farm life

Hay equipment is here!

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Well, the much needed hay equipment is here. It arrived on Friday. I had Tex come out and start cleaning up fencing scraps and wood scraps. We have them strung all over the farm from doing all the fencing, since a scrap guy is coming I want to try and get all of it cleaned up, sent away or burnt. The new burn pile is already starting to grow. They tried to deliver the equipment on Wednesday but I was not available for a 4 hour window and told the clerk on the phone that they came at the end of the four hour window last time and if they would do it this time I could do Wednesday. She said no, I had to be there the entire four hours. We pushed out the delivery day to Friday as I knew Tex or myself would be available. I had to go into work that morning and was hoping to be done by 1100. They called me at 1040 to say that they were ready to deliver and in Pilot Rock! I called Tex and went home ASAP. There was three pieces of equipment delivered, the mower, the power rake and the baler.

There were some issues, the company over sold the mower I wanted so I have a loaner mower, it’s a little smaller and does not condition the grass. It’s cheaper should I decide to keep it. The round baler is smaller and only bales about 90 bales an hour vs 120 on the one we want. The one we want still has to come over on a container by ship from Italy. All of this stuff is made in Italy. We had to keep all the shipping material so that the baler and mower can be shipped back to the company when they send us our mower and baler.

I had visions of just backing up to the equipment with our quick hitch system and hooking up to everything and just putting it in the machine shed. This did not happen, as not a single piece was capable of using the quick connect. I kept trying, finally Tex told me I had to take the quick connect off the tractor and hook directly to the three point hitch.

You can see that it almost wants to do it, it just needs a couple more inches. I took pictures and sent them to the company asking for a fix. What good is a quick connect when you cannot use it? Prior to this round of equipment I had four pieces for the tractor and three of them can use the quick connect. This makes switching out a couple of minutes and that includes parking it in the correct storage spot. Now that we have four more pieces of equipment the quick connect can only work on 3/8 pieces. This is not acceptable. I ordered 8 adjustable pins that I can bolt on myself. They are about 2 inches longer so I will gain 4 inches total. Looking at the pictures I think that four inches is going to be plenty. I also ordered a box of various locking pins to hold the equipment on. The cleaned out machine shed is amazing!! There is still quit a bit of dust but I am hoping that when I get the plywood up on the hay side I can start to contain the dust. I may drag a hose out and wet down the gravel, maybe even spray down the entire inside of the machine shed to give it that once a centennial cleaning.

The old floor scale that Annmarie’s dad got from PGG has all the parts, I really want to install it and put all the pieces together. I will need a level poured concrete pad about 4×6 feet first. Next year I may do it. It shouldn’t be too bad, I can use sacrete and I have the mixer. I can just use a piece of cow panel as the rebar.

Zeke got out of the yard twice this week so Tex and I removed all the old scrap wood and fencing that was leaning up in the corner of the yard. So now there is no ramp for him to use as a launching platform over the fence. I also went and dug down the piles of dirt I had placed near the side fence.. He had a 18 inch launching platform to go over the fence. Since doing that on Friday, he has not been able to get out of the yard a single time. Who knows if it is a lack of opportunity or just an unwillingness to leave. Time will tell.

I need a break

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Annmarie spotted another random newborn lamb yesterday evening. This morning Tex and I went out into the ram pasture and Tex snagged the newborn. I could of done it but it ran to his side of the field! We took it to the barn so I could tag and band it. I even remembered to enter it into the Airtable spreadsheet so we could track it.

Afterwards we went to install the culvert in the orchard. We had to dig out the bottom of the channel by hand and had to put it in a couple of times to fit test it prior to back filling it in. I was able to use the old dirt and then drag down the edges. We even rocked in the inlet side of the culvert. I can now get the tractor over to the other side of the ditch.

We were able to move the pipe trailer out of the field and snagged all the loose pipe laying about. We moved the pipe trailer out of the fields over near the wheat field then proceeded to clean up the scrap metal piles. We tossed the metal over the fence so the scrap metal guy can pick it up on his next visit.

I had to go to town to get more diesel for the tractor. We were running on fumes. I had Tex go use the chainsaw on the downed trees at the spring head. I also wanted him to trim the tree touching the old chicken coop. After lunch, we took the now filled tractor over to drag out the downed trees. Between the chain saw and the tractor we got all the dead massive limbs piled up into a large burn pile. Hopefully, next week we can light it on fire. Annmarie ran the horses in the round pen yesterday but I had put it on the soft dirt. The horses tore it up something fierce. So I will need to move it next week. We have plenty of spots for it.

After she got back from church we went out to work on the front hillside and started to set up the water system so we can start growing clover. We were able to reuse some of the aluminum uprights from the main sprinkler system, along with the valves and sprinkler heads. We keep trying to reuse as much stuff as we can. I also got a large piece of Elm for the anvil. I will need to make some custom holders for it. My plan is to get it attached and then use it whenever I need to beat something into submission. I realized that the only thing I don’t really have yet is a portable grinder. So after I get that I will dress up the anvil.

I had Tex fill in gravel in the ditch behind the machine shop. I will need to finish it off this week. The rest of our hay equipment should arrive this week. We will be able to store it in the machine shed now! We did park the tractor in the shop tonight. It is an amazing thing.

I am done! I am so tired that I started losing my grip while working on the sprinkler system. I will be taking it easy next week. I am thinking about working on the bathroom upstairs. More thought than muscle.

