#stewartcreeksomethings

Making Hay bales!

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I have turned the hay twice during the week after work. It took about 4 hours the first time to get it into rows and then it took a little over 2 hours to turn those rows. The first pass took a lot longer as I had to move all the poison oak to the outside of edge of the field so I would not bale it up. The tractor has a pretty good light system on it so I can keep working after dark.

I knew I was going to have to bale on Friday. Usually I don’t start baling until around 1000 in the morning. I like to let the morning dew dry off a little. The hay is super dry on the upper field! I was at it for two hours and kept having pickup problems due to the hay being so dry and slick. I finally gave up after I had about half the field baled and went down to the lower pasture. It is down by the river and holds moisture longer into the day.

There was a lot more moisture down below. I kept pulling in slugs of wet grass at the last minute. I broke three upper shear bolts and two lower shear bolts . The lower ones require multiple covers to come off and are harder to get at. I also had a lot of dried grass trapped under various covers. After I broke the last bolt I just gave up. I took all the covers off to remove any loose hay and will change the shear bolts at home. I am definitely going to need to blow out the entire baler with the leaf blower tomorrow before I get started. I will need to replace the shear bolts also. My plan is to get up and outside by daylight and be baling by 0630.

Annmarie called me, while I had baler covers off, to tell me that we had a bee swarm in the raspberries. After her arm got swollen to twice its size last week I didn’t really want her fighting a swarming hive. I got done as fast as possible and was home in under 30 minutes but the swarm had taken off! We did not really need a fourth hive, I do have a spot for it out in the barn lot but again we don’t need it.

We are still fine tuning the garden water. When we add in more troughs it takes a while to figure out what types of sprayers are needed. I will need to get the front hillside hoses laid out and the lavender garden hooked up to auto timers also. We have multiple auto waterers all over the yard for every little thing. Once they are all set up it makes the rest of the summer go smoothly.

I had to call the microhay equipment dealer today and order a new hydraulic hose for our Abbriata M50 round baler. When I called the company stated that they no longer sell them. There is a cheap Chinese knock off that drops the price point so low that no one will buy an Abbriata. He said they would have to sell them for over $16k now, but they still carry all the parts for them. They had all the parts I needed on hand. I had to order some new netting also there were only two new rolls left in the shed and I had to take an extra today. I managed to not change out the roll but I will have to put the new one on tomorrow.

Our sheep are now allowed onto the back hillside in a specific spot behind our house. They love to go up there just before noon and do a little grazing then fall asleep on the rocky warm hillside.

Who needs a new tractor?

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Well I want a new tractor but what I really need it for is to lift big bales full height. So it needs to bigger than the two I currently own. I went to the dealer and for that lift capability I need to get something with over 50 HP. Which is going to run somewhere in the $50k range without a cab. I cannot spend that much for a little convenience. I need the smaller tractors to run my hay equipment and I need the little John Deere as it is the only tractor small enough to get inside the barn. It takes almost 30 hours to dig the barn out with the tractor and move all of the poop. That is not a job I want to do by hand anymore. It would take me a month or better of back breaking labor. As it is I have to dig by hand for about 8 of those 30 hours. So that dream was crushed by reality, I need to win the lottery.

I got the John Deere loaded on the trailer so it could be dropped off at the shop. They told me that if I delivered it they could look at it same day. It was leaking so much hydraulic fluid that I had to toss a five gallon bucket and spout into the back of the pickup so I would be able to fill the fluid level up, allowing me to drive it off the trailer. It was pouring out by the time I got it off the trailer. They said they would call with an estimate. They called a few hours later, $9K to fix it! The hydrostatic casing had a hole worn in it and the casing and the pump need to be changed, $6k in parts, $3k in labor. I had a minor meltdown as the front left knuckle will need to be rebuilt in a couple of years also and it was $3500 for the left, it will be more this next time. I thought that was half a tractor.

Again, I go back to the Kubota tractor dealer and say I want another new tractor but I need something smaller than what I currently own. It turns out they had just gotten a subcompact in the day before and it was still crated up. So we looked at it in the crate and I said it had to have rear PTO hydraulic connections. I need them for my baler and my smaller sickle bar mower. I tossed in a new 5’ brush hog and 5’ land plane for my bigger tractor. I am going to have to name them now. The Mistress (my very first tractor, John Deere 2520) will have to be laid to rest. The Gingerman said he would take it and eventually do the work himself. He is super busy for the foreseeable future and will need to work it in. The repair price was not half of a new tractor. It was more like 30% of a new tractor! A new tractor was $28k, the two pieces were only another $4k.

