farm life

Irrigation planning

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Annmarie wanted me to make some progress on the field water set up. I always get busy in the spring with hay and seem to run out of time. I purchased a 4×6 pressure treated board a few months ago but never used it. My DeWalt electric grease gun came in on Friday and I loaded it with grease. I still needed fuel then I could “work” with my new mini excavator. It is still sitting on the trailer. Instead I was good and went to work on the irrigation. The first thing that needed done was to stabilize the two supports that go across the concrete weir. I had made these years ago and just screwed them together but over the years they have started to spread apart. They are not pressure treated but hanging out over the concrete they just don’t get wet enough to rot. So I took some 12” all-thread pieces and drilled three holes in each one and installed a bolt the entire width and cranked that down as tight as it would go. Once I had those placed over the concrete and no dirt touching on each side I started in on the pump support. It only needs to be on three sides so I cut each joint off halfway so I could overlap the boards and bolt them together with carriage bolts. I left the carriage bolts sticking up as I may use them to secure the wiring or hang the water pipe from in the spring. I am not sure yet if they will be useful but they are not hurting anything by sticking up now.

I did not have any pressure treated boards to make the upright and roof so I went to Tum-a-Lum and bought the only farmer’s pack of bent, twisted and broken pressure treated 2×8”x12’. I was able to buy 11 boards for $100. Anyone who has bought boards will know that is a great price. I was able to just physically tear one board in half and use it for the roof support. I had some old metal roofing and used that on the tall side and on the roof. This should keep the pump fairly dry at all times. I may install sides if necessary in the spring. The bush needs a trim as it has 1” thorns on it and they are very sharp! The entire thing cost us $130 to install and build. I will use those leftover boards for something else. I did pick up fuel for the mini-excavator!

I think I need to install a 6’ gate down by the apple tree and then make about 40’ of fence movable so that I can get the mini-excavator to both sides of the water retention pond for irrigation. I was looking at the fence and I don’t think it will be that hard. I need to repair my weight box for the tractor so that I can move the big bales. It needs some welding and steel reinforcement. That is on my list along with haying and mini-excavator for my vacation coming up. I am gonna live it up!

Predators 30/ Farm 3

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It’s been a long week, I have been keeping the Ring camera open at night while we are watching TV so I can spot the predators killing our chickens, cats and eating our eggs. I had a few issues with this as always. I don’t particularly want to get sprayed by a skunk and our back door is right next to the cat feeding area so if I barge out there guns-a-blazing I am gonna get a face full of spray. This makes it imperative that I actually identify my victim prior to opening the door so I know what to expect. I spotted a raccoon right after it got dark on Tuesday night. I crept out to the back porch and silently as possible racked the action on my pistol to not scare the raccoon away. It really had nothing to fear. I dry fired the pistol as I had not cycled the hammer by gently racking the pistol. I cycled it again quickly but the raccoon was no fool and was beating feet as fast as possible and I never got off a good shot again. It was right there! I dropped the magazine and cleared the chamber when I went back inside the house.

Thirty minutes later I spot a smaller cat eating. As I keep looking at it the cat has a funny shape and color. Turns out it was a huge possum! I do the sneak approach and same thing happens. Luckily, they are a lot slower than a raccoon and I was able to dispatch it. It was headed to the berry patch. Thirty minutes later another huge possum shows up and this one tries to get under the old house. Again, damn pistol dry fired first round. At this point I realize I may need to actually clean the pistol. Honestly, I am unsure of the last time I did it.

But I decided that readiness was going to out trump safety and just kept one in the chamber and turned the safety on. It is hidden so it is not easily accessible. An hour later the raccoon came back and I was able to get off two good shots then had to chase it up the dry creek bed before finally putting it down. I had just counted my chickens before it got dark. The predators have killed over a dozen and they killed our two matching pairs of silkie chickens! Both the grey ones and the brown ones, rooster and hen. Those were the coolest of the new chickens. I think I have around 24 chickens now. This is a stupid problem! We know there is at least one skunk and two more raccoons around the place but I have not seen them on the Ring camera this week. So I will keep watching every night. The four new adult fixed cats we got are still hanging out around the back porch. I don’t know if they will be a deterrent to the predators or not.

