Barn cleanout

Alpaca are sheared!

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I was able to finally catch up with a new helper, The Apprentice. They messaged me this morning and stated they could come out later in the day. This gave me enough time to work on some inside chores and do some laundry. I like to write blog entries on Sunday morning. I made breakfast shit on a shingle as there was extra time. It turned out very nice, I sent a picture to the child as she was not here for breakfast.

Once The Apprentice messaged me I headed out to get ready. The third manure spreader needed to be unloaded so I picked it off of the trailer with the tractor and put it next to the other two. We flipped gates and got everything ready to push the alpaca up toward the barn. We walked down and I fed apple slices to the three Musketeers and Snoop on the way to the barn and The Apprentice walked behind them encouraging them to follow. Once we got them into the barn lot we snagged one and let the games begin. They are so painful to shear. I had to use two blades for each alpaca. I really needed three blades. I think if we had done them earlier in the year there would not have been as much grit, dirt and rocks at the base of the hair. This would have made the blades last longer.

At one point on the last alpaca as I am trying to milk the second to last blade I stopped cutting any hair. Yet I still managed to slice out a divot of skin from my left thumb tip about 3/32” deep. It bled a lot. The Apprentice told me to just pore some of the powder dust for the alpaca toes onto my wound. It’s some kind of styptic powder designed to stop the bleed. I did it and it burns! The blood kept breaking through so I had to go find a first aid kit, a nonstick cotton pad and a roll of tape to get the bleeding stopped. I then forced my left hand into a leather glove to hold it all together. This worked very well for controlling the bleeding. I managed to barely get the last alpaca sheared. I had to use an old blade to get the final hair cut off.

We then went out to check on the red plums in the orchard, they were overripe and had fallen off the tree. I tossed them over the fence to the sheep. The Italian plums are just starting to turn colors so I give them 1-3 weeks still. The nectarines were all red and fairly big but still very hard. I think they need another 1-2 weeks. We tossed apples over the fence to the sheep and the Asian Pear has another 1-2 weeks. I will need to pay better attention to the orchard for the next 3 weeks. We swung by the garden and picked 3 pints of blackberries. Annmarie will now have fresh fruit for breakfast.

We then went out to the barn to discuss how to dig it out with the tractor. I had forgotten how hard it is to drive the little tractor in and out of the barn. After walking The Apprentice through the process I decided that they could dig out the edges of the barn and hand dig the momma baby area. The tractor can be used to move the debris once it is tossed outside the barn. They will be out in the morning to give it a whack. We will see.

When I came inside and took the bandage off of my injured finger it was black from the weird styptic powder. After a shower the edges of the wound are black. I think I chemically cauterized the wounds with the styptic powder. It never started bleeding again even after I held it under the shower for 10 minutes. Now I will have to wear a weird bandaid until it heals.

Barn dig out happening

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I happened to have Tuesday off this week so I spent it fencing! I need to dig some fence post holes but the dead of summer is the wrong time for this to happen. I pulled on the broken railroad tie and fenced over the gate opening. I drove in T posts on either side of the railroad tie and wired it to them. Then I was able to drive in three T posts over the opening. I stretched out fence and tightened it all down. I am now about half way down the fence alongside the wheat field. I am going to continue the fence repair along the road next. This means I will only need to install one new section of fence along the creek side. I need the animals to get into field #1 to eat, half the field is still green due to subterranean water. I need about three days with a helper to get this done. Alone takes about 125% more time. Some things just take longer alone.

Thursday, Mr Flow came out for a couple of hours and dug out the chicken coop. I went and bought more wood pellets to put in there. I use the deep litter method and only dig it out once a year. The wood pellets work great to absorb moisture and keep the smell down. I get the cheapest kind they have, made here in Reith.

The plan on Friday was for him to come out and help me shear the last three alpaca. Nope, he got sick and called off around starting time. I cannot shear the alpaca alone, it takes at least two people and when they are not cooperating that is a hard two. I decided that I might as well start in on digging out the barn as it needed to be done also. It took a couple of hours to tear apart all of the panels and drag them outside. I have to leave one section as it is permanently attached to the wall. The sheep kept jumping over two gates so I created permanent panels to stop that and they cannot be removed.