They are now going to assemble my new ride but the hydraulic takeoffs have to be ordered in and then installed. So it may be a couple more weeks before I actually get to use it.

I discovered another repair project. The old lamb shed wall is pushing off its bottom supports. I will need to add a couple of new supports and then drill and concrete in a couple of pieces of steel pipe to prevent the wall from pushing out when we stack hay in the building. This is not a surprise but it will need to be fixed before the wind tears the building down.

I had another neighbor tell me that they have a wild honeybee hive that they want removed. I had them send me pictures and yes they are honeybees and yes it is going to be messy. You can see the honey coming out between the boards near the bottom of the wall. Luckily, they are going to tear the building down so we have permission to just tear into the building. That is on the list for the upcoming weekend. The Gingerman and I are going to attempt to find the queen.

Officially haying

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Well hay season has officially started. I took the arena groomer off of the Kubota and had the Gingerman help me get the sickle bar attached. It is a five minute job with two people, alone it takes me 20-30 minutes using a pry bar to get it in place. I was able to use the five foot blade instead of the little four foot one I usually use on the John Deere. I went over to the neighbor’s and started to cut grass hay. I spent a few hours cutting his upper and lower field. I had spotted a white peacock hen in his chicken coop the evening before so when he came out to talk I asked him where he got it. Turns out it roams around a few miles and the neighbors see it occasionally. It had snuck in the back door of his chicken coop and was having a free easy meal. It had already flown the coop! I managed to not shear a single upright pipe on the bottom pasture. He does have some poison oak growing in one corner so I am going to have to brush that out of the way and come back with some herbicide and clear the fence line. I don’t want that gaining any more pasture ground.

When I came back I noticed that there was a large hydraulic streak running down the driveway. That large rock I hit with the John Deere caused a hydraulic leak on the middle bottom side of the tractor. It is going to have to go in for repair. I am not qualified to do that type of work. My mechanic skills are basic to middling. So I took the Kubota up to field one to cut down some of the cheat grass. I want to hay the field but not the cheat grass. My plan was to cut the cheat grass out of field one and two then when I rake the cut hay I can come out and rake all of the cheatgrass into a single row so I can burn it or bury it into one pile. This helps remove the seeds from the field. I was going along great until I hooked the end onto the gate and broke a tooth. The tooth got jammed in place and bar froze. This was on Saturday.

So I came back to the house and put a panel on the side gate near the top. The Gingerman had finally spotted our Border Collie, Chance, climbing the gate and going through the top of the gate. We knew she was getting out but had not yet caught her doing it. We had isolated it to that side and that section of fencing but the exact location was still unclear. Since adding the panel she has not gotten out once.

On Sunday I tore apart the sickle bar, fixed the tooth. It was of course installed upside down the first time. I had to grind down the rivets and then beat them out, turn it over and do it again. I headed out and started mowing more cheat grass until the entire end of the sickle bar fell off. The bolt I had welded on last year broke and I lost a few pieces in the grass. I will need to order some replacement parts but the mower is out of commission until they come. Luckily, I had all of the actual hay cut and I will be able to bale it. I can wait 2-3 weeks before I cut any more fields.

The race is on

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I am definitely not ready for haying, yet I now have to pivot and do it anyway. The neighbor who lets me hay their property called on Thursday and said it’s ready. I told the wife it is too early, by almost 3-4 weeks. I went over yesterday and yep, I have to come cut and bale hay. The grass is starting to go to head and needs to be cut! This is the earliest I have ever had to hay. That means I need to get the sickle bar mower on the tractor.

Normally, I put the sickle bar on the Kubota and rake and bale with the John Deere. Of course, on Thursday evening I had driven to the far end of the property and while I was there I mowed a path into the weeds on the backside of the creek. The only problem with this is I hit a huge rock! It broke off one of the brush hog blades about eight inches from the tip. I drove back home in the dark and Friday morning when I was walking over to the machine shed I noticed a line of hydraulic fluid going down the driveway. I may have a leak big enough to take the John Deere out of commission until it is fixed. I will have to look at it and see if I can find the leak.

Our flower bulbs need some water so I spent an hour and installed a new sprayer system for the flower bed. I turned it on and got a good soak. We have some bulbs that have not emerged yet and I think it is due to a lack of water. Annmarie wants me to get the big pots with chives moved back out to the front door porch entrance. I will need to get the dolly to make it reasonable, those are some big pots.

When we were out in the garden yesterday we picked four pieces of asparagus! We had missed out on about six pieces that were too big and already heading out. If I remember right we need to cut those off till later in the season so they produce more spears. We did not do that, I will need to go back out and do that.

