kubota tractor

Gazebo progress continues

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It was supposed to rain all day and it looked like it was going to so I drug my feet on going outside. I didn’t think picking rocks in the rain would be fun. Annmarie told me I could finish the barn but honestly digging up sheep poop fell to the bottom of my want list. Instead, I went through and prioritized my auction choices and whittled them down to two pages worth of items. I have seven days left to make up my mind about whether I want/need anything. I want several things, the real question is do I need it? I will let you know as we get closer to the deadline. The price may determine my need.

I was able to get more done on the pad reinforcement. I only managed to get the tractor up on three tires twice while loading the bucket by hand. You just have to keep removing rocks until the tractor sets back onto all four tires. Sometimes I just hang on the side of the tractor and jump up and down to get it to fall back on all its tires. If this works then I drive it down the road to empty the bucket. You just have to be careful not to run over anything that will cause the tractor tires to leave the road or else the bump will be exaggerated by the off center load.

I tried to leave the gate into the wheat field open again today. I did it yesterday and the five alpaca ended up out in the wheat field. I had to chase them out with the tractor. Yesterday, they were visible and around the gate when I left it open. Today, I looked to make sure that no alpacas were present. One of them saw me leave the gate open and came running. I again had to go chase them back with the tractor. I am closing the gate every time now. Milo and Chance have been staying in the yard, I open the corral gate and leave it open while I unload the bucket, both dogs stay in the yard!

I was talking to the kids today about leveling off the down hill area near the gazebo and then I casually mentioned that I probably needed to level the hillside approaching the gazebo. I am going to build this up with dirt and rock hillside. This just means bringing more rocks down into the yard, then more dirt. I will keep taking dirt from the old Blacksmith shop area. I just have to pick out the metal I find as I dig.

Once I get the pad supported I will dig a trench at the top and line it with a French drain pipe and run that down the hillside and under the new section I will gravel over. Once that is in place I will bring in another 3-4” of gravel over the top of the pad on that side. I may have to get another load of gravel delivered to the house.

I really need to work on building the new 3-point weight box. This will help the tractor stay on four wheels with a heavy load in the bucket area. My old one was commercially built and it fell apart, even with me welding it two more times. The metal was too thin. I have some 3/8” L stock I can make the next one out of and it will not twist, bend or break. I am going to cut the old one apart and use some of it in the new one, waste not want not.

Gazebo progress

Steve Hardin1 Comment

Monday was the day I was going to finish the barn clean out. The trouble with that is I needed to go help the Gingerman unload the flat bed trailer with the hay on it. We fed one bale to the alpaca as they had been helping themselves to it while it was on the trailer. The second large bale went out to the cows and momma sheep. There is plenty of grass still for them but they are lazy. Once that bale is gone they will have to go back to working for their food. We are trying to get the sheep pregnant so some extra calories will not hurt them a bit. It had rained just over half an inch in the last week. But 2/10” was last night so I decided to run the land plane over the gravel road to refresh it and knock down any holes. I love the land plane, it does a great job on the gravel road. I have to wait until the road has had a good soaking or I cannot work it easily. I then switched over the arena groomer and smoothed out all the ground I had disced up for a fire break. I also used the arena groomer to clean up the field that I had plowed. I made a burn pile of all the weeds. I will need to do the other field next and it needs a burn pile also. I can burn those in December/January.

I went inside to have some lunch and another cup of coffee and told wife I did not want to dig out the barn. So she convinced me to just work on moving rocks for the Gazebo instead. I know that sounds counterintuitive but I did not want to shovel in the barn. Instead I loaded big rocks and some smaller ones. I need 50# plus rocks for the base of the support wall then all rocks above those need to be at least six inches or larger. I am told that is what is needed to stabilize the pad to prevent it from sloughing. The amount of rain we are getting has caused part of the pad to slough. So it has moved up the priority list and cannot wait until winter. I had visions of just piling up the rocks but once I picked up a shovel to mark the base layer I just shoveled the entire thing and called it done! I am going to bring over a hand truck so I can just scoop one large rock up at a time and wheel it into place. I will start working on this after work for at least 30 minutes so it can be over and done.

Regardless, I managed to escape digging poop out of the barn today. That is a joy for another day.

Our new back door Ring camera placement did not detect anything last night. We even reviewed all the footage. We had a hard time seeing so Annmarie asked that I move the camera closer. I moved it over to another closer planter bin and the focal length for the camera is much better. We get a clearer picture. Now it is just a matter of it alerting me to a predator and I can do my part and avenge Cheddar!

