haying

Haying season is starting soon

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Haying season is starting soon. Our weather went from warm and wet to hot and dry in a very short time. This has caused the grass to shoot up and made me realize that I had better get ready for hay season. Unfortunately, there are always other tasks to complete on the farm and there is very little single task focusing allowed.

So on Friday I went over to LaGrande in the pickup to get four cut and wrapped beef. The fifth one had gone to Ascension Camp in Cove. I agreed to pick up the four that were on this side of the mountain. So I went over first thing and had them all loaded up into the back of the clean pickup bed. I had washed it out the night before in preparation for this task. They bag it! I was expecting cardboard boxes which is how I have always received cut and wrapped meat. The bags were easier to handle but wow did they not hold the cold very well. I made three stops before getting home and by the time I got home we ended up having round steak the next night due to the thawing that occurred from the bags.

The meat tasted great as always. It is definitely grass fed and it is obvious when you look at a steak. The meat is very dark and not very pink (fat filled). Our freezer is now full again but we have a lot of ground beef left over from the cow before this one. So more hamburger is on the menu.

While I was doing that Mr Rainman came out and starting to mow all of the cheat grass around the farm. Three fields I planted with grass are nothing but solid cheat grass. So basically worthless to use as fodder for the animals. So we are trying to get all of it mowed down before the heads become mature. I am also trying to see exactly how much needs to be harvested. Some fields that were wonderful last year are now mostly cheat grass and others that were mediocre last year are very good. There is no rhyme or reason as to why some fields have turned. Although, if I worked the field with the cultivator the cheat grass seeds are taking over! The fields that I left alone are the ones that are doing great this year.

I spent most of Saturday mowing and cleaning up the edges of fields that are going to get harvested. I saw lots of quail but not once did I spot a coyote or any other type of predator running around on the place.

Sunday once I got back to the farm, Mr Rainman and I put the new sickle bar mower on the Kubota so I could start cutting hay tomorrow evening after my real job. It went on fairly easy but when I ran the blades there was a horrible clacking. I turned it off and looked closely. It appears that at the end of last years haying season I broke the bar mower and failed to fix it all winter/spring. I don’t specifically remember this but it is fairly obvious that I did it. Because I have had to help repair this exact problem I knew what it was. It’s a broken bolt near the rocker arm. The only real problem is this is a special bolt that is shaped and rounded on one end then it bolts through the back half of the arm and onto a stop nut that must be inserted as you screw in the bolt or the nut won’t fit. I do not have any spare parts for the newer sickle bar mower. So I went and “borrowed” parts from the other small Italian sickle bar mower. The bolt was too long and the threads need to go down the shaft about 1/4” more. Luckily, I had gotten tired of this exact scenario a few years ago and had purchased a metric 110 piece tap and die set. My father was a machinist and I had learned how to create threads from him. I just needed to extend the threads. Luckily, I had the correct die and was able to extend the thread. We got it all together and got it all greased up. It is now ready to start cutting some hay!

If it fails to rain tonight I will be cutting hay when I get home tomorrow! Mr Rainman has figured out that if we use a leaf blower on the tractor and mower it is a faster than trying to use an air hose. The air hose is now only needed for the radiator. The rest is much faster and effective to use the leaf blower. I had to order farm diesel fuel which should be delivered this week.

I am now trying the electrolyte replacement powder “liquid IV’ in my water when I am out and about. My hope is it will let me tolerate the heat better than I did last year. It doesn’t taste that great but it did stave off any headache. I will use it a few more times and see if it really works.

Resting sorta

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Well things did not go as planned after my concussion last week. I ended up getting a head CT and going to the concussion clinic. They put me on some turmeric and fish oil supplements and I am to rest and relax. I am allowed to do what I can but not to over do anything that makes my head symptoms worse. Plus, I am off work for a week. This is not going to help my head next week when I have to catch up but right now I have a nonstop headache. On top of all of that I have to listen to a lot of awkward jokes about leading with my head, how did you do that and you need a hard hat all of the time. I did capitulate after a few days on the hard hat idea. I really don’t like this laying around and since I wear a hat all the time when I am outside anyways it didn’t seem like a stretch to just wear a hard hat all the time when I am outside on the farm. So I have a OSHA approved vented carbon fiber hard hat on its way to the farm. I will be getting rid of all of my hats in the laundry room so that there will only be one choice when I head outside, the hard hat! I normally hit my head several times a year hard enough to give me wounds on top of my head so I am looking forward to not having those anymore either. Plus, I don’t get headaches and I particularly don’t have the patience or tolerance for them. Muscle aches, yeah I am used to that but not the headaches.