I managed to get the manure forks installed on the John Deere tractor bucket and started digging out the barn. The tractor is small enough to get in and out of the barn. After two days of digging it out I am about 60% completed and I have only been at it about 7 hours so far. Yesterday, the tractor overtemp light came on. I ended up having to blow down the entire tractor, clean out the radiator and I even took out the air filter and cleaned it out. The tractor has two air filters, one inside the other and the inner was clean. Once I had it all cleaned out and filled with fuel I was able to go right back to digging out the barn. I have it dug out far enough I have to use the pitchfork and shovel out the edges and near the feeders. I just toss it into the middle and scoop it up with the tractor. For some reason I did not use a hat, just a do rag on my head and by that evening I had a lot of sun on my face! The horse has been bugging me while I am doing this so I took the time to give her a total brush down and brushed out her mane and tail. She just stands there and lets me do it.

Annmarie sent me a link from someone who wants to work before going to college. So far, in two days I have not been able to connect or get a commitment. I am hopeful I can as I would like them to help me with the alpaca. I am hopeful they will reach out on Sunday. She also sent me some information on old equipment for sale, yard ornament type. The exact same manure spreader that I already have two of was for sale! I called and got the third one! I will now have enough parts to get one going for sure. I had to back the trailer up to it, toss down the ramps and come a long it into the back of the trailer. It took about 30 minutes to get it onto the trailer. I will pick it off with the tractor forks. It will be a lot easier that way! She had an old 10’ hay rake but honestly it makes the piles too big for my baler and I am looking at putting less money into the farm not more.

One of the staff at the hospital had asked if her son’s could come out and shoot at the coyotes. I totally agreed to that. They have been out several times in the last week without coyote success. They are working on the pigeon problem. We had none this spring and now have about ten. They multiply rapidly if not kept in check. We are starting to have problems with ring neck doves again also. They are pushing out the native doves. One of the boys, now called Mr Hornet Tamer, has been walking all over the property scouting coyotes. He has found their crossing points and two old dens so far. Unfortunately for him, he also found the hornets living in one of the gates. The gates are metal tubes and the hornets love building nests in them. I usually pay attention and just open the gate quickly. He got popped several times and then called his mom to tell her he was going to the ER. She made him drive back out to me while I was building fence. Nah, he just needed some Benadryl. He slept most of the next day I am told. He did come out later in the week!

Smattering of oddities

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There are times when a week of little things turns out to be an amazing week of accomplishments. This is not normal but it is fulfilling mostly due to its novelty. This week was such a thing. My air plant is blooming which is a first for me! I usually have a hard time keeping them alive but this year I have managed to keep six kicking and one doing well.

On Monday, the plumber came out to look at our instant hot water propane tank. We have been getting an error code for months now that will turn off the propane so there is no hot water. We figured out that stopping the demand or limiting it minimized your chance of losing hot water. Eventually, you just needed to shower faster so the hot water did not disappear. It was at a point where it needed to be corrected. I had dug some carbon out of the exhaust but could not figure out how to get inside of the heater. The plumber tore it apart and discovered that the squirrel fan that blows the air was full of dead flies. Not only was the fan full of dead flies, there was a paste of dead flies inside the fan housing and on the sensor unit. All of that was cleaned and reassembled and the hot water heater has been amazing ever since! This is a way cheaper fix than replacing the instant tank.

Tuesday, Sarah called in the late afternoon to say that one of the sheep had been attacked and something was hanging out. I came home and walked out to the ram pasture. Yep, one of the lambs, 5 month old, had crawled through some metal and cut open its stomach. It unfortunately had knicked the bowel also so I had to put it down. Not a great outcome but it is no longer suffering. I took it up to the boneyard that day. It’s too hot to leave anything dead near the house.

Thursday, I started working on converting the 20V DeWalt charger into a 12V power supply base. I gutted the charger and then had to cut holes in the plastic for the 12V regulator to be visible. Cutting holes in plastic with the a Dremel tool resulted in a lot of melting cuts. My only current problem is the screws are not designed to go through two layers of plastic. As dusty as the barn is I need the top clear piece installed. I will have to go to the hardware store and see if I can find longer bolts. The only thing left is to remove the solder from the battery terminals so I can solder on new ones to convert the battery to a power supply. I just need to finish that last piece and then I can mount it in the barn and start wiring the barn for 12V LED light strings. I am going to have five strings and they will be controlled from a switch bank next to the battery. I also picked up three Banty hens from a neighbor who died recently. We agreed to take care of them.

