kubota tractor

Baling done, now real work begins

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Well, I did it, I managed to get all the hay baled. It was not a smooth process. I wish it would just happen but it just doesn’t seem like that is possible. I am sure that the key to being a farmer is to expect that stuff will break when you want to use it and stubbornness is a necessity to succeed. I was headed over on Saturday by 0715 to bale with some moisture on the hay so it would be “sticky” enough to bale. I was headed up the last little hill that has a horrible washboarded section when all of sudden I heard a loud clanging and the tractor shifted. I slammed on the brakes and looked behind me. The baler had jumped off the tractor pin hitch and was sideways in the road. I had bent half the pto shaft under the tractor and the hydraulic hose and pull rope had come disconnected.

I ended up using the broken pto shaft as a wheel stop and pushed the baler with the tractor to get it lined up with the road. I had used a small strap to tie the two 3 point arms together so I used those to lift the tongue of the baler so I could put the bent pin back in and limp home. Once I got home I ran to town and got a new PTO shaft. Unfortunately, I picked up a shaft for a 3 point hole auger. Those have one connection that is different so I ended up pulling apart a short one I had and using it on one end and the new one on the other end. It worked great. I got a new bigger pin and drove over to get some baling done at 1030. I was just pulling into the field when it dawned on me that I should check the hydraulic dump on the baler. I managed to shoot hydraulic fluid all over the tractor and myself. I had torn apart the hose and not noticed the connection broken at the baler. So I once again had to drive back to the house and unhook the hose and take the parts into town to see if a new end piece could be attached to old hose. For $25 they were able to repair the hose! I have lots of extra hose so I can break the end off a few more times before it becomes an issue. It was now 1430 and too hot to bale hay. The hay will have to wait till Sunday. I was able to get some of our front hillside weed eated. I also got the water hooked up for the hillside and the lavender and put on timers.

Sunday I was out the door by 0515 with water, breakfast sandwich (cheese, tortilla and precooked sausage patty) and coffee. I was able to finish the top field pretty quickly but when I went to the lower field I started snapping shear bolts. I ended up going back up to the top field and stacking bales to the outside and in a few piles then went over the entire field again picking up the sloppy edges. Once that was done I went back down to the lower field. I really should have turned the lower field a third time. I need to remember that it needs one more than the upper field. I ended up lifting the back half of the round baler and using it like a rower to fluff five rows so I could bale them. I think there are about five bales on the bottom that I will have to leave out of the barn and test for moisture content. It is not hard to tell which ones are wet as they weigh twice what every other bale weighs.

I ended up with a total of 170 bales made. We feed 6 bales/day in the winter so I have one month already done. Now the hard part starts. I have about 100 bales in the second hay area that are 2 years old. They need to be moved onto the overhead platform to be used as bedding. I will then clean out the hay room and get the new hay into this room. I alternate rooms every year and we always feed out of the previous year’s hay. So I will be moving hay most every evening until this gets done.

Who needs a new tractor?

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Well I want a new tractor but what I really need it for is to lift big bales full height. So it needs to bigger than the two I currently own. I went to the dealer and for that lift capability I need to get something with over 50 HP. Which is going to run somewhere in the $50k range without a cab. I cannot spend that much for a little convenience. I need the smaller tractors to run my hay equipment and I need the little John Deere as it is the only tractor small enough to get inside the barn. It takes almost 30 hours to dig the barn out with the tractor and move all of the poop. That is not a job I want to do by hand anymore. It would take me a month or better of back breaking labor. As it is I have to dig by hand for about 8 of those 30 hours. So that dream was crushed by reality, I need to win the lottery.

I got the John Deere loaded on the trailer so it could be dropped off at the shop. They told me that if I delivered it they could look at it same day. It was leaking so much hydraulic fluid that I had to toss a five gallon bucket and spout into the back of the pickup so I would be able to fill the fluid level up, allowing me to drive it off the trailer. It was pouring out by the time I got it off the trailer. They said they would call with an estimate. They called a few hours later, $9K to fix it! The hydrostatic casing had a hole worn in it and the casing and the pump need to be changed, $6k in parts, $3k in labor. I had a minor meltdown as the front left knuckle will need to be rebuilt in a couple of years also and it was $3500 for the left, it will be more this next time. I thought that was half a tractor.