Annmarie has been getting ready for her new loom. She took her old project off the inside loom so that we could send that loom home with Sarah. I am told that the rest of the industrial loom is coming up next week and then we can start working on getting it assembled. We are going to use the runner to cover our safes in the living room or else to cover the old wooden fridge in the hallway. It is made out of wool. She tells me she can see all of the mistakes but I cannot.

I was able to finally pickup carcasses to take them up onto the hillside for disposal this weekend. They do smell quite a bit after a few days but the important part is that I discovered one of our neighbors had upgraded and replaced about 50% of the fence that is along our adjoining property lines! This is way cool as it was one that was on our sooner than later upgrade but that was five years from now.

Sheep moved

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Well it was time to get the sheep moved over to Hermiston for the next two months. They eat down a lot of very green grass and that means that the spring hay cutting is premium and the property gets fertilized by the sheep also. Annmarie helped me sort the sheep into three groups, ewe lambs, ewes & rams and whethers. Our plan was to pull the three rams off the ewes but they kept trying to breed the ewes in the barn so we figured they were not done. This is going to spread out our lambing season but we have to check on the herd twice daily during the winter to lock them up at night and let them out in the morning. We need more lambs! I am hoping these whethers sell for $200/each at auction when we take them in December.

I am a firm believer that prior to a couple paying for marriage counseling they should have to sort sheep. I have narrowed it down to sheep as cows can be dangerous if not done correctly and you can mostly just get mowed over by a sheep. The couple in “animal therapy”are not allowed to quit until the job is done, regardless of how long it takes or how hard it gets. No one is allowed to walk off either, both parties have to stay within speaking range of each other. Annmarie and I did get the sheep sorted and it only took a couple of hours. We decided on three herds. The whethers will go to the small field in Hermiston, the ewes/rams to the large field and the ewe lambs will stay on the farm and go up with the breeding cows.

There are virtually no flowers this late in the season except for our Jerusalem artichokes, they just bloomed this last week. When it gets cold I will need to dig them up. We have started to feed the bees again in earnest. I will need to pull the hive from field 1 this next weekend and get the gutters on the bee enclosure.

I still have not played with the new mini excavator. I ordered a DeWalt grease gun. It was time to get one and then I can grease up the entire machine, check all the bolts and nuts and fill up the gas and give it a whirl. I have vacation in ten days so I will be using it then. I have to cut hay and bale it during my vacation also. My next weekend is for working on the greenhouse. I have had three panels blow out already. I need to watch those videos and see what I can caulk to hold the panels in place. Because the metal clips are not working by themselves.

I was able to get all the sheep moved in two trips on Sunday. I had to get the electric fence working in the small field and get the temporary fence installed in the larger field. We only have 25 ewes and we want to get to 40-45. I would love to take 60 lambs to market every year. I think I need to look at the diesel pickup and check the power and lights to the trailer plug. I don’t think they are working. I will add this to my list.

Catch up

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I lost another chicken this weekend, unfortunately this one was due to chicken IQ limitations. Do not go into the yard where the old dog is located because he has a tendency to off things, one chicken down. I am still unsure how many chickens there actually are out in the coop. I know there are at least five that sleep out in the back bushes and I am sure there are others camped out elsewhere. I have still not managed to get a lid on the chicken coop yet so I cannot lock them all up to count them yet.

I turned off the water to the front hillside, the yard and the lavender patch. We still have water going to the garden as I have beets sprouting and we are still picking green beans. Annmarie put up another 12 pints this weekend. Our trumpet vine is finally starting to fill in around our second living room window. If we get a mild winter it will give it time to get larger and start to create some wood so it can survive a freezing temperature. Mr GolfPro and myself have been cutting it away from the house several times this year in an attempt to get it to grow so we can train it to the location we need. I am hopeful that next year we can just kill everything that grows towards the house instead of trying to redirect it. It is way easier when you can just cut a clearing around the house.

