Mr Rainman

Lambing Summer 2024 begins

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It has begun the first ewe has had her babies, a set of twins.
This happened four days ago and we have had to go down to the school house every night and push the sheep back up to the barn lot. We need to make sure that no new babies get left down in the lower fields at night. They will be coyote food if they don’t come in. We have isolated the twins and their momma in the back barn lot. She has to be fed every day and the horse has to be fed every day now. This is probably a good thing for the horse as she is not at the old hay pile we just dug out of the barn doing an all you can eat buffet. We had to buy a new water trough for the corral. The horse cannot reach down into the spring directly behind the barn, it’s too steep. The old trough was torn up and leaking. So now we have to water the horse every other day also.

We only kept the rams in with the ewes for two months to limit our lambing length but these twins are pretty small, we think she may have been a couple of weeks early. The bull needs to go in with the momma cows also. That will be this weeks project, to get our other female and one steer in with the bull and the heifers.

Mr Rainman worked on the gazebo pad this last week. Gravel, water and compactor is starting to make a really nice pad. He thinks two more passes and he should have it all leveled out. Then we can put up the lower ring of the grain bin. Once that is in place we will measure and mark out all the spots to drill holes for the concrete pillar footings. I ordered the 6”x6”x10’ posts and concrete anchors on Friday. They will be here this week. Once we have the spots marked we are going to use the tractor to drill the holes. I have enough Sackcrete left over from the back bridge footings to pour these footings. The plan is to get the building up and a roof on it before winter. I still need to get the part that goes over the middle of the roof. They did not sell me that part. I may have to wing it while I look for a replacement.

I spent most of the day trying to get the front porch lights installed. I thought it was going to be easy. Nope, I am really unsure why I thought that but I sure did. First, the fancy siding piece was not lined up with the electrical box. Plus the box makes the hole very deep and there needs to be some kind of extender. I went to town twice in an effort to find the correct parts and screws. After five hours on two lousy lights I got them installed. I still managed to break a glass pane. I hid it. The only real problem when I flipped on the power was I had a 50/50 chance of wiring the one light correctly. I did not do it right so now the light is on 100% of the time. I will need to get some wind shock resistant light bulbs and to tear apart the one lamp and wire it to the other black wire.

I did manage to get all of the 1/4 round needed to finish off the porch and the pressure treated boards needed to redo the trumpet vine trellis. The hope is we can get the porch and trellis completed this week and the holes dug and concrete poured for the gazebo.

Farm projects progressing

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The siding contractor is done with the siding. We just need our gutter fixed and a screen replaced. Mr Rainman has been working on getting our porch ceiling painted. He used a thick primer to fill in the gaps between the boards. We thought about painting it white but were afraid it would be hard to match our siding. Annmarie remembered the porch ceiling being blue when she was a kid. I had to look up why blue and the reasons vary quite a bit. It was supposed to keep away evil spirits, it represented the sky so it made the porch feel bigger and it repelled bugs. We are going with the first one.

Primer done
First coat

The annual barn clean out has been happening over the last two weekends. Mr Rainman started it by getting a main path dug all the way through the barn (5 hours). I have worked on it two more days a four hour day and a three hour day. We have managed to get most of the barn dug out in 12 hours! This used to take 40-60 hours to do. We started earlier this year and it is really wet still inside the barn, so there are no hard sheets of dried stuff. It is scrap-able with the manure forks. I took the forks off yesterday and used the bucket to scrape the muddy material loose and then just leave it to dry for a while. Mr Rainman had ambitions of finishing it next week. The rest all needs to be hand dug. It should take about six hours.

Beginning spot

We will have gotten the whole thing done in under 20 hours which is pretty amazing. I keep getting better and better with the little John Deere tractor. I think the real reason is I don’t want to get off and pitch fork as much crap as I used to, before becoming more aged. I am getting more efficient as I age!

