farm life

A little rain

Steve HardinLeave a comment

The beginning of last week we got a weather alert stating that there was going to be heavy rain in the foothills of the Blue Mountains near us. We need some rain for the wheat and the hay so rain is a good thing this time of year. Well we got rain alright, almost 8/10” of rain in less than 24 hours. The mountains were all covered in snow and then it warmed up fairly quickly. Our back creek is part of Stewart creek. It is an intermittent waterway, it dries up in the summer on the upper part of our property. Down near the school house there is a shallow spring that puts out quite a bit of water and there are a few more springs that come together enough to get the stream running again. The water level can fluctuate pretty dramatically when we get more than half an inch of rain. This definitely counted as a dramatic change. The really nice thing was the water all stayed near the creek, it didn’t flood out anything on our property and it ate into the banks some more causing the stream bed to widen even more than it was.

I even drove up to the far end of the property to see if it was flooding upstream from the house. There was no flooding anywhere on our property. All of the ditch work and bank work was not needed but we knew that it would try to flood again eventually and we have managed to harden the fields well enough now that I am hopeful the water will stay contained even in a bad flood. Our front ditch never even raised in height. Usually, during a flood the water diverts to the front ditch and both beds contain the water so our house does not get flooded.

The water came down pretty dramatically in two days. It is back to normal flow pattern now.

Trying to get rid of cheatgrass

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Last weekend was spent going around in circles! We are trying to get about three acres cleared of cheat grass. The stuff has totally taken over the fields and there is nothing left but cheatgrass and thistles. I tried to plant grass about a decade ago without any success. It got choked out by the cheat grass. Our plan is to keep killing the cheat grass until we cut down on the number of seeds in the soil. I will keep spraying Round-up and plowing the field under until we just don’t get much cheatgrass emerging. We got a really good kill on the grass and I was trying out the new plow that the Gingerman brought over. It is an old rotating or flop plow that allows for the direction to be changed. It took a few hours to get the number of pulls on the rope figured out. It cycles through a transport/lower/lower/flip cycle depending on where you are in the rope pull cycle. Plus, there are a couple of springs that need to be replaced. I had to get off and kick the levers every twenty minutes. I do have the springs on our grocery list so I do not forget them. It took me two days to plow, disc and harrow the three acres. When the equipment is only 2-4 feet wide it can take a while!

Annmarie went out and checked on the bees. They are doing great and finding all different colors of pollen. They are not even bothering to eat any of the sugar water we put out for them. We pick up our second hive in the evening of May 1.

The new town chickens we were given are so stupid, they keep flying into the yard where the dogs are residing. Every day, Annmarie or I chase some chickens out of the yard. The kids came down to stay the weekend and they bring our older Border Collie dog Mouse. Our young Border Collie, Chance, just harasses the chickens all day long. She has not killed any yet. Mouse killed two last weekend. Honestly, we warned the chickens that the yard needed to be a no fly zone for their own safety and they ignored us. The chickens are just too stupid to live.

Juggling Multiple projects already

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It looks like I am just going to have to squeeze in an update whenever I can. Last week I worked on getting the garden area all sprayed with Roundup. I am just waiting to see how much it killed before deciding to hit it with anything else. If you get the broadleaf plants when they are small sometimes the Roundup will kill them even though it is not designed for them. Our driveway and the fence lines are finally starting to turn brown. I have a couple of small spots in the driveway I missed. I will need to do some touch up spraying to get everything. I need to spray a lot more around the gazebo. I have to kill the hillside so I can cover it with rocks. I need to make sure the pad does not shift.

I sprayed the two fields down by the old water pump and it got a great kill. I need to hit it with the plow soon. My plan is to keep killing it all summer to knock down the cheatgrass seed. But to do that I will need to add some water to it this summer so the cheatgrass can keep sprouting.

We have someone coming out now and working on our yard. This is great as it will free me up to work on the farm, Mr Golfpro. He made sure and taped up his fingers the first time to ensure he did not get any blisters, he had a golf game the next day. He is excited to be able to get out and about. I even showed him how to use the tractor to fill in the dog’s new hole to China. It was another impressive feat by the border collie and border terrier.

I spent most of last weekend working on the rock wall. I am trying to spend 2-3 hours during the week after work working on the wall. My goal is to get it finished this month. It is getting easier but I still come inside soaked in sweat after an hour or two on the wall. It makes that mini excavator look better and better. Unfortunately, I will be done soon!

I did spend Easter weekend working on the fence down by the cattle guard. My mother-in-law has been buying quail blocks and trying to drop them over the fence. In an effort to not have to cut her out of the fence I decided to shift the fence and open up the dead area in the corner of the field. This way she can just set the quail block down near the rose bushes. It took me two days of solid work to get the fence corners installed, wooden posts reset and all of the T posts hand pounded into the ground before I could move the fence and then retighten the road side. It has been a long time since I built fence all alone. It takes a lot longer when there is only one of you.