The furniture juggle that occurred caused us to get a chair and old Murphy bed added to the master bedroom. We added another table to the breeze porch. I was given a Mayer lemon tree that is about three feet tall a month ago. It got down to 41F last night so I figured it was time to find a place inside for the tree. I had to rearrange the entire breeze porch. I cleaned it up, trimmed some plants back and found a spot for the lemon tree. I ended up planting another five starts from trimmings. I could have done 20 but I need more planting soil. I am pretty sure I am going to have more than 30 plants for Christmas gifts at work. I may have to expand my offerings. I still need to get a plastic sheet to cover the wooden table before I can use it. Even though I use the plastic trays a little water gets spilt in between them.

I did polish a lot of wood today, I managed to get about half of our wooden doors polished. They all need it. We got all of the baby stuff that our grandson has outgrown bagged and up into the attic. When there is another baby we will pull it all down again and reuse it.

I need to put more drawer magnetic locks in the kitchen but I need to remember where I put all of the extras. I am still not sure what “safe” location I stashed them in. My goal is to find them this week so I can get them installed. This will not make the munchkin happy.

We are feeding our bees again. One hive is looking fantastic and the new one this year only has one box full. They left the second box empty. We will be moving them soon to the sheltered area. I need to get the gutter up on it so that water does not get blown inside the hives.

I still need to cut hay one more time over at the Naked Gardener’s house. I should get around two tons. I am taking some vacation in October to get the hay done and the barn completed.

I have still not managed to find out what killed our kitten. I have gotten up twice in the middle of the night because I thought I heard a chicken death knell and both times it was a false alarm. We did see something moving around on the camera but couldn’t tell what it was and it was gone by the time I got out there. I had considered putting the camera feed up live but I am always running out at night with minimal to no clothes on so I figured I better not do that!

I got all of my marbles into one location. The next step is to sort them and get all of the modern ones into one large container so the grandkids can play with them. About half of those are not really worth anything other than entertainment value which cannot be overlooked.

New toy!

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It’s time to start preparing for getting older. Moving the 200# rocks is not as easy as it used to be so I am now compensating for my infirm condition by buying a mechanical aid. Hence the purchase of a brand new mini excavator! It can only pick up a 500# rock but I figured that was enough. It will also dig the new water line trenches I had planned on installing. I might even try to get a new power line 50A, 240V line installed to the machine shed. It will definitely help with the new rock wall I want to install on the front hillside. I had to drive over to Idaho mid week to pick it up. It rode just fine once we figured out how to lower the boom to the trailer deck so that we could strap the boom in place and stop all movement. The new and improved farm diesel pickup got almost 15 MPG, which is a big improvement over the old pickup which only got 10 MPG.

I have been reading up on common problems with the mini excavators and I need to go through and check all hydraulic connections, all fluid levels, every bolt needs to be tightened and it needs to be greased up. Once all of that is done then I should be ready to make it do some work. That is going to be my next week’s project.

I had to repair a wooden block toy that used to be Sarah’s when she was a baby. The box was coming apart so I ended up removing one side, sanding it down and then gluing it back together. I got a little clamp happy but I truly believe that there can never be enough clamps on a project. We use the box to pick up all the wooden blocks scattered all over the living room, so it is needed. We put together a wooden toy chest last week so when the grandson is gone all of the toys can be easily corralled and controlled.

The Gingerman scored a “Glimakra standard countermarch 10 pedal floor loom” from Facebook marketplace for free. I just know it is big! We had to move the table and chair and clear out a whole corner of Annmarie’s office so the loom can be assembled. The kid’s brought down half of it this weekend. We have some pictures of it when it was assembled so it will be fun to get it together. It is 90 years old! The paperwork came with it. It looks like a few pieces had to be recreated as they broke/wore out. We won’t really know if it is all there until we try and assemble it. We are hoping we at least have one of the two pieces so we can just mirror a missing piece and cut it out ourselves. It will be a long weekend to get it assembled correctly. Annmarie is super excited! It is designed to speed up production and we are starting to get a lot of alpaca fiber so she could make rugs for the house fairly quickly. I am told there may be something else I have to make that will make it easier to put the thread onto the loom. She had a name for it but I forgot what it was.