hay

My new toy!

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Our last big hurdle for moving bales has been solved. Our favorite, only, housekeeper told me about it. She saw it on Craigslist and I happened to see her message quickly. I sent pm immediately requesting it. Only $80 for a used hay lift!!! I had to drive 75 miles for it leaving directly from work. Now this meant hooking the trailer up in the dark. Not something I have done before. Not easy to do as I had not dropped the trailer off in a nice flat open area with a straight approach. I bumped the trailer off its hitch stand, block of wood and could not raise the tongue above the ball on my pickup stinger. So I ended up wrapping the trailer chains around the hitch onto themselves and lowering tongue until the elevator Post was retracted fully and I could skip the three inch piece of wood under and raise tongue back up. I only needed 1/2” of course but without that I could not physically lift trailer tongue and my handyman jack was not in the trailer box where it should of been. I need to find it.

The elevator is 20’ long and is electric. The motor got put in the cab of the pickup to keep it dry. I need to put some tape and red rags in my trailer box also. It kinda hung over the end but it was pitch dark by then so I figured I would just go with it.

We have been looking at these used and they go for around $700-900. We looked at brand new and it’s $1700. We were going to go with the new one just to ensure it functioned perfectly, but for $80 we have personality!!

A new motor is only $215 so either way we come out way ahead. I need to get it unloaded off the trailer and into the barn and get the motor all attached. I need to see how it works then I need to duct tape a bunch of loose wires to the rails and neaten it up with a lot of duct tape. I also want to stiffen a few spots with some hose clamps. Like I said, it’s going to have a lot of personality!

Hay no more

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Today I picked up the last of the hay, 8 more tons. Bring on the Winter! Our animals should be good to go. I had to get all large bales, 1300#. Since the big tractor is on hiatus until I can figure out what is wrong with it. So I used my little tractor to push the bales off of the flat bed. So now I have 12 bales in a fairly wide area just hanging out waiting for me to push them to their respective drop off/eating point.

Someone came over to look at the old tractor but the problem never appeared. I drove the tractor out and picked up a bale with no issues. We did give the tractor about 2.5 gallons of hydraulic fluid and found most of the leaks. Two of the leaks look like fairly straight corrective issues. I just need to put some teflon tape on the joints and retighten. I do need to go through and grease all the zirks to ensure everything is loose and slippery.

So after my assistant left I attempted to get the bales into the machine shop. Just as I was getting the first bale into the machine shed the tractor started to do that whole starved for fuel thing. I need to get some carburetor gum out spray. Maybe that will fix the problem.

I spent Friday building on my rock wall on the back hillside. I was supposed to go help someone trim llama hooves so I did not want to get the hillside fence laid down and have to leave. I used the tractor mistress to scrape dirt and build up the wall. The gate I had installed was pulling the post over. As Annmarie puts it she “told me so” and I should not have swung that gate out over air. I could not dig the post down as far as I wanted due to all the rocks. So I leveled off the gate area and cut into the back hill side so the gate could swing the other way. I will also install a wheel on the end of the gate so there won’t be any pressure on the end of the gate causing the post to move. I tried to tamp gravel down around the loose post but it just did not stiffen the post enough. I removed the gate and will put it on the other side of the opening as those posts are nice and stiff.

Bob the cat got out of his enclosure today. He is 2-3 years old and unwanted. He is also fixed! So we made a pen and kept him in the machine shed for 8 days. Today, I let him out and he disappeared into the machine shed. We will provide food for him out there and he can live out his life eating mice and cat food.

Out kitty in the barn is doing well. He loves to get petted on more than eating cat food. I usually only see him once a day inside the barn. He lives in the barn with the old tomcat. We need a couple more cats to live out in the barn. We feed the cats on our back porch, the barn and the machine shop now.