John Deere tractor

Only a little Gimpy

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On Tuesday I did a walk around the house with the contractor. He wanted to return the overhead lift so he spent a couple of days finishing up the caulking on the upper part of the house. It is looking good. They just have to fix a corner of the front gutters, replace a screen in a window and finish caulking the lower part of the house. They got the yard all cleaned up and we are going to start putting some water on it to cut down on all of the dry weeds the dogs keep bringing into the house.

Mr Rainman came out to mow the fields and has missed coyotes two mornings in a row. Gingerman and I went out Thursday evening and Friday morning and did not see a single coyote. So maybe he managed to scare it off, no body, no credit.

On Wednesday, we had another big event, the dreaded lightning strike fire. We had a storm pass over Pilot Rock and lightning started four fires in a very short amount of time. A couple of the fires got controlled fairly quickly but the wind picked up and started to really spread the flames. The lightning continued to start more fires as it moved. Our area ended up with several big fires. Four days later and there is a state disaster team, agencies and assets from all over the state fighting fires around us. Highway 395 is closed down 39 miles outside of town and we are surrounded by smoke. The fires are continuing to grow. Luckily for us the fire never jumped the highway before town so we were safe and the wheat crop next to the houses is intact and ready to be harvested, not everyone was as lucky. I spent a couple of hours driving around looking for our Border Collie, Chance. She got out of the yard during the storm. She came back to the house as I was headed down the driveway. Annmarie called me to let me know she just showed up at the front gate ready to be let inside the yard. Milo is doing great, he is going to the vet to get neutered next week. He doesn’t know it yet.

Well I am officially out of the boot and able to bear weight on my healing foot as long as I wear a stiff soled shoe. I heard this on Monday so I started walking around with the boot as I did not have any shoes for the right broken foot. It hurt, pins and needles and stinging when I bore weight on it. After only six weeks no weight bearing I expected to just jump right back into the hard manual labor and, per the wife, I did not listen again. I didn’t want to listen, I don’t want to rehab, I don’t want to take it easy! But after having to sleep 10-12 hours each night after bearing weight I would say it is a lot harder than I expected. First thing in the morning when I put my foot down the whole thing has pins and needles. I am walking with a slight limp that progresses if I push it too much. So I am trying to take it easy for me.

Mr Rainman came out on Saturday and we went out and wormed the sheep. Most of the sheep look great but some of the ewes are pretty skinny so we worm when that happens especially since they are out and about on the farm. I was able to use the drencher device and it is so much faster than filling syringes. It still took us a couple of hours to go through the herd. He jumped in with the sheep in the chute and held them so I could dose them. You always get your feet stepped on when you are in the chute and I do not need that yet. One ewe had an abscess on her chin that I lanced. They get them from the cheat grass. We have been mowing and spraying the cheat grass but this year it is winning. We are planning on spraying Rejuvra on the fields this fall to help us control the cheat grass. This time in the barn pointed out that we still need to dig out the barn and the chicken coop. They are on the list. Mr Rainman wants to put the heavy panels in the hay room so he doesn’t have to carry them as far. Normally we take them outside the barn. This is a valid strategy he employed today to get the barn opened up today so he is ready to start digging it out with the manure forks on the John Deere 2520 tractor. The smaller tractor is the only one that will fit into the barn.

The plan was to hook up the small sickle bar mower to the John Deere tractor but Mr Rainman had to move equipment around in the machine shed first. I put away my auction winnings that the progeny, Gingerman and I picked up on Friday. The tools were brand new and looked unused, I should have bid on more tools. I did not win the large toolbox I wanted. I am looking to create a metric toolbox and a standard so that I can easily find the correct tool. I am filling up the big tool box and cannot fit any more open end wrenches or sockets in it. We wrestled the mower onto the tractor then spent an hour getting it greased up and the teeth oiled. I needed to mow the orchard and for it to be feasible we needed the smaller tractor and the smaller sickle bar. This was not the offending sickle bar that I broke my foot on. Except we were not sure that this sickle bar was in working condition. After doing everything possible to make it work I cut the orchard with it. It was brutal as the grass was too high. I also managed to hit one of the metal horse panels encircling a tree. Luckily, the mower belts started to slip and I quickly turned off the pto, usually I pop off a bar tooth when this happens. I was able to pry it off and get back to cutting. The plan was to just pick up the downed grass and toss it over the fence for the animals. The sheep and eater cows can get to it.

After all that I was whooped and needed a shower and some rest. I took a nap!

On Sunday, I cleaned house and moved upstairs back into our bedroom. I have been sleeping downstairs so I did not have to try and maneuver the stairs with a bum foot. So the puppy and I are now back in the master bedroom. Things are starting to get back to normal.

