a spot out of the weather where we could gather would be very nice. We could even put a little power to it so we could have lights and a plug in. So we have been asking around to see if someone knew of someone getting rid of a bin and have not had any luck yet. Annmarie was perusing Craigslist yesterday and spotted someone selling 18’ bins with 8’ walls and the entire roof. We reached out today and the pieces and parts should be delivered in a couple of weeks! So now we need to mock up some plans to take into account how we want to setup our outdoor area and where. We have the spot picked but it means we will need to move the yard fence out to accommodate the new location.

I am fairly certain with the amount of hay we still have to process, the new office needing to be completed and the bridge to be built we will not be getting to the Gazebo this year, but who knows if winter fails to come until December we may have time. But at least now we will have the parts necessary to do this project.

Left out in the heat

Steve Hardin3 Comments

I spent Thursday on the tractor going in circles making little bales of hay for eight hours in field number one. That seven acres seems to take days to bale due to the shear volume of grass that was produced this year. At only 40# a round bale it takes 50 bales to make a ton and there is around 20 ton out in this field alone. We are counting bales as they come out of the field so we will know when the field is empty how many ton of hay were produced. The bale counter has a lot of false positives as it counts every time the dump opens up even if a bale is not discharged. I do wear hearing protection but both of us had been wearing some type of ear bud/in ear speakers to listen to music while baling. This is problematic as the baler has a siren to tell you when it is full and we cannot hear it. You also cannot hear when something changes with the equipment. You can hear most breaks or soon to be broken issues but not while wearing headphones. So instead we now have a Dewalt radio bungee corded between the roll bars on the tractor, blasting music and we wear ear muff sound protectors. This makes it much easier to hear any changes with the equipment. I know this sounds counterintuitive but it really does work!

Mr Professional came out and did an oil and filter change on the John Deere tractor. I need a strap wrench for the fuel filter before it can be changed. I have ordered this already and it should be here by next week. I had to stop several times while bailing and make adjustments to the baler. It keeps needing adjustments as the temperature outside continues to rise. Once I got the chain adjusted I had to adjust the rear hatch catching mechanism. Also the discharge spring stop weld broke so I had to beat down the metal tab three times. This has been welded with some extra angle iron added to take the continuous pounding every time a bale is discharged. We need more tools in our tool bag. We need a full set of metric wrenches, not just the 15 mm and 10 mm wrenches. Plus, I noticed a couple of holes in our tool bag, so a new tool bag is probably also in the works. The wheat field is starting to turn. They won’t be able to harvest till the end of July this year. Harvest will probably be 3-5 weeks later than normal for us.

I was going to call it a day when Mr Professional said he got someone to come out and buck hay bales with me. This sounded like a great idea so I came in and fired up the pickup and we went out to pick up bales. We picked up 100 bales (2 ton) out of field two and came into the barn lot. Unfortunately, we filled the easy spots last time and that meant all of these bales needed to go to the top of the pile. We had 10 of the 100 bales into the barn when he gets a phone call and has to leave. I ended up moving about three ton of hay farther up into the barn and then unloaded the two ton from the trailer into the barn. I was very tired by the time I was done. Since I missed dinner and Annmarie had gone into town to do some work, they had left me dinner on the stove, Mashed potatoes and meatloaf! Annmarie always adds lots of stuff to the meatloaf so the vegetables are hidden inside of it, mostly carrots and onions. I zapped the potatoes in the microwave and then doused the meatloaf in a thick layer of real ketchup. Mind you I had stripped down in the laundry room to my tighty whiteys and needed the shower but it was nine pm and my last meal was at 7 am. I was hungry. So I ate dinner on the front porch of the house in my underwear while I watched the sun go down. It was a very spectacular dinner.

I had to order more diesel. This time instead of ordering 100 gallons I just told them to fill both sides of the tank to the top and we would go from there. I think its a 150 gallon tank. The propane company sent us our annual contract, we used 346 gallons of propane last year. Interesting enough, they set our usage at 800 gallons next year therefore making our monthly contribution double what it would have been. I sure hope the price doesn’t double or our consumption double. Every since we had the coolant leak repaired our propane usage is about half of what it used to be, which is why I think they are budgeting for 800, as I suspect our usage was that high before the repair.

I was in bed trying to go to sleep over the crying puppy (we are crate training her) and the noisy frogs when Mr Professional called to say someone just pulled up to the field with a pickup, a trailer and a loader and two people were out in the hay field with headlamps on. I ended up getting out of bed, putting on my wild west attire and headed out to the field. Before I could get out there he calls back to say its the bee people. They were adding hives to the ones they already have in the neighbor’s fields. They had forgotten exactly which field but had the right location. It was directly across the road from where they were looking. I was back in bed and asleep by midnight.