We have been having some trouble with random people coming down the driveway. We had installed a ring camera this year and are now having to monitor it. For some reason we have someone on a motorcycle who keeps coming onto the property. Annmarie is making another sign to do down by the driveway cattle guard. Once we have the gazebo up we are going to install a 16’ gate across the driveway down by the first house. Initially, we are going to keep the gate open and only close it when we work the animals. If we keep getting unknown visitors we may have to install a solar automatic opener with a battery backup. This will force everyone to stop and push a button to open the gate. If we install an auto gate opener we will bury an auto sensor from our side that will open the gate so you can leave. I am hoping that we won’t have to do that but when we install the manual gate I will weld new hinges on the gate and install a double post and offset post for latching. This will make the installation of an auto opener very easy.

We got the side fence temporarily back up so the dogs can no longer steal cat food or harass the cats. This week we will start in on the gazebo! This is our next big project. I am thinking it will take us about six weeks to get it all up in the air. We will still need to finish the floor inside, create countertops and an entrance cover and ramp. For now just getting it up with the roof on it is the goal this year.

I had to order more parts for the micro hay baler. I needed another $500 worth of parts and am probably going to have to pop off the wheel on one side to be able to reach all of the gears. I will definitely be ordering a spare chain and will only allow myself to take out links one time before just replacing it. The chain only costs $150, all of the gears are over $2k.

Farm 7, Predators 3

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It’s that time of year again where the predators start to enjoy fresh chicken and lamb. We have not had much rain in the last three weeks, about 1/10” last week. This has not been enough to keep anything green around us. The raccoons start to think that chicken is a great meal and the coyotes start to like the idea of lamb. Mr Rainman has been going out in the mornings when he arrives and trying to shoot the two coyotes in the upper fields. So far he has missed on three separate occasions. I have been up there seven times and have yet to see a coyote. He thinks he may be scaring them away, we are humoring him at the moment.

The dogs have been barking early in the morning before we go to work. I was able to spot three raccoons running in front of the driveway headed to the barn. By the time I grabbed a pistol and got through two gates to the barn I was able to get one shot off as the coon climbed into the barn and on top of the hay stack. We know they are in the barn as there are two huge piles of raccoon dung in there, like 20-30#/each. They can make a heck of a mess. This is the third time we have seen them but only the first time I have managed to get a shot off. My mother-in-law states they have started coming to her house again to eat the cat food. They pick on the cats and can kill them. Not to mention can add about 50-75# of animals to feed depending on their size.

Friday evening she called me to say that there were several raccoons on her front porch. Normally, I just grab a pistol and walk down there but the raccoons always start to run before I can get close. So I decided to drive the pickup down this time. I grabbed the suppressed 22 pistol and three extra clips. Unless you manage to hit a raccoon directly in the head it takes about an entire clip to put one down, especially if it is very large. We try very hard to not just wound them so lead poisoning by quantity is my strategy.

Luckily, I also have a green laser on the pistol. This helps dramatically when shooting around buildings and other animals. If I would spend some time practicing with the pistol every month I would probably not need the laser. Unfortunately, I don’t have time for that. I could be building more fence or completing another project. So I use a crutch to help me. Plus, in the middle of the night the laser is essential when running around in the dark.

I ended up killing four raccoons. I took 40 rounds of ammo and used 36 rounds by the time I was done. If there had been six raccoons I would have run out of ammo! So I will need to buy another couple of clips. I just fill my front and back pockets with spare clips before I head out of the house. I do keep the empty ones and put them back in a pocket instead of dropping them on the ground. I would lose them nonstop if I dropped them on the ground.

No cats were harmed despite them running all around while I was trying to kill the raccoons.

We put the live trap in the barn but as usual no raccoon is foolish enough to go into it. It has been up for a week with zero results.

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.