Machine Shed Mania

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It was another incredible day with lots of satisfaction. Tex and I started out by burning the wood pile, it was very large and took about 2 hours to completely burn up as it was impregnated with lots of petroleum products of the last 80 years. We then finished cleaning out the right hand side of the shed. I was hoping to salvage a few of the wooden cabinets or shelves that were in the back right corner. Unfortunately, water is leaking from the back of the building under the stem wall and soaking the ground causing a lot of wood rot in all of the cabinets. I was only able to salvage one metal cabinet.

We then drug out all the dirt until the concrete pillars were all exposed. You can see that they built the shed with an inherent slant. When you take a tape measure and measure all the pillars they get progressively longer the farther you go to the right. Its amazing how much forethought went into some things they built.

After lunch, we have been eating from the deli at the minimart, we started in on the broken beam over one of the entrances. They used to just hang a chain over the beam and use a chain lift to hoist engines out of equipment. We opted to use an old beam we salvaged from the fuel storage area. The new beam was a little thicker than the old. We did a basic overlap joint then recut the old truss members. It was nice to reuse all old wood. Tex did the cosmetic repair to the outside while I started in on the upright beam repairs. I had him go get a weather 1×12 from the pile that has been out in the sun for a year. It blended quite nicely. It should not take it long to blend in.

We used a 20 ton jack and a 3×8 inch board that I kept cutting to length. Luckily, I inadvertently started on the tallest end so I just kept cutting the support board shorter as I moved across the front repairing beams. Each concrete pad has a 3/4 inch x 5 inch tall metal rod sticking out of the middle of the pad. So I cut the beam off at 6 inches and then drilled out the new spacer to go over the rod. There were some spare metal drilled flat stock laying on one of the shelves that I saved instead of tossing it in the scrap pile. I was not sure what I was going to use it for but I figured they would come in handy. One day later and I used four! The beams had to be pulled out away from the pad after jacking them up. We used the tractor to pull them out 6 inches. I love how flexible old wooden structures can be.

The patch material was slightly smaller but once we pulled the jack out the beams dropped down and are solid. All we need now is gravel and gates. I will order in 50 yards of 3/4- gravel this week and have them dump it in front of the machine shop. Once that is spread out I will install five matching gates over the front and it will be done. I may even decide to run some lights inside the building. If so that will happen late summer or fall.

Tex is missing

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I made arrangements with Tex last week to come out again for the next three days. We need to get the machine shed cleaned out so we have a space for the hay equipment that is coming. I had to call the dealer on Monday and found out that our baler from Italy won’t be here until July most likely. This is obviously a problem as I need to start cutting hay in the next two weeks. The company is sending us a loaner at no cost to us. They will pay for the shipping to us and then back to them when ours shows up. It is hard to be upset when they have customer service like that. The CEO talked to me on the phone and he was a little surprised and happy at how reasonable I was being. I said it was easy when they were doing everything possible to make us happy and allow us to get our hay crop put up.

I made breakfast for Tex and I Friday morning but Tex did not show up. I resorted to taking a picture of the food and texting him. No answer. He never answered during the day. I went out and started in on the machine shed myself. That evening Tex did agree to come out on Saturday and Sunday. No body can be perfect and we all have flaws.

I started in on the machine shed. I figured if I just started sorting burnables, trash and scrap metal I could make some headway on cleanup. A couple of hours into it The Pickerman called and said he was going to come out and get a load of metal.

I called Meathead and had her come out and help me fill the trailer. She had a few hours left to put in this week so she finished her homework and came out to the house. We worked on getting all of the loose stuff out of the machine shed. We found a handful of items that can go to auction and the Pickerman will make that happen. We had the trailer filled by 1600 and off they went. She was very helpful and did a great job helping out.

I did get a text confirmation from Tex Friday night that he was coming out. The plan is to hit it hard on Saturday and maybe we can be done by Sunday.

It doesn’t look like we made a great deal of headway but we got a pickup load of burnables out, a trailer load of metal and a pile of keep stuff that I will need to find a home.

Spraying necessary

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Sunday of this week Tex came out and finished fencing on the upper prime pasture. It needed wooden stays and to fix the spring crossing. He worked on that all day while the sheep continued to mow our front lawn.

I spent the day on the tractor trying to spray our upper middle field. It is growing gangbusters but it needs some weeds eradicated. I am only able to spray about a 6 foot swath at a time. I went to a fixed sprayer with no boom but the pump cannot keep the pressure up in the tank so it varies in its spray application rate. Its causing me enough problem that I have started to look back into a boom system. Luckily, I kept the 12 foot boom from the old four wheeler, I tossed it over by the metal scrap pile and never made it go away! I just need to mount it on the 55 gallon spray tank frame. Using that I can change out the size of the nozzles to control flow rates. I will be able to spray about 50% faster than I currently can.

I spent all day on the tractor and simply ran out of time. The middle prime field is done! There is about a half an acre of soggy ground in that field but the grass looks great.

Annmarie and I talked about it and I am going to dig a ditch to collect the water and make it run in a narrower channel. Hopefully, this will prevent it from forming fingers throughout the entire field.

I spent the next three weeknights after work trying to get the upper field sprayed. I found even more wet and muddy spots. There is about 1/3 of the field that I cannot get into due to the mud and soft ground. This is going to cause us some problems.

My hope is Tex and I can crank out the machine shed this upcoming weekend and I can get back to spraying.

I may even have to mow the lawn. Annmarie is getting tired of the dogs rolling in sheep manure and Gizmo keeps making himself sick from eating too many turds. It starts to make the cost more than its worth.