Haying is progressing with a little help from my friends

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The big obstacle after breaking my foot was going to be getting the rest of the hay baled and then put up in the barn. The day after I broke my foot the baler broke, it is skipping a drive chain due to all the wear on the gears, the gears need replaced, adjusting the chain length and tension is no longer working. That same afternoon the John Deere tractor blew out seal and quit moving due to a malfunction in the front right steering mechanism. Turns out this is a common issue and a design defect that eventually rears its ugly head. The tractor is over ten years old and has been used hard, It has over 2000 hours on it. Due to it not being able to move they had to come out and pull off the assembly. This took about a week to fix but the cost went from $2000 to $4100. This is a lot cheaper than a new tractor but not pleasant. Especially, when you consider I had to order parts for the baler.

The baler is an Abbriata, made in Italy and really only one dealer carries parts in the United States. When I called to order parts the first time I learned that the company no longer sells this brand small round baler. Abbriata was sold recently and the prices jumped almost 50%. So my $13k baler is now $20k. This made it easy to order replacement parts. I got roller gears and chain ordered then the next day remembered that we forgot to order the small gears. I called back and got the same service representative and those got ordered, I now have $2k worth of spare parts coming for the baler. On the plus side, I will be able to sit in a chair and help direct the baler repair. I am getting used to working on it even if I don’t like it.

The Go Getter, Mr Rainman and the former Gimp, now called the Mermaid volunteered to help me bring in bales. (The Gimp made an argument for a name change. Normally, I don’t do name changes for the blog but she was compelling and she stated that a Gimp could not pickup hay and that currently I was the Gimp. It made sense in a convoluted way and she was correct as I was wearing the walking boot not her.) This made me the designated driver but since we were starting first thing in the morning and I could only use one foot to operate the gas and brake simultaneously the first trip was a little jerky jerky and I killed it about ten times before the engine warmed up and I did not have to keep my foot on the gas 100% of the time. We managed to pickup four loads (by we, I mean that the puppy, Milo, and I watched while everyone else did the hard work). It was a Friday so he had to come with me so the siding guy could use the boom without fear of driving over the puppy.

Luckily, the Gingerman offered to come down the next weekend and rake and bale the hay we had down. It took a solid day but he was able to bale around 150 square bales equivalent to 6 tons of grass hay.

Mr Rainman, the Go Getter and Mr Second Career came over during the week and picked up more bales in an attempt to get them out of the fields. Mr Second Career had borrowed the Kubota to mow down weeds and volunteered to help pickup hay. The Go Getter just feels sorry for me and volunteered to bale me out. They got most of the hay into the barn or lamb shed. The square bales are a lot heavier so they went into the lamb shed as they are easier to load and don’t get stacked as high.

The Gingerman tells me there are about 70 round bales in field one still to pickup. He thinks he can do it on Monday. Once that is done we will only have the orchard to mow and rake. I think we will just pick it up loose and feed the alpaca. The last bit down by the school house is about 25-35 bales only. But we have to have the round baler working and the small sickle bar mower working. Both spaces are very small and tight and need the small equipment to be able to fit. This won’t happen until after Fourth of July. I am unable to help with this issue.

Farm 3/ Predators 3

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The predators are gaining ground fast. We had another chicken killed the day after the first two. I have been going out at dark and again at 0200 armed with pistol and spotlight. I need more light than a flashlight, 400k lumens of brightness. I have not seen the raccoon since the first night I shot at it. Unfortunately, Mr Rainman and Gingerman have both spotted a raccoon but have been unable to get a shot off as they were unarmed. So everyone is starting to pack all of the time now so they can snag a predator.

Friday evening the Gingerman missed out on an opportunity to shoot at a coyote because he was unarmed. We had a cow die and he went up with the pallet forks mounted on the Kubota to remove it from the field and place it on the bone pile. It was one of our original heifers, so she was 15 years old. Unknown cause of death, but she had just been walking around earlier that morning. Luckily, Gingerman got to her before she popped. It has been very warm and they bloat up pretty fast and opening up that will make a very odiferous mess. I expect the vultures to show up in a couple of days. They fly up from the reservoir and can eat on that carcass for over a week. We might even get an eagle or two scavenging. The eagles will chase off the vultures, they chase off everything! No one wants to mess with a bird that is that big. We have not lost any sheep that we know of so far.

I did tear apart the John Deere driveline this week. I was convinced it was the U joints on the driveline. Surprisingly they made it really easy to remove. Pop the snap ring off, drive out the shearable pin then drive the shaft toward the back wheels. The back end slides along splines and then once the front is off you just drive the shaft off the rear splines. Nope, once the thing was off the U joints have zero slop in them. I think it is the rear spline attachment getting sloppy because the rubber guards have been missing and this allows grass to wrap around the U joints and drive shaft. I dug out all of the dirt in the rear cavity and installed both U joint guards, rubber sleeves. I need to order some more parts so I can fix it. I have started a new shopping list with each piece of equipment a category and then just list the part I need under that category. This way when I get around to ordering parts I don’t forget something.