I tried to get the pickup bed emptied. I had soil bags back there for the new asparagus planter. I was able to carry and empty about half of them before I just made a pile next to the truck. I ran out of time due to installing the water first. We needed the pickup to go pick up a new bee nuc so we would have two hives! They only do direct hive sales once a year and they don’t start loading until 1930. We got our bees around 2000 so most of ours were inside the hive. When we got home I moved the frames from their starter box into one of our boxes. I decided to “free ball” it and not wear any protective gear. Annmarie came out to hold the cell phone flashlight. I was down to the last two frames and got buzzed. I panicked and stepped back, Annmarie got stung on the arm! I settled down and finished the frame transfer and then we leaned the starter box lid next to our frame box. Our hope was the bees would just climb up into the hive. We decided to put the second box into the lavender so that the bees would not get mixed up with our others.

Spring is here, for sure

Steve Hardin2 Comments

Last weekend I was able to get some much needed spring work done. Annmarie’s number one project is getting the irrigation pump up and going. Honestly, we need it but I am going to have to crawl down into the mud and dig out an entire section of filled in mud and weeds and it is not making me excited.

Instead, I broke out the brush hog and proceeded to mow the entire area around the houses, barn, machine shed and grain bins. I also mowed the fence lines alongside the wheat field and the corner property. I have to mow the fence lines to keep them cleaned up. I do want to get down to four corners and get that entire corner fenced in but it keeps getting moved down the priority list. Instead I mowed it so maybe I can get to it later in the summer. I was able to mow around the CRP edge and alongside the paved road to knock down the weeds. I will need to spray those areas in 2-3 weeks with a broadleaf spray, probably mix some 24D and Milestone to knock down anything trying to creep in from the road and fence lines. I did not see any bunny rabbits, in the fall they were all over the place on the edge of the CRP.

The county got a grant to eliminate a specific type of invasive weed that has been emerging in our area. We are going to participate in the grant. Invasive weeds are the worst! It took me about two days to finish all of the mowing and I only had to crawl under the hog once to cut out some fencing I had sucked into the mower. Okay, twice I had to crawl under it but I only had to cut the fence out once. I did not see a single coyote the whole time I was mowing. I also have started to pick up the big rocks I hit with the mower and just toss them in the tractor bucket. I need rocks down at the house so I might as well collect them with purpose. Next time I won’t have to worry about a big rock being in the way.

Our cows should have had calves by now. I obviously did not count accurately. They still don’t have any calves. The price of cattle at auctions are crazy. They are up to $5-6/lb for small 300-500# feeder steers. The price of beef next year in the grocery store is going to be crazy. We charged $4/# hanging weight this spring for beef. We are obviously going to have to raise the price of our grass fed 100% natural beef.

Before I could dig out the irrigation inlet area I wanted to decrease the amount of water flowing though the ditch. So I went into the orchard area and dropped a 50 gallon drum lid over the culvert intake. This backed it up a little but it just went around the lid. I ended up having to dump eight loads of mud in front of the inlet to slow down and displace the majority of water out into the orchard. The cows were unsure what I was doing but did not seem to mind the water flowing through the orchard.

On Sunday I had no more excuses to not dig out the irrigation ditch. I really wanted an excuse or two but the delay returns were not worth the cost. I really thought there was a concrete floor between the concrete sides. I am unsure why I thought it but I did. The mud and weeds had filled up the entire opening and channel except for a one foot wide shallow track where the water was actually moving. I started digging and tossing it over onto the low side of the concrete. It was nasty dirty and the mud kept splatting when it landed and if it did not splat then I had to beat it off the shovel by banging it on the concrete. I was covered in mud in no time. As I cleared the area out I decided to find the concrete bottom and started to just dig downwards. There is no concrete bottom. But I did dig it deep enough that the water started running over my knee high waterproof muck boots. I just gave up on being clean and just kept digging the mud out. I dug it down till the water went over my boots then quit going down. It is all cleared out now. What I really need to do is create a large wire gate that can be pulled down and a backhoe brought in to clean out the ditch and pond area. I am going to try this as is and then decide later if we need to bring in a backhoe. Now I have to start ordering parts for the pump inlet and get the manifold built. I also need to put some all thread through the support beams. Plus, I need to create a pump bracket so the well pump can sit up on its nose. Lots of stuff to do before it is ready!

Mr Golfpro is coming out every week and keeping up with the yard chores. This is helping out immensely. Our flowers are starting to really bloom.