fencing

Flood damage repair still

Steve HardinLeave a comment

The chickens are enjoying the weather and all of this rain.  We have moved the compost dumping area down the fence line about 15 feet in an effort to get the chickens to work down the weeds.  I have been trying to recycle 50# of dried rice used to dry out electrical equipment into chicken food.  I use the rice cooker and give them 8-16 cups of cooked rice a day.  I have been at it for two weeks and have half the rice gone maybe.  Even the chickens are getting tired of rice at every meal, they will run over eat a little bit then run away.  They do forage on the rice all day and eat it eventually but if that were cat food I was tossing out they would eat it until it was gone every time. 04E110F3-9383-4A26-A4BD-A1649619DB3B

My spare parts for the haying equipment came this week also.  Unfortunately, they did not have all the parts I asked for but I took what they sent me.  It tends to take about 3-4 weeks to get parts from the company so I went through and looked at the parts I have already broken and the parts that may break and have started a list.  The company did a great job of labeling each set of bolts and nuts so I know exactly what they are.  I have them separated out into containers with sharpy labels on the outside.  My goal is to get another 2 metal cabinets and use two of them for parts only.  I want to dedicate half the cabinet to each piece of hay equipment so it is easy to find and won’t get lost since I have to have so many parts on hand.

I am having trouble with my front left tire that fell off.  I was getting ready to go to the upper field with the arena groomer when I noticed that the same tire had two lug nut bolts missing.  Luckily, the wheel had not fallen off again.  I had picked up six bolts from the tractor store and put two back in and tightened down everything. I am going to have to figure out why this is happening.  The new tractor seat came in, it is thicker than the old but I need some kind of shock absorber on it now so the ride is smoother.  more internet shopping time is needed.  The first seat lasted seven years and the tractor spent more time out in the sun than under cover.  Since we have gotten the machine shed cleaned out the side by side and the tractor are parked inside away from the sun whenever they are not in use.

Mr Professional and the Future NASCAR driver have been working on the cross fence in the barn lot.  All three of us went up there and got it finalized.  I still need to get into the spring path and dig out some more mud but it was so bad that I kept getting stuck in the tractor.  I made a deeper pathway that is only about 1 foot wide and will let it dry out for few weeks before I go back at from the sides with the tractor.  I want to build up the embankment on the northern side so when the water comes rushing down it will get pushed back and over the embankment.  We still need to cut the final cow panel to fit to the bottom of the gully but not until I reshape the gully to accept more water.  So we just used the bent one from the flood and will address it later.

The ram started to favor his front left leg four days ago but would not let us touch it, we could get close enough to pet him but not pin him.   He is also over 200 pounds and all muscle with some fat and is not going to let me just pin him to look at his foot.  We ended up just moving all the boys from Alcatraz to behind the barn into a nice dry lot and watered them in the corral. This got the ram closer to our chute were we could pin him in place.  We did this in the evening and then let them hang out all night by the next morning the ram was already putting weight on the leg and looked dramatically better.  There was just too much moisture in Alcatraz.  I spent a couple of hours with the box blade and manure forks and cleaned up Alcatraz.  I now have two piles of mud, straw, hay and poop that will need to be moved out and mixed in the new barn floor contents when the barn gets cleaned out.  I really need a manure spreader but they are expensive.  I need a good used one, which leads to the I need a welder discussion as stuff keeps breaking and I need to be able to repair it.

It took me about 10 hours between two days to get the upper prime squared field all cleaned up.  I used the manure forks to pick up the large piles and used the arena groomer to pick up the low grass and spread out the mud.  The grass is trying to grow back but cannot get through the mat of mud and grass left by the flood.  I had to go over each section repeatedly as the groomer would fill up with grass fast.  I made two big piles out in the middle of the field and took everything close to the water over to my berm I am constructing alongside the spring.  The berm is going to be 2-3 feet high.  The water here only got about 18-24” deep so I think it will be enough to keep the water going to where I sort of want it.  This should lead to only about 1/3 of the field getting flooded and none of the next field being flooded.  Don’t get me wrong, I still installed flood break points in the cross fences just in case it does jump my berm.  I don’t want to have to come back and redo all this fence again. The built in weak points will keep the whole fence from getting flushed down or pushed over.