Cows can be painful

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The cows are painful sometimes. The teenagers are by far and away the worst! They jumped the fence on the back hillside on both sides and got out into the unfenced area on the back hillside. They have been there for about 2.5 weeks as they just run roughshod over the fence so it is useless to push them back. They want to hang out near the momma and baby cows so this was working. I say was because when I came home Friday the five cows were out in the wheat field down by our cattle guard. We have no clue how they got there. I think they walked all the way down the length of the farm and got out onto the gravel road then came back into the wheat field and walked down to the barn lot. I opened the gate into our house area in the hopes that they would come into it, nope, they walked past the open gate and headed back down the length of the property.

I discovered that I can indeed drive the Kubota tractor with a broken foot. I can use the hand lever on the left to set the speed and the tractor slows down well enough on its own that I don’t need to use the brakes. So I drove out around the field on the pavement and came in from the top and went back on the road alongside the wheat field. Annmarie came out and opened up more gates so we could get them behind a fence. We got them into the car area then pushed them out into a fenced field down by Mother-in-Law’s house. This meant that Mr Rainman and I were going to have to fix fence on the back hillside even though we have other things to do. Since I can drive the tractor I would do that so we can carry all of the fencing supplies. I can also do the splices in the fence.

Mr Rainman sprayed some Roundup in a few places around our back elevated garden beds. The gravel needs to not be full of weeds. Then we got ready to go fencing. We filled up the area behind the bucket with wooden stays but we can only carry about 15 stays that way. If we need a bunch of stays we will dump off fencing stuff then use the tractor forks to pick up a couple of hundred stays. As we were crossing the back creek we spotted another pile of wooden stays from a previous fencing job (common issue, as fencing extra stuff tends to stay close to an old job). This was noted in case we needed more we would not have to go to the machine shed. Mr Rainman was able to slap on fence tighteners and crank them down, cut the fence and then it was ready for me. I was able to park close to the site, hop off the tractor and put on my peg leg. The peg leg sounds cool, it is cool, as it allows me to use both hands unobstructed but it takes a ton of energy and effort. So I spliced the fence back together and Mr Rainman installed wooden stays and replaced any missing stay staples and T-post clips. The cows had a path through the fence down by the creek so it got extra wooden stays. The outer hillside fence is nice and tight!

We started to drive across the top of the field and realized that I had never installed stays along all of the top fence. So he started installing them when the Gingerman showed up with cold Gatorade and assistance. Him and I went and snagged all of the extra wooden stays from the bottom of the hill. We drove back up the hill and they started to install them into the fence separating out the CRP. They got all the way across the top except we were 8 fence stays short to make it to the gate.

The inner hillside fence was in shambles. They had torn off the top three rows of smooth fence. So Mr Rainman again slapped the tighteners on it and I jumped down and spliced it together. Honestly, fencing takes practice and after all the years on the farm I know how to fence. While I did that they worked on T-post clips and Mr Rainman pulled wire for us to add a higher wire to the upper 2/3 of the fence. It’s the flat section of the fence and the spot where the cows and sheep like to jump over the fence. The fence is over 50” now and very tight so I am hopeful the cows cannot jump it, or it at least appears to be an actual barrier. I ended up walking downhill halfway putting on clips. This was a huge mistake! I had to peg leg it up half the hill and thought I was going to die by the time I got to the tractor. My good leg and hip were killing me and I had to keep stopping to take a rest.

Mr Rainman had been using the DeWalt Fence stapler the whole time. I had expected him to trade off with the Gingerman occasionally but he was not having it. The machine is amazing. They stapled 30 posts in under 30 minutes. It is a definite time saver, but it beats you up! It has a kick, it’s heavy and awkward. He kept using it until his hand cramped up and he could not move his fingers! The Gingerman got to finish up with the stapler.

By the time we got down to the house I parked as close as I could to the gate, got off the tractor, installed the peg leg on and came into the house. I sat down in the kitchen, polished off the chips and dip from the 4th (we only make chips and dip on the major federal holidays and the Super Bowl). I showered and then crawled into bed for an hour and a half nap. I was exhausted. Milo has learned to take naps with me since I have been home so he sacked out with me for that time.