Mr Rainman is back in the area and has agreed to help me out this summer. I won’t be doing half the amount of hay I did last year and my only big project is the back bridge. We are going on a vacation to Scotland soon so that has limited the projects that will occur this summer. We have the grain bin outdoor cafeteria building still to put put but I am having reservations about putting it in the front yard as it will block the view of the barn. It’s not a priority but my brain is spinning on how to do it so I made Annmarie talk me through it’s location again. We decided on the front corner of the hillside by the corral. The grass never grows there anyways. It only needs to be leveled by about 18” so it should not be too bad of an area to prep. The only concession I will need to make is a set of gates on it to prevent the cows and sheep from going into it when we are running them through the yard.

Mr Rainman and I walked the entire property to see how things were going. We spotted our first calf of the year! It is one of the new black ones we just purchased a few months ago. Every one else should start having their babies soon as we planned for May births. So next week we will be sorting cows as I need to take five to Lagrande to the butcher. We are going to create two new herds, new mommas and expectant mommas and everyone else. I will move the new bull into Alcatraz as soon as I take our old bull to the sale. He needs to not go into the herd until the end of July. So we can then have calves nine months later in the spring.

The upper seven acre field was covered with late grass last year and I never mowed it or did the second hay cutting. It looks like only about half the field came back. This just means that I hay what is there and in the fall we plant the rest of the field in true orchard grass. It maintains it’s protein status better than most grasses throughout its later life cycle so I don’t have to be as picky as to when it is converted into hay. The other upper fields looked good but the cows are eating on all of them but upper seven acres (it needs new fencing around it to make it animal safe). We outlined a plan for spraying all of the fields and he started cleaning up the corral, old rotten hay bales to the burn pile. The Kubota got cleaned and greased. A few hours later Annmarie texts me our bull is in with the neighbors cows. It is not our old bull as he is now in Alcatraz for this exact reason. So we went down and spent 45 minutes chasing the two bulls back into our pasture. They had to fight for 20 minutes at the neighbors before we could get them to go back through the culvert. Once back through we had to fix the crossing again. We ended up patching a couple of fence spots, reinstalling the gate down by the schoolhouse and driving back to the house via the upper hillside. The irrigation ditch was flowing outside its channel making a mess through the lower field. I thought we could dig the blocked spot and get it back into the channel. We ended up digging about a 75’ section with the tractor to get it contained. The upper hillside section I planted in the fall is not growing the grass I wanted. It is a lot smoother, it is not growing sage and the grass that normally grows on the hillside is coming in nicely. I then laid around for four days doing nothing and sleeping a lot.

Haying again sort of

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Well we have had a heat wave with the temperatures running 102-111 F this two weeks ago so I have not been doing much work outside. This last weekend I decided to get up early and go rake hay up into long rows. We are not going to bale the hay as it is too dry. We just had too much to put up, so I am just making bigger rows so the animals can dig into it later when the weather is not as good and eat all they want. Raking it also lets the green grass under it grow so the animals can eat that also. I went out Friday morning by 0630 but two hours later I had to stop as the tractor had overheated already. The next day I was outside by 0430 and raking hay. I got all of the hay I needed raked up. I have two areas where I need to dig out the dirt so the water can stay in a low spot. The ground is so soft that I stuck the tractor twice in the mud. Pretty impressive after that heat wave. I should start my second hay cuttings this weekend. It is ready and I might as well get it done. I am afraid there is at least another 12 ton out in the field ready to cut.

We have let the sheep out of the barn lot and out into the upper field #4, they can also use the walkway we created alongside the wheat to get 1/2 mile away from the house. Due to the nature of all of the coyotes around here we are now forced to bring the sheep in every night. The first few nights are always the worst as you are teaching the sheep to come in at night. After that they will start to put themselves in every night. Tonight it was merely a matter of walking out and shutting the gate.

No rest for the wicked (or farmers)

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After work on Thursday I needed to finish haying, the real problem is I have been awake since 0400 and am not highly motivated at this point. The trouble is I know if I don’t go out and do it then it may not get done. So after dinner and after dishes I went outside to go bale more hay in field #2. We need to get the dried grass off of the field so that we can do a second cutting. Both field #1 & #2 will be ready to cut again in two weeks. There has been so much hay and it has been such a hassle to put it all up with this microhay equipment. I finally just gave up on getting field #3 finished.

I will go down and push all of the rows together to form 3-4 large rows down the middle of the field and we are just going to leave them. When we let the animals up later in the summer they can dig through the piles and eat whatever they want. We did the same thing after the flood two years ago and the animals will tear it up and eat whatever they want. There is just not time to do it all. We have talked about bigger hay equipment but currently we don’t want to spend a bunch of money. So we are going to fix the old John Deere baler we got last year this fall and see if we can get it repaired and ready for next year.