The manure forks have been another amazing purchase!  If I knew how handy they would be I would have done it years ago.  The best part is they only cost $250!  I have used them extensively to help clean up the flood debris and am actually looking forward to how they work when I clean out the barn.  I may be able to just drive in scoop out some stuff and drive out with it instead of trying to push it all out one of the two doors and then pick it up with the tractor.  If the rain ever stops the barn will get cleaned out.

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Flood damaged pasture replaced

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Today was the day, in eight hours we got the entire orchard fence torn out, leveled off and reinstalled!  Now it did take three of us to do it but Mr Professional spent the first three hours spraying thistles while the Future NASCAR Driver and myself did actual manual labor and tore out the fence.
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Mr Future NASCAR Driver and myself first had to clean up all of the flood debris.  My contribution was driving the tractor as we used it as a wheelbarrow.  We did have to skid out a couple of logs with the tractor and we had to pull the bridge from the barn lot away from the fence!  It managed to travel about 100 yards through three fence creek crossings before catching on the fourth fence line.  It is still intact, I am going to create concrete footings for it and just drop it back in place in the barn lot!  Once we had all the fence down and all the debris on the burn pile I used the tractor to tear up the ground and create a nice even slope.  There were a couple of high spots and one spot where we lowered the ground level almost 12”.  I used all that dirt to fill in the very large hole in the ground from the flooding.  I was able to build back two feet of dirt line.  When I combined the new dirt with moving the fence forward about 10” the new fence went right in.

Future NASCAR Driver and myself hand dug three railroad tie holes and Mr Professional came over and did the fourth.  We created two H braces on the left of the new breakaway section and one to the right.  The center 16’ section is suspended by a 1/4” cable between the H braces, it is clipped at the bottom with a flimsy clip that will only hold about 300# of material.  I then took another 16’ panel and laid it under the breakaway and had to bend a 10” section upward at 90 degrees to cover the U shaped bottom.  That section was clipped with heavy duty clips to the breakaway section then about 1500# of rocks piled onto the panel laying on the ground.  When the water hits the upright side it will create a dam and the water will push the bottom out and wash away the rocks allowing the panel to lift up and allow the water and materials to pass through the fence with minimal to no damage to the fence.  This is my hope and wish and dream.

As we were cleaning up and trying to get three rigs back out to the machine shed I asked the Future NASCAR Driver to move the pickup.  He doesn’t drive.  So I gave him the low down on the tractor.  He was not super comfortable with it but I figured he could get the 4’ wide tractor over the 10’ culvert.  Mr Professional had him drive the side by side as there is only a gas peddle and a brake pedal and he still had to holler at him to only use one foot and touch one pedal at a time.

We started the burn pile on our way out of the field and moved the bridge to behind the barn.

We did attempt to put the sickle mower on the tractor but I had bent the three point hitch adjustable bar earlier last week or the week before and did not have a replacement on hand.  We managed to get to D and B store 2 minutes before they closed.  I got the part and will be mowing hay first thing in the morning.  We are going to work on the far barn lot fence.  Once it is done we will be able to sort the cows in Alcatraz and let the bull out with the female cows, let the ram out with the sheep after we sort off the cull ewes and female lambs and let the main sheep herd down with the cows.  I won’t be much help this weekend as I will be covering night shifts at work. I will try and help out when I can in between sleeping.
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Animals contained

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Sunday started off with another surprise, another fairly new calf!  This one has white on it also and has a white heart shaped design on its forehead.  The other heart headed calf has been named “Valentine” so Annmarie wants to call this one “Cupid”.  We are fairly certain that those are the last two calves and as soon as we sort off the young heifers we will turn the bull loose back into the main herd.  This will give us a calving date next year of March 2021.