Gingerman took out the radiator on the 1957 truck and is getting it repaired. Once it is repaired then we can drive the truck in to the brake shop and they can finish adjusting the brakes. The drums and pads will need to be inspected. Once that is done I will need to work on a 12 inch rail going around the truck bed to hold in the dirt and or rocks that we put in the dump bed. They have to be attached to the bed so when you engage the dump bed you don’t throw off the racks every time.

Farm 3/ Predators 2

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There tends to be an optimism that persists whenever you are talking about predator control. Maybe it’s hope, maybe it’s bragging rights but whatever it is it does happen. I have had to decrease the farm score this year as last night a raccoon killed two chickens. It was most likely the same raccoon I saw at 0200 when I took the puppy outside to potty. I was of course in a robe and slippers without any glasses on. No way it was a cat as it jumped out of the large wild rose bush and proceeded to run down the creek and under the fence and then down the creek. It was very noisy. I was ignoring it until Mr Rainman sent me pictures of two dead chickens today with a third one injured. If the stupid chickens would go inside the coop this would not happen.

So now I am going to have to go out, check on the chickens and then just stand around looking for frogs to see who can out wait whom. A classic game of prey vs predator.

Since the farm is ahead of the predators I decided I had better be proactive tonight and make sure all of the chickens went into the coop before the automatic chicken door closed. All of the chickens were inside and the only animal I spotted was the grey barn kitty down by the creek. I was standing by the coop looking into the back creek with my spotlight trying to find the noisy frog that I know was right in front of me when a damn raccoon jumped out of the bush next to the chicken coop. It was running over the overhead soon to be roof supports. I had my trusty suppressed 22 pistol and started flinging lead into the sky. I for sure hit it at least once if not twice. By the time I got around the coop and into the ram pasture it was running toward the barn. I am a firm believer in more lead matters, so I continued to fling it. I managed to get off nine rounds and had to search the barn. I was unable to find the raccoon in the barn. Annmarie thinks it is living over the tack room during the day.

Mr Rainman came out today and repaired the sickle mower for the Kubota tractor. Later he went out and finished cutting field one. I think there is about three acres left to process in that field. I really need to focus on repairing the u joints on the John Deere tractor tomorrow. I had to dig out some grass on the driveline on Sunday and the U joints are bad! I have all the parts to repair it but have not taken the time to actually do it.

We had to take a break today to unload the antiques we won at an auction. One of the local antique stores in Pendleton was having multiple clearance online auctions and today was pickup day. I had to make two trips with the pickup to get everything. Now I will need to wash and polish everything up. We are going to rearrange our living room and Annmarie’s office to fit the new furniture. We are actually going to get rid of three items and replace them with three new ones! I scrubbed the bronze book ends and small brass sculpture tonight. Plus, I managed to score some more old marbles!

Hay storage remodel

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I have been thinking about hay so Mr Rainman was mowing fields, the cheat grass is trying to take over parts of the farm. I went in and moved out the last of the broken hay bales and started to dig out the hay storage area in the machine shed. Once I had all the hay out I cleaned it out with the bucket and started working on digging a “T” shape at the back of the building to allow me to put in a French drain that will remove moisture and drain it out into a water sink in front of the building. The runoff from the roof is collecting and causing moisture issues.

Mr Rainman and I spent about two hours digging ditch and moving the dirt out. We are waiting on gravel to be delivered. I ordered it and it came this week. The ditch needs to be a little deeper and then I will install the drain and fill it up with gravel. Once that is done the entire bottom will be graveled. My hope is that I can get the Gingerman to come over with a bigger tractor and stack the bales 3-4 high. I could store 45 large bales in that area if they are stacked. Once we have the inside all completed we will work on a French drain on the backside of the machine shed. I dug a gravel trench years ago and it did make a huge difference but now I want the majority of the moisture to go away fairly quickly. We are no longer just getting “a little” rain at a time now. We are getting 1/2-1” at a time! This causes other problems. If you had not noticed the problems tend to change therefore causing new problems that old solutions no longer cure.

Once Mr Rainman left I got on the tractor and mowed cheatgrass until dark. I remembered why I need to not wear my hearing aids with ear muffs after the muffs pushing my ear up against the hearing aid for four hours. I had a heck of an external ear ache that lasted a few hours. Plus, the external pocket battery did not have enough juice to recharage my Bluetooth speaker headphones so I had to mow in silence. I charged them up that night so that would not happen again!

The wife says I managed to snore and moan at the same time in my sleep that night. She believes that I should do some form of baseline exercise year round instead of diving right in at spring time and working myself into the ground or until I cannot physically continue. It does make more logical sense, no question about it. In another month or so I should be past most of the pain.

We are having raccoon issues again. We have one coming to the back porch where we feed the cats. The Gingerman and wife failed to kill it. I have not seen it yet but keep getting woken up by the dogs barking which causes me to get out of bed and attempt to see the raccoon. No luck, but I am not losing chickens yet so I will keep after it. Eventually, I will get lucky or the raccoon will get unlucky.