Friday, Annmarie called about a new pellet grill she had found for 50% off. Most people have already purchased their summer grill and ours had just died last week. So we got it strapped down into the back of the pickup and Annmarie told me to just use the tractor and a pallet to move it around.

Saturday, I cleaned off the back porch and pulled out the dead grill. Once I had a spot cleaned I got the tractor and pallet level with the tailgate and rolled the grill onto the pallet, strapped it down and brought it around to the side yard. I was able to roll it right up to the back porch. There was some finagling to get it up the three stairs by myself but I got it done without dumping the grill over on its side. I then had to start it up and do a 30 minute burn to clean it all out. I tossed the old grill in the trash. We had a 1.5 yard dumpster delivered this week and I filled it up from the net wrap in the barn. I have the big barn cleaned out and have started in on emptying the lamb shed but I ran out of room. I was also able to find the skirting table that had gotten stashed out in the old chicken coop. I had been looking for the thing all week and that was literally the only place left to look.

Sunday, I set up two leg traps in my mother-in-law’s front yard for raccoons. She has several coming up to the front porch now to eat cat food. So we will see how the traps perform. I cannot have them come up to the house and start snacking on our chickens. I set up the skirting table in the yard so that Annmarie can wash alpaca fiber and lay it out to dry. I also cleaned the main windows downstairs inside and out. I like looking out them. It’s really too hot to be outside for any length of time. So I went upstairs and glued on all the magnets for our fabric frames to cover up the storage closet. We should be able to start working on those this week.

All in all it was a lot of things that got marked off the to do list and I am happy.

Barn clean out 100% done

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The barn clean out is finally complete, I managed to get it all done yesterday. This is a process that I have been at for a few weeks. The momma/baby area was and is the hardest part to do as it must be done all by hand. I had a thought about ripping out the wooden dividers and gates and taking the large grain bin out which would allow me to clean up that area with a tractor but it has some much added expense. We would need to get about ten more aluminum panels to pen up and divide the momma/babies. Those panels are not nearly as tall but they are always lifted to stay on top of the current depth of matter on the barn floor. The permanent walls have to be pretty high to accommodate the detritus. I will again lament the availability of a teenager to work the summer doing yard work, pulling weeds, digging out the ditch and digging out the barn. I really hope I can find one for next year that likes to do hard manual labor 2-3 days a week all summer long. We are going to let the barn sit empty for another 2-3 weeks then we will toss down bales for the sheep to tear open and spread around on the floor.

We have been talking about getting our septic tank pumped for the last two years. The holdup is on getting the truck into our front yard. The plan was for me to rebuild the bridge and then they could just drive over it. Well in the last two years I have not managed to find the time to do that. But we were starting to get nervous as the tank had not been pumped out in 15 years. The price of materials is very high now and the thought of having to try and replace a drainage field is frightening. So I had two dump truck loads of gravel brought out to the farm and put in the barn lot, a load of 3” and a load of 1.5”. I cleaned up the spring crossing as it is running over basalt outcropping. I had wood and big rocks to get out of the way. I used some of the big rocks to extend the rock wall behind the barn. I placed them all and then covered them with gravel. I then took a small tamping stick and moved the gravel all around to fill in all of the cracks amongst the rocks. The sheep like to play on the rock wall and we don’t want any of them breaking an ankle. I used some of the bigger rocks as a base in the stream bed and then tossed down the 3” rock. I think I could have gotten all of the water to go through the gravel, but it is 3” minus and there were too many smaller rocks. I did manage to get about 80% of the water to flow through the gravel. I spent a few hours getting the crossing all ready for a heavy truck. I called the septic tank company after the Round Up was over. Nothing happens during Round Up and I was super busy at work and did not have the time to spare either, nothing happens during Round Up. I had left large piles of material dug out from the barn on either end of the barn to be cleaned out later. It took me almost a day to clean up the piles of straw, manure and to drag the entire barn lot clean of horse poop. It’s time to start getting things ready for winter.