After breakfast, I caught up on thee blog.  I would like to spread them out a little more but its hard to write when you work until 2200 then shower and need to go to work the next day.  I take notes for every day I work on the farm now so I don’t shortchange myself and take credit for the things I actually did.  I then did the dishes, emptied the compost, emptied the dishwasher, started Roomba and finally ran out of excuses to go outside and build fence.

I grabbed a roll of new wire (my last one), an old 2×6 board, two charged batteries for the sawzall and two cow panels.  I used the hitch on the pickup to pull the cow panels behind me out into the field.  First thing I did was install the bird cross posts.  I am unsure if the birds will use them but I climbed up the post and installed them.  I made sure to crawl up first before I pounded all the T-posts into the ground and hammered in staples for a few hours.  I needed maximum strength and my lackluster enthusiasm is not helping, I am so looking forward to going back to work this week, I need the rest.

I rolled out and stretched new woven wire.  I installed a smooth wire over the top of the woven to hopefully keep the horses from crushing my woven wire at the top.  I got the new side all clipped in and even installed a 26’ breakaway section near the ditch using cow panels.  They are anchored at the top and then nailed along both sides from the back so that the water pressure can just pop out the staples and the panels will lift.  I have a total of 42’ of breakaway frontage in this section of fence alone.  My goal is to install at least 16’ in every cross fence.  I opened the gate and called the sheep through, called Annmarie to verify the horses location and shut the gate.  The sheep and horses are officially stuck in Prime field.  I even hung the panel across the ditch and clipped it in place.  The left side of the fence still needs clips and wooden stays installed.  Once that is done then its onto the orchard pasture so we can get it fixed and sort the sheep. I was back in the house by 1600.

I showered and was upstairs in our closet and spotted a critter out on the ram pasture, it was a rock chuck!  Our score, Steve 1: Annmarie 1, on dead rock chucks is even, not that I am counting mind you.  So it was crucial that I get outside and make the kill.  I jumped into  my slippers, grabbed my 17 HR and ran out the back door making sure to not let the door make any noise on the way out.  Unfortunately for me the sheep and horses are in the barn lot and I had to pick and choose my shot.  I missed twice!  Now in my defense I did not use a rest and my arms feel like rubber after all the hard work this weekend.  They are living under one of my rockcribs down by the back creek and they will dig out underneath it and cause it to fall or lean over.  Annmarie shot this photo below for posterity.  The second coming of Sasquatch!

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The animals need off hay fields

Steve HardinLeave a comment

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I started Saturday morning by going out to the freezer to get butter, we were out and I had said I was going to do that the day before.  More importantly, one of the horses was laying down in the ram pasture, I walked out and she let me pet her while she stayed laying down.  Most of the time the horses will not allow this, they stand when you approach them.  I did get the butter this time!  I had a slow start, had breakfast with my mother at our house and then headed out to work on fencing.  I need to get the animals off of the fields.  As I was headed out to the fields I stopped at the culvert and scooped out most of the gravel from the back of the pickup.  This lightened the pickup and the culvert crossing needed it.  I like to do little parts at a time on projects, some would even say I flit from project to project but it works if you keep after it.  Unfortunately its not very timely.

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I ended up pulling most of the T posts from the first section of fence, splicing in an old section and then tightening the whole thing.  This sounds fairly straightforward, but I had to remove all the clips from the broken T-posts and pull them out of the ground by hand.  I finally got it all up and then decided to stretch a single row of smooth wire on the top.  The horses keep leaning over the fence and bending the woven wire I am hoping the top strand will stop that or at least lessen its impact.  I then installed cable and a 16’ brake away section to the middle of the fence.  If it floods again I want the fence to give!   I went over to the front spring and worked on tightening H braces and putting in cross boards.  I was going to reuse the old fence but I was going to have to splice in 2-3 sections and it is just not worth the time necessary to accomplish the task, I will use all new.  While I was working on that I decided that the ditch needed to be dug out as it still has flood mud and cut grass piled up in it.  I stepped down and the bottom of the ditch was firm.  I just need to drive the tractor into the ditch and I can reach up with my fancy new manure fork and get the junk away from the fence.  I went down to the machine shed and put the box blade on the tractor then went in for dinner.  I had a plan and after dinner it would be executed.