I got on the John Deere little tractor and went out with my Italian M50 baler and baled in the dark. I managed to bale four tons in about 4.5 hours. This is dang good speed and not normal. I did not break a single shear bolt and everything went incredibly smoothly. The grass was very thick so the bales formed quickly. Mr Professional had to pull another two links out of main baler chain and we have worn down some of the gear teeth. I tried to order new sprockets and Ohio based company did not have them, they were literally on a slow boat from Italy in a shipping container headed their way. I kept looking on the internet in the hopes I would find somebody in this country who would have parts for an Abbriata M50 minibaler. I found a new baler for sale in Oregon! So I called up the dealer, then the parts dept, got a hold of a very helpful parts person who had no idea they were selling a Sitrex baler. In the pictures it looked like my Abbriatta with a different name. I gave him my Abbriatta parts numbers and he sent that to his parts supplier who sent it to Italy and the next day Italy has the parts! Mind you the Sitrex parts catalog was identical to the Abbriatta! So the slow boat plan is still in progress. I will keep looking and hoping that the internet will find me someone in the United States.

I stayed out until 0200 baling, came in and cleaned up, went to bed and was up by 0830 to get out and mow some more hay at the neighbors. He had volunteered to allow us to cut a couple of his small fields. But before I could go out and cut hay I had to fill up tractor with hydraulic fluid, grease entire tractor and sickle bar mower. But to grease sickle bar I had to install a new grease zirk and then change out the grease gun head to be able to add a ninety degree head. I had to tighten the bolts on the mower and ended up installing the hydraulic lines backwards so the control for up/down was reversed. I did not bother to change the hoses so I spent the next three hours cussing it the entire time. While mowing the neighbor’s field I ended up having to pick a few tractor bucket fulls of rocks due to all of the rocks in the field. I had to to go around in patches to cut the good stuff and left the bad weedy areas. I will come back after I am all done and just run the flail mower over the entire field.

I came home and wife talked me into going to town for the farmers market. When we came back I took a 30 minute nap on the front porch and then spent another 30 minutes convincing myself that I really did need to go outside and do more work. I did get up and go turn hay in field #3 in the dark for three more hours.

Hay torture

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It’s that time of year again where I wish I had a clone. This clone could then work for me doing all of the things I don’t want to do, chief among them is bring in the hay. Last week on Sunday, Mr Tex came out to pickup hay bales, he had informed me he had a friend that would work just as hard as him, so I said yes bring him. His friend has the same stature, lean and tall. Yes, his friend did know the meaning of hard work and did work very hard. We will henceforth call said friend ”Mr Clone 1”. I appreciate it when all I have to do is drive around the fields and someone else loads the trailer. I did help unload the trailer every time and we did get another 10 ton of hay unloaded into the barn! It was hot and they were both worn out by the time we got done, it took about 6 hours. I treated them to lunch at the minimart as we needed truck fuel. We had only driven 57 miles and burned up 20 gallons of gasoline! All of those miles were in the field getting hay. So the barn is basically full, I think I can fit another 3-4 ton only between the two rooms. I currently have 27 ton stacked in the main barn. I am saving the space for our second cutting we are going to get off of field #1&2. This will be the first year ever to get a second cutting on our grass hay that is non irrigated.

Since we had just gotten back from vacation and the rain had finally quit and everything had dried out it was time to get back to haying. I went out and turned hay in field #3, we had 1/2 the field cut and it needed to be turned. The Girls (Daughter #1 and Daughter #2) did chores while we were away and the sheep continued to lamb. We had one set of triplets that the mother could not feed the third baby and by day 4 the Girls had to bottle feed it and give it to our regular bummer caretaker. She gets all the bummer lambs for the price of coming whenever we call. Annmarie saw a family of raccoons running up the creek. We think they are living inside the barn so we set out a live trap in the barn with cat food. Raccoons love cat food! My chicken egg production is down and I am not sure if its due to fright from raccoons or just the heat but the chickens need to lay more! I managed to only spend 13.5 hours outside on my first day back from vacation doing farmwork.

Annmarie found a 18’ grain bin that is disassembled and 8’ high with all of the roof pieces for sale. It was delivered and we were able to unload it in four loads with the Kubota tractor and a set of loader forks. It is so much nicer to use the pallet forks instead of your back. We just stashed it all in a pile out of the way. That is totally next years project and when they delivered it was when I realized there was no top cap for the roof. I am going to have to try and hunt one down or else make one. The real question is how fancy do we get? I know I will be running some conduit to it so I can put in some outdoor outlets. I am even thinking about tapping into the water line but I am not sure how to do this as I only need 1/2’ line and want to use pex tubing and an antifreeze fixture. I may even go so far as to put an underground shutoff valve that will drain the above ground line so I can just shut it off in the winter. But I have to keep reminding myself that this is next years project and I need to just let it go.

Daughter #2 has managed to get the tractor stuck out in the field twice already. Once she hit a bad culvert with some undercutting from the flooding and the other time she hit a spring and got stuck in the mud. The springs and mud are really bad this year. I am going to have to move some more dirt around to mark the edges of the muddy spots so we don’t get stuck in the mud as often.

The puppy, ”Chance” missed us while we were away but the Girls managed to get her to not holler every night when she is kenneled so that was very pleasant surprise when we went to bed. You still have to get up and potty her at 0400 but that is a small price to pay for the whining and yipping to be gone.