John Deere tractor

Machine Shed Mania

Steve HardinLeave a comment

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

Steve HardinLeave a comment

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.

Machine shed miracle

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Tex came out today, after breakfast we went out and started to fill up the pickup with burnables. The burnables are going on a big pile and it is just getting bigger. I worked on getting the second tank off its perch. I made sure to stay out of the way and gently started it rolling. The plan was to keep it on the deck to make it easier to load onto the scrap trailer. It rolled right off the platform and onto the ground.

We just kept moving stuff out and I kept dragging it out to the scrap metal pile. Once we had the tanks out of the shop it was short work to rip out the wooden deck that used to house the fuel tanks. It had the most awesome clear grain6x6 beams and and amazing piece of 3x8x20 foot beam perfectly clear. It made me want to cry as we threw it on the burn pile. All of the wood had fuel, oil, grease or chemicals on it. They had been using it as a storage area forever. I feel better now that it is not in the machine shed. I did manage to hit a nail with my head while we were tearing it apart. I was pretty sure that was gonna leave a mark, it did.

We got two bays totally empty so I started dragging the dirt out with the tractor. I finally had to remove the bucket from the tractor to gain more maneuvering room inside the shop. It looks great!

Unfortunately, moving dirt around has exposed a few problems. Two of the main support beams are rotten on the bottom as the dirt has piled up over the years. We will need to cut off the bottom six inches of two main beams and splice in a new piece. We will also need to fix an overhead broken beam. I am going to have to drag out about 8 inches of dirt on the right side of the machine shed. It looks like when they built the shop they accounted for a natural drainage slope. Over the years the dirt has piled up and that slope is not even any more. I will drag out the extra dirt and take it down to the correct height again. Once we get it all drug out I will order in some 3/4 minus gravel to put into the machine shed. I think 50 cubic yards should do it.

I also found one hole in the concrete wall. I dug out all the loose rock already so I just need to get some sakrete and patch the hole.

Annmarie was busy all day and got the container garden sprinkler system glued together. She has spent evenings and the last two weekends cutting and dry fitting pipe to make sure everything would fit correctly. Twice she came out to the machine shop so Tex or I could untwist a stuck fitting. It is going to be very nice to have this up and going again. As soon as that is done she is going to direct us in setting up the above ground sprinklers for the front hillside. We need those in place so we can start planting. She offered to help with spraying but we only have one tractor and I was using it all day. It doesn’t seem fair to expect her to do tractor work with no tractor.

Fencing fury

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Sunday we decided to start with fencing and hope we could get some parts completed. We went to the fencing supply pile and snagged the last of the railroad ties. My supply pile is getting pretty sparse. I only have one roll of woven wire left, no wooden fence posts and two rolls of smooth wire. We managed to get the last five stood up and my little tractor managed to get them over to the barn lot, but it was not pretty. The chain stretched with the weight of the railroad ties and they went all cattywonkous.

We used the two heaviest ties for the gate crossing the culvert bridge. The tractor was only able to dig those holes about 18″ and I dug the other three feet by hand. It makes for a very sturdy post when it is set in gravel. We are setting all wooden posts in gravel now. They just hold up better and stay stiffer. The gate opening was 16 feet which is a long gate. These gates usually sag so I went into the barn and found one of those wheel attachments and we attached it. I snagged three of them at a yard sale a couple of years ago. This is the first time I have gotten to use one. The real problem came when we tried to attach the gate to the post. We hooked in the bottom part and then swung the gate to see how it moved. Nope, I needed to take some dirt down to make it level.

I spent the next 1.5 hours cutting into the hillside in an attempt to get a level path for the gate. We hand dug it a couple of times and kept marking the path with the gate wheel. I finally had to go dump off the tractor auger and install the box blade. I should have done it an hour earlier.

I spread the dirt out all over the area in an attempt to cover the rock face that keeps trying to jut out of the ground and we made sure the animals can get to water. We also chained the panels together to make sure they stay in place.

As an added bonus we got two solid wood posts installed in the barn lot cross fences and will. Be tightening both of those fences next week. Once we get the culvert and last outer water damaged barn lot fence done next week the entire barn lot will have been redone and should be good for another 7-10 years with just a little repair.

I even got the momma/baby area leveled out. I want to toss out some grass seed this week after work and see if it will grow. Annmarie had me take the dogs out with me as the sheep were mowing our yard. I came inside that evening with a hoarse voice as I had to keep hollering for the dogs to come back or to quit harassing some animal. I even made them stay in place for over an hour a couple of times. It’s good practice for them and they don’t like to do it so it did work out well as a training exercise. My voice is not cut out to holler and swear all day. I am good with that for short periods of time only. We have decided the only dog working videos I can post are sped up and make me sound like a chipmunk. No one can understand what I am saying!

Our current numbers are as follows:

2 death

6 bummers

14 singles (37%)

19 twins (50%)

5 triplets (13%)

38 ewes birthed

57 lambs dosed, tagged and banded

1 lambs to process

Production rate:

Birthed 176%

On our farm and alive 155%.