Annmarie was headed into the hospital for rounds and it had just started to rain slightly and she questioned my wisdom in going back out to dig in the ditch.  It’s fine, I just put on a neck warmer and a jacket.  First thing I did was dive right into the ditch with all four tires, within 10 seconds I realized that this was not the smartest move I had made.  Unfortunately, I seem to have these thoughts on a fairly regular basis.  It took me about 20 minutes to get out and I had to use the bucket to pull myself out of the ditch.  I then ditched the manure forks and started to dig out the ditch with tractor bucket.  I had a neighbor offer their small backhoe to help clean up the flooding problems.  I am going to have to take them up on it later in the summer to dig out the ditch and silt and grass that has piled up. I am going to use the mud and weeds to create a berm on the North side of the ditch.  This way if the upper creek jumps its bank again it will flood out the upper two fields but protect the 1.75 fields.  It will also create a boundary so we don’t fall in the ditch with the tractor (done that already this year).  I am going to widen the ditch slightly and dig it down another foot.  While digging out the ditch in the rain I spotted the double rainbow and took a picture, it was beautiful!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week in review

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It’s been a long week, I have kept notes so I could keep track of all the things that have happened.  Monday evening after dinner I went out and turned all the hay.  It just keeps raining.  The hay is not very good after all the rain and flooding.  I need to get it up into bales so the grass underneath can come up and I can get a good second cutting.  I worked until dark and got it all turned and in neat rows.  Mr Professional came out during the day and worked on setting wooden posts in our field closest to the barn lot, I would like to get the sheep and horses off of the hay pasture.  They keep eating the barley sprouts.

Tuesday after work I went out to the field and got the baler to work.  It’s a learning curve and I had to get my memory back up to speed after last year.  It is not quite the same critter as the string non-hydraulic one I had last year. I got it to make about 20 bales up in the triticale before it got dark.  I was happy but I have learned there are some things that are not easy to do in the dark and baling is one of them, seeding is the other.

Wednesday after work I went out to check on Mr Professional.  He was hot!  He had broken 9 shear bolts already and the hay was too thick.  It was a constant battle.  I went out after dinner and threw the hay back out.  No rows, the tractor carriage is too low and the underside hits the hay pile.  I really need a side pull but I did not think of this.  I may be able to accommodate this at a future time.  The real answer is just don’t row it.  Just throw it around and pick it up with the tractor.  The little baler does better if it is not plowing through super thick material.  It can grab a bunch and pull it in and shear the safety bolt before you know it.

Thursday I had off and Mr Professional and I had to go to town to find a bolt as one had broken on the arm for dumping the bales.  The arm got bent in shipping and I did not think it was a big deal.  It is turning out to be a problem.  I will need to order a replacement soon.  I forgot about it when I placed the big order last week.  We may have found the right size shear bolt at hardware store but we did not have any to compare.  We left them at home.  When we got home I found the dozen spares I knew I had ordered last year, they were not with the others.  It took us 2 hours to clean off the baler, replace the shear bolts and grease and oil it so it was ready to go.  I baled about 100 bales and only broke two shear pins, one low and one high.  I hit some wet grass and sheared the lower pin.  After spending 30 minutes digging it out I just gave up.  It was dinner time and I was beat, I took it all back to the shop, we can get it ready tomorrow morning.  Mr professional and the kid worked on the fence.  My manure clamp on hooks for the tractor bucket arrived!  I used them to move mud and hay away from the fence, they are great!  I am thinking that cleaning out the barn this year may be a lot easier than normal.   The tractor can push the spikes into a pile of mud and hay where I never could have gotten it into the bucket before.  The only thing is it makes the tractor pretty front heavy, I need to attach the box blade on the back for counterweight.