I went in and bought 100 cubic feet of soil for the elevated garden beds. I just need to get it out of the back of the pickup and into the beds! This will take a few hours. I can only get close with the tractor then I will have to hand carry them to get them into the garden. This will have to be this upcoming weekend. I also have to purge and circulate vinegar through our instant hot water tank on Friday. When it gets too much buildup it starts overheating. I will clean it first and if that does not fix it then I will have to tear it apart and clean out the bugs out of the fan but that was just done last year. It made it four years before that was needed so I am sure it just needs descaled.

Getting ready for water

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Despite the fact that we got almost a 1/3” of rain this weekend it is time to start thinking about irrigation. We have a well pump with a conversion to pull surface water ready to go, I just need to get the water storage area ready. Years ago we learned that there is hole in the earthen dam. So I went up there on Sunday and dug down until I hit water. My plan is to fill the entire hole with concrete. The dam doesn’t leak until the water backs up about a foot higher than it is now. I had to find the power cables to the pump first to ensure I did not get popped by 220V of electricity. I also noticed that there is a lot of silt buildup in the throat of this channel. I will need to crawl down there with a shovel and get it all out so it doesn’t get sucked up into the pump and clog our sprinklers.

While I was doing this I heard our Border Terrier, Milo barking. He was supposed to be in the front yard of the house and I was 100 + yards away. He had gotten out through the garden gate, it was open then he found a hole in the orchard fence. I am not sure where the hole is located but he was out and causing chaos. I called him over and he was covered in mud and water. He had been down in the creek and crawling through the mud. I told him to lay down and went back to sticking my head in the hole to get to the bottom. At some point, within a couple of minutes, he was gone again. I heard him raising Cain and had to go over and call him off the blackberry bush. He had something trapped inside and was unable to get to it. He has a serious hate for raccoons and he was pretty agitated but came over wagging his tail. He had blood all over his left ear. The dummy had scratched himself on the bush! He ended up going to Grandma’s house for a spa day.

I decided to spend a few hours focused on the rock wall. It is paying off but now it is getting much harder. I am having to move a lot of dirt and dig down a couple of feet by hand. I wanted to keep the wall straight so I strung up a string line so it would not bow as bad as last time. I do want to redo it a third time! In about two more feet of wall I will have to take down the metal fence and then go pick more rocks off of the hillside. I will have used up all the rocks within reach.

I have decided to take up another hobby. I am going to try and grow some Bonsai trees. I realize they are slow going but I have 20+ years so I am going to give it a go. I have my first one started and will be looking for some more. I have some seeds to start my own trees from scratch. It will be an interesting endeavor.

Spring is here

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I managed to get the first wave of weed spraying completed on Friday. I have done every fence line but the one down by the schoolhouse. Now we wait 7-12 days to see what happens. It is the only real downside to using Roundup, there is no instant gratification when you drive by a few hours later. I was able to get done by 1400 and it didn’t start to rain until after midnight. In a week or two I will need to set the sprayer up to start laying down 2-4-D and Milestone to get ahead of the thistles. We have been battling various types of thistle since we returned. There are four different kinds of thistle present on our property.

Saturday first thing I helped unload concrete from the progeny’s house. My contribution was driving the tractors! I got both tractors and as I dumped one the Gingerman loaded the other one. It was pretty quick to unload six buckets of concrete. I have been using it to stabilize the embankment. After those two horrible floods our bank got seriously eroded. We just built the dirt back over the culvert and now something was needed to keep it in place. So I have been systematically alternating dumping on each side to widen the coverage along the embankment. It doesn’t look the best but it is a lot safer now crossing in that area. It was getting too soft to cross with the pickup. Now I would feel confident that the pickup would not just slide down the embankment. It is deep and steep enough that getting the pickup out uninjured might not be possible.

We are still feeding the cows. They are supposed to have babies in April so as they transition over to green grass I want to keep them full of nutrients. The sheep are going up and eating the grass every day. They put themselves up in the barn every night. If the weather is nice they sit right outside the barn on the small hill. This makes it very easy for us as we don’t have to do anything with them now. I will need to go out and count lambs again eventually before we move them anywhere.

It is just past the middle of March and the trees are starting to bloom, one is an apricot and the other is a peach I think. I was out adding gravel and fresh compost to the blueberry bins. Annmarie tested the sheep compost piles for me this weekend to see if I can use them for filler. Nope, they are smoking hot and filled with a bunch of nitrogen. So much that not a single weed will grow on the piles. I am going to have to get the manure spreader up and running so I can spread it out this year and not pay for fertilizer. Fertilizer is very expensive currently. I did order diesel for the farm but it’s over $5.75/gallon at the pump currently so I have no idea what it will cost. I figured I just better get it done now and when it needs it in August/September again maybe the price will be lower. I have to have the 150 gallon tank filled twice annually. It is only used for the two tractors.

I took a couple of hours on Friday and Saturday to work on the rock wall. I am starting to make progress and want to get it done so we can start planting bulbs on the left side and getting ready to place the new small metal fence on top of the wall. I am finally starting to see a difference. It took a lot of work to get there. My exercise plan is working!