Again, I go back to the Kubota tractor dealer and say I want another new tractor but I need something smaller than what I currently own. It turns out they had just gotten a subcompact in the day before and it was still crated up. So we looked at it in the crate and I said it had to have rear PTO hydraulic connections. I need them for my baler and my smaller sickle bar mower. I tossed in a new 5’ brush hog and 5’ land plane for my bigger tractor. I am going to have to name them now. The Mistress (my very first tractor, John Deere 2520) will have to be laid to rest. The Gingerman said he would take it and eventually do the work himself. He is super busy for the foreseeable future and will need to work it in. The repair price was not half of a new tractor. It was more like 30% of a new tractor! A new tractor was $28k, the two pieces were only another $4k.

They are now going to assemble my new ride but the hydraulic takeoffs have to be ordered in and then installed. So it may be a couple more weeks before I actually get to use it.

I discovered another repair project. The old lamb shed wall is pushing off its bottom supports. I will need to add a couple of new supports and then drill and concrete in a couple of pieces of steel pipe to prevent the wall from pushing out when we stack hay in the building. This is not a surprise but it will need to be fixed before the wind tears the building down.

I had another neighbor tell me that they have a wild honeybee hive that they want removed. I had them send me pictures and yes they are honeybees and yes it is going to be messy. You can see the honey coming out between the boards near the bottom of the wall. Luckily, they are going to tear the building down so we have permission to just tear into the building. That is on the list for the upcoming weekend. The Gingerman and I are going to attempt to find the queen.

Officially haying

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Well hay season has officially started. I took the arena groomer off of the Kubota and had the Gingerman help me get the sickle bar attached. It is a five minute job with two people, alone it takes me 20-30 minutes using a pry bar to get it in place. I was able to use the five foot blade instead of the little four foot one I usually use on the John Deere. I went over to the neighbor’s and started to cut grass hay. I spent a few hours cutting his upper and lower field. I had spotted a white peacock hen in his chicken coop the evening before so when he came out to talk I asked him where he got it. Turns out it roams around a few miles and the neighbors see it occasionally. It had snuck in the back door of his chicken coop and was having a free easy meal. It had already flown the coop! I managed to not shear a single upright pipe on the bottom pasture. He does have some poison oak growing in one corner so I am going to have to brush that out of the way and come back with some herbicide and clear the fence line. I don’t want that gaining any more pasture ground.

When I came back I noticed that there was a large hydraulic streak running down the driveway. That large rock I hit with the John Deere caused a hydraulic leak on the middle bottom side of the tractor. It is going to have to go in for repair. I am not qualified to do that type of work. My mechanic skills are basic to middling. So I took the Kubota up to field one to cut down some of the cheat grass. I want to hay the field but not the cheat grass. My plan was to cut the cheat grass out of field one and two then when I rake the cut hay I can come out and rake all of the cheatgrass into a single row so I can burn it or bury it into one pile. This helps remove the seeds from the field. I was going along great until I hooked the end onto the gate and broke a tooth. The tooth got jammed in place and bar froze. This was on Saturday.

So I came back to the house and put a panel on the side gate near the top. The Gingerman had finally spotted our Border Collie, Chance, climbing the gate and going through the top of the gate. We knew she was getting out but had not yet caught her doing it. We had isolated it to that side and that section of fencing but the exact location was still unclear. Since adding the panel she has not gotten out once.

On Sunday I tore apart the sickle bar, fixed the tooth. It was of course installed upside down the first time. I had to grind down the rivets and then beat them out, turn it over and do it again. I headed out and started mowing more cheat grass until the entire end of the sickle bar fell off. The bolt I had welded on last year broke and I lost a few pieces in the grass. I will need to order some replacement parts but the mower is out of commission until they come. Luckily, I had all of the actual hay cut and I will be able to bale it. I can wait 2-3 weeks before I cut any more fields.

Spring is here

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I managed to get the first wave of weed spraying completed on Friday. I have done every fence line but the one down by the schoolhouse. Now we wait 7-12 days to see what happens. It is the only real downside to using Roundup, there is no instant gratification when you drive by a few hours later. I was able to get done by 1400 and it didn’t start to rain until after midnight. In a week or two I will need to set the sprayer up to start laying down 2-4-D and Milestone to get ahead of the thistles. We have been battling various types of thistle since we returned. There are four different kinds of thistle present on our property.