Barn dig out initiated

Steve HardinLeave a comment

The big question of the day, will the new tractor fit into the barn? Before I could answer that question I had to go out and pick tomatoes from the back garden. The onions have been ready but with the party we just left them in the ground. I pulled them all out and hung them over the edges of a bin to dry out and form a skin. We had two bins worth of onions but one of the bins had some volunteer tomatoes come up so I am going to keep watering the tomato plant in the hopes of getting more fruit. I also planted beets in the old pea bin. I will probably plant some carrots this weekend in one of the other empty bins. I need to chop off some of the low growing branches on the back tree as it is starting to get in the way again. I will just add that to the list.

I need to work on the greenhouse again. Mr Rainman told me if I watched some YouTube videos I will need to caulk the panels in certain places to hold them in. I have had two panels pop out this last week. But the next thing after the barn dig out is moving rocks. I MUST get the rocks on the hillside below the gazebo put in place. The plan is super large rocks at the base of the mound and then at least 5-6” rocks all over the hillside to stabilize the gazebo base. After all of the effort to get the gazebo up and build the pad I do not need it washing out.

I was able to find my manure forks for the tractor bucket and install them. I was actually able to drive in and out of the barn without moving any fence but I had about three inches of clearance on each side and that is not realistic for hours of in and out travel. So I removed distal half of the fence on the left side of the entrance. I am going to move the entire fence over 12-18” when I rebuild it. That will be the last thing I do after cleaning out the barn. I put in a few hours today moving dirt and muck and have the barn over 50% done. I was able to hand dig out the entire sorting chute and did not have to remove it. This saved me about an hour of labor. I find that the labor gets a little harder every year. I was even able to turn the tractor around inside the barn. That is the real test of too big. The hydraulics are a little touchier than the John Deere so I am still getting used to them. My hope is to get the barn and gate all completed this weekend then I can switch gears and start hauling rocks.

I moved some water into the chicken yard and the chickens have started to lay in the coop again. I am getting at least four eggs/day now. The dog eats 2/day and the wife 1/day so they are at least out producing our daily consumption. I still have not gotten the roof on the yard but that project keeps getting pushed out to a later date.

I was thinking today in the shower about a seating area outside the gazebo. I may create a level gravel area outside and below the gazebo. There is a section of the hillside below the gazebo that has shallow soil and a rock bluff that not much grows there but cheat grass. I would need to build a retaining wall out of metal panels like I did for the horse area. This would make a nice gathering area. It’s a thought. If I do it I will need to put in some subterranean drain pipe to allow the gazebo roof to drain appropriately and keep the bank stabilized. I will keep musing on this idea to see if it is doable without too much work. Annmarie talked to me about putting in a water feature on the other side and I will want to do that before anything! I love a good water feature. My last one looked like a pair of breasts, it was accidental but everyone said the same thing when they saw it. It will be shallow so there will be no fish but I am hopeful that the birds will use it to bath in and the bees will be able to easily and safely get water.

Granary progress

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Well the granary situation has improved dramatically. It was going to cost almost $700 in sheet metal and welding wire to make another 5x5x5’ bin and one of the nephews sent me a link for a local person selling two large upright bins! I did not need both of them despite their willingness to sell me both. So for $750 they delivered it to the house on Friday. I had cleared a spot and dropped a bunch of gravel in place but after looking at the container I think I need to level the area and then drill five holes in the ground, add some wire and fill them up with concrete. I can take a piece of all thread and put it into the concrete when it’s wet. I don’t think I will try and line up the holes with the grain bin. I will just weld some plates and bolt them in place.

I also managed to get some paint sprayed on the finished bin I repaired and got the slider door installed. Of course when I used a chain to roll the bin I bent the brand new door. I crawled inside and beat it back into shape with a hammer. It works now, it’s a little stiff but that is not a bad thing as I want opening the door to be an intentional act. It looks like the bin has a ladder built into its side so someone can climb the bin and open the top when filling it. This is a good thing as long as you are not scared of heights. I will have to get the cap removal process down before we lift it into the air. I would like to stand on the ground while learning, not holding onto the ladder with one arm 25’ into the air while fighting the lid with the other.