We need to sort the sheep one more time this summer. We need to count the number we have for butchering. I thought we had the right amount sorted. Annmarie thinks I may have shorted us in the last sorting. We have been hearing the coyotes moving nearer to our house at night. This is usually the reason we are short animals.

Annmarie and Donna are still working on taming down the alpaca. They are getting pretty sure of themselves and don’t mind coming and having a look to see if you will let them into the yard and allow them to eat the green grass.

Barn clean out almost done

Steve Hardin2 Comments

We have decided that it is imperative we get our septic tank pumped. It has been 15 years and it is way past due. Unfortunately, I was not able to get the bridge built this year. I have run out of time and money this year and it will have to be put off for another time. The real problem is the water has worked its way under every single culvert we have across the front spring. The flooding just washes right under them. So we decided to repair the old crossing and improve on it. They used to drive through the spring in the barn lot. It sits on bedrock so the vehicle doesn’t sink when you drive through but the approach was pretty steep and all dirt so with just a little water on it it would become impassable. We ordered up ten yards of 3” gravel and ten yards of 1.5” gravel and had it dumped in the barn lot on Friday. So I spent five hours on Friday cleaning up the area, moving out six loads of driftwood from the flooding and moving large rocks out of the way. I used the biggest rocks to extend the rock wall I am creating behind the barn. I was able to extend the wall another eight feet. I only have about thirty feet left to build. I used the smaller 6-8” rocks in the bed of the waterway then buried them with 3” rock. The rock was not all solid 3”, it had a lot of smaller rock in with it. I think if I had all 3” rock I could have gotten all of the water to run through the rock and none over the top. Now mind you by the time I got the 1.5” rock spread out over the 3” and up both sides of the approaches there is only a little bit of water flowing over the top, most of it is going through the rock bed. We are now ready for the septic pumping truck to drive through the spring. Unfortunately, this is a temporary fix if we have another flood it will wash out the gravel. As soon as I finish digging out the barn, picking up and unloading all of the cow alfalfa I will be going to the far end of the property and working on a flood break right next to the road. I need to stop the flooding from coming down the middle of every upper field. After that I have to start prepping fields for planting. I may have to prep for planting before I do the digging for flooding. Actually, I will have to do the planting first. I did not dig out the barn like I had planned, any excuse to put off digging is always welcome.

I had no more excuses and the barn needs to be dug out. So today I finished digging out the main part of the barn, closed the bottom half of the doors to allow for the wind and heat to pass through the barn easily, allowing the wooden floor to dry out. I have to shut the doors or the horse goes in there, hangs out and poops everywhere. I had to shovel some extra horse poop today as I had not been shutting the doors. The main section of the barn is completed and I have about 60% of the momma/baby area all dug out. I have about 3-4 hours of hand digging left. If I was smart I would rip out the entire momma/baby area and buy another $2k worth of aluminum panels. This would let me clean up almost the entire barn with the tractor and we could make pens on top of the flooring and continue to lift the panels as the material on the floor continued to pile up. It’s more money and currently we are planning a trip overseas, a bridge in the barn lot, finish the office in the old house and remodel the downstairs bathroom so we have plenty of other items to spend our money on.

The little white alpaca is going to live, I think. The wound looks a ton better than it did when we started. It is about 50% healed at this point and I was able to find some 4” Medipore tape that will stick to the hair on the alpaca! So now I can keep a dressing on the wound and not have to dig dried dirt and mud out of the wound every evening. I only found three maggots yesterday. I am having to cut away the dead tissue with a razor knife. The edges got hard and scabby and the wound didn’t want to heal so I have been trimming those off and the edges are now starting to heal. The alpaca does not particularly like this process. We tie it to the corral and use the hose to get it all clean. It is much easier to do with two people. I had to do it one night alone and it was harder. Annmarie will be gone several days this week so I will be doing it alone. I am hopeful that the wound will be healed in a week.

Annmarie spotted a small calf down with our main herd by the schoolhouse four days ago. We looked again yesterday and it looks like one of our cows had twins! They were both running around and playing. So now we will need to run the cows back up to the barn and sorting chute and tag and band the calves. We want to swap the main herd to the other end of the farm as there is more food above the house than below.