Saturday first thing I helped unload concrete from the progeny’s house. My contribution was driving the tractors! I got both tractors and as I dumped one the Gingerman loaded the other one. It was pretty quick to unload six buckets of concrete. I have been using it to stabilize the embankment. After those two horrible floods our bank got seriously eroded. We just built the dirt back over the culvert and now something was needed to keep it in place. So I have been systematically alternating dumping on each side to widen the coverage along the embankment. It doesn’t look the best but it is a lot safer now crossing in that area. It was getting too soft to cross with the pickup. Now I would feel confident that the pickup would not just slide down the embankment. It is deep and steep enough that getting the pickup out uninjured might not be possible.

We are still feeding the cows. They are supposed to have babies in April so as they transition over to green grass I want to keep them full of nutrients. The sheep are going up and eating the grass every day. They put themselves up in the barn every night. If the weather is nice they sit right outside the barn on the small hill. This makes it very easy for us as we don’t have to do anything with them now. I will need to go out and count lambs again eventually before we move them anywhere.

It is just past the middle of March and the trees are starting to bloom, one is an apricot and the other is a peach I think. I was out adding gravel and fresh compost to the blueberry bins. Annmarie tested the sheep compost piles for me this weekend to see if I can use them for filler. Nope, they are smoking hot and filled with a bunch of nitrogen. So much that not a single weed will grow on the piles. I am going to have to get the manure spreader up and running so I can spread it out this year and not pay for fertilizer. Fertilizer is very expensive currently. I did order diesel for the farm but it’s over $5.75/gallon at the pump currently so I have no idea what it will cost. I figured I just better get it done now and when it needs it in August/September again maybe the price will be lower. I have to have the 150 gallon tank filled twice annually. It is only used for the two tractors.

I took a couple of hours on Friday and Saturday to work on the rock wall. I am starting to make progress and want to get it done so we can start planting bulbs on the left side and getting ready to place the new small metal fence on top of the wall. I am finally starting to see a difference. It took a lot of work to get there. My exercise plan is working!

Greenhouse project started

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Friday was a solid day on the farm. Mr Rainman came out to help this weekend and we were able to work on the base of the greenhouse. This took about three hours to level and set. We filled the middle with gravel and there are four earth anchors screwed into the ground almost three feet. I tried to find bolts anywhere on the farm that were long enough to go through the anchor and into the frame. No go, I had to run to town to get four eight inch 1/2” bolts with washer and nut cost $6/each! We were going to turn the greenhouse more toward the South but due to trying to protect the door from wind we went with this orientation. The greenhouse door will be on the old house side of this foundation. It was time to get the greenhouse up as we have had it in a box for several years.

Once we had that base done, we started to haul dirt to cover the culvert crossing. The dirt has been flushed away several years ago and I had not corrected it yet. So we hauled over a few yards of dirt and flattened it out with the tractors. This should make the crossing much easier now.

Mr Rainman drove out a large bale of hay out to the momma cows. We still have the last calves in the orchard. They still hide as far from us as they can in the orchard. They do walk around even if we are outside but they are still crazy.

I decided to work on the tractor gun mount. Mr Rainman pointed out that the tractor had two bolts on the roll bar and I could just bolt the support up instead of welding it to the bucket arms. It was going to be in the way visually if I mounted it to bucket arms. It was a great idea so I went with it. I cut the channel iron to the correct length, then proceeded to clean up the metal with a grinder.

As I was grinding on the rifle rack my wire wheel kicked back and sucked up my pants! I let off the trigger as soon as I realized it but the damage was done to my pants. I ended up with a couple of small superficial scratches from the wheel. Pretty good.

I painted it, then mounted eyebolts on the ends. I figured I am always trying to hang more stuff off the tractor since I don’t have a tool box that is very big and the eye hooks will let me hang a bag or just clip stuff onto the rack. I mounted the locking arms and then tried to bolt it onto the tractor. I was off by 1/4” on one of my holes and had to scoot the hole over. This is much harder in a piece of steel than it is in wood! I got it all done and now just need to use a piece of closed cell foam cut to the barrel shape to keep the front of the rifle from bouncing around. I ordered non lubricated condoms so I can cover the barrel opening with a condom and a rubber band. I am ready for predators now! I might have to put in some practice since I only get one shot! I wanted minimal parts and movement that could get mucked up from all of the dust, dirt and rain.

We had some friends bring out 16 laying hens. They are getting out of the chicken raising gig. I had to go out after dark, find them and toss them all into the chicken coop. They were all roosting outside the coop on the fence by the old house. Chickens are not that bright. The nice thing is their chickens are used to people and being handled so they are super tame compared to mine. I hope this does not make them easier food for the predators. We now have 24 hens.