The Naked Gardener called on Thursday to say that he thinks his field is ready to cut again. I swung by on Friday and he is right, it is ready. So I spent most of the day Friday tearing the baler apart. I figured out that it is a lot easier to work on if you remove the front arms and some extra pieces. It took about an hour to disassemble the front but it was a lot easier getting to everything else. There was one guide piece I could not remove but I just worked around it. I was going to have to grind the nuts off and it is just not necessary as I am not replacing it. I replaced about 1/3 of the pickups and tubes. Anything that was bent got tossed in the trash. I have about an hour left to get the races lined up and then I can spend another hour putting the front all back together. I also need to replace a hydraulic hose. The entire thing is covered in hydraulic fluid. It needs a wash down.

Unfortunately, I am on a timer now. I went over and cut the field this evening. So the new tractor “Juicy” has had a flat tire for two weeks in the upper field, I had to go up and remove the tire tonight so it can be fixed. The hay turner is on the back and it needs about 45 minutes of TLC before I can go turn the hay. Once that is done then I will need to spend three hours with the baler to get it up and running so I can bale the hay!

I also will need to install the two new gates on our stairs to prevent the grandchild from crawling up and falling down from the bottom or falling down the stairs from the top. This is what happens when your grandparents work in the hospital and see bad stuff all the time.

The new chickens area settling in nicely. All of them are staying out of the yard which is good for them as being a play toy for the dog tends to an eventual slow death.

We now have three kittens living under the old house porch. We have installed a temporary fence to keep Mouse away from them as he is a definite kitten killer. He only comes on weekends with the kids. Of course, the kittens don’t know this so they were going through the fence as they are now starting to become very active. So we now have a plastic chicken netting zip tied to the fence so the kittens cannot get through the fence. Milo likes the kittens so we will work on socializing him to them. He still does not like their mother and barks at her whenever he sees her.

More priorities

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I was forced to finally tear into the instant hot water propane tank. We had gotten past the decision to run the dishwasher or washing machine; washing machine or shower; shower or washing machine, if you tried to run two at the same time no one gets hot water. I have to do it every 1-2 years. I do run vinegar through it every year to minimize the hard water deposits to prevent the pipes from corroding. However, there is no warning about the flies. The flies come down the exhaust pipe and then die in the squirrel cage fan. They get stuck in the fan and get smeared inside the circular part of the squirrel cage, creating a drag for the air so the heater is not cooled down enough. This causes an error when there is too much demand on the hot water heater. I have to unplug some electrical connections and remove the fan then clean up the fan and then wipe out all of the bug guts from the inside wall of the fan housing. It takes a couple of hours to get it all cleaned and dried. Annmarie was wondering why her hair dryer was out and plugged in upstairs when she got home. I used it to make sure the fan was completely dry before reinstalling it. I only forgot to plug one thing back together and I figured that out when I tried to start it and it threw a code immediately and refused to heat up water. We are now back to unlimited hot water of any quantity!

We had a fire scare last week. Someone had one of their hay stacks catch on fire on the edge of Pilot Rock. The trouble was it was the edge closest to our house and the wind was blowing almost 20 MPH directly towards our house. The state police stopped and gave us a warning to get ready to evacuate. I went out and hooked up the disc to the tractor and started to disc next to the fence and next to the road and around all of the buildings. Normally, we have fires a little later in the season after the wheat field is harvested. They disc in a nice fire break all around the wheat field as soon as they harvest the outside. In a month there would have already been a fire break in place. The Gingerman is working on the brakes of the old truck so we can get it set up to fight fire. I ended up getting very dirty and will be spraying the area in the early spring to kill the vegetation so that it will be easier to disc.

One of our neighbors offered to have me cut one of their fields that had been flooded out in the spring. It had random cheat grass throughout it and it took some driving around with the sickle bar before I figured out what parts of it were worth cutting for hay. Of course before I could even cut anything I had to repair the tractor tire that got punctured while discing for a fire break. Of course, the tire could not be repaired the internal side wall was breaking apart, I am sure it is from moving the large bales. I need to keep more air in the front tires. I had to go in and pickup the tire on Friday.

I had a hard time getting to the sickle bar mower as it was on the tractor with the flat. I got the sickle bar off but had already taken the flat tire off of the tractor. So I just started the tractor, leveled off the bucket, lifted the front tires off the ground and slid forward on the bucket, Clementine did just fine. I did this so I had enough room to squeeze in Juicy behind and hook up the sickle bar. I had to fight, wiggle, cuss and lever the sickle bar to get it hooked up to the new Kubota. The five foot mower is lot for that little tractor. I was able to get the field cut. The next afternoon I turned the hay and it was going to be ready to be baled on Saturday. It is drying out very fast. I just needed to finish reassembly on the baler.