welding

New sprayer boom

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I keep working on getting the star thistle sprayed in the CRP. It had not been controlled for a decade so it made some inroads. The wind and heat has been dictating when I can spray so it has been hit and miss to get it done but I managed to get in a solid three days last week. I can usually get 3-4 tanks done before the wind or the heat picks up enough that I can no longer spray. There are a lot of old coyote dens out in the CRP! It makes driving around on the tractor surprising. You can get lulled into a back and forth rhythm then WHAM, you hit a huge hole and the front tire has fallen in. It takes four wheel drive and going backwards to get out.

The miniature bunnies are all along the fence line. They are living in every single rock crib. This little furry creature thought that if it just held still I would not see it. I guess in its mind it worked as I just snapped a picture and kept on driving. Nothing harassed it so it was successful. We have one down along the driveway also. Annmarie and I were just commenting that we never see babies and we only ever see one at a time yet they keep multiplying.

When I got down to the house I tried to back into the machine shed. Unfortunately, the boom on the left had flopped down and I ran it right into the upright wooden pillar. This caused a bend on the back rigid bar. It was bent too much, when I let the boom down it was pointed forward at a 45 degree angle, no good. In typical farmer fashion I figured I could just straighten it out by hooking it on the same post but pulling with the tractor to straighten it out. Surprisingly, this took quite a bit of effort on the tractor’s part and all it did was break the hokey fix I had done a couple of years ago in the middle. So now I had two issues.

The answer at this point is to just take it apart and rebuild it. But this means relying on my welding skills. They are improving, but that first weld two years ago was so bad I had to screw two holes into the patch and put screws in them. I am getting much better and that was one of my very first repairs. It also held for two years! I went to Irish Iron (Packy’s) and got some square tubing, a small piece of square tubing to go inside both pieces to hold them in alignment when I welded them. I also picked up some channel iron for the gun rack on the Kubota tractor. I was there so I figured I would just get it all.

I had to take it all apart, busted one of the bolts in the process and then had to cut the swing safety ends off. They need to be welded onto the new piece. Since I was having to rebuild the thing anyways I decided to do some improvements to its design. I have a boom and a wand attached but the valve to switch is under the tank currently and it is a standard yard hose Y splitter. So I purchased two valves to weld onto the top of the bar to switch between the wand and boom. I also moved the boom left/right valves to an upright direction so I now have four valves mounted on the spray bar. It was surprisingly not bad once I got the wire feed speed adjusted. I had to slow it down from the Gingerman’s settings. I cannot weld at 200, I did fine at 175 speed. I have no clue what the value for the setting is, I just know the bigger the number the faster the wire comes out.

I go it all welded together and broke the ancient handle off of one of the old valves. I tried to weld it on, it took two attempts before I realized the valve stem is bronze. I will have to eventually replace that valve but for now it will work fine. I have learned to just grab some color of spray paint and cover up the bare metal when I am done. It helps control the rust. I was putting all of the tubing on with hose clamps and of course on the very last clamp the standard screwdriver slipped and dug a gouge out of my thumb. It would not stop bleeding so I whipped out the little first aid kit I have on the tractor. The requisite blood sacrifice for a farm project was given.

The fires have already started to burn all around us. It is a little early for fire season but our lack of rain is starting to show. It does make for a fantastic sunset!

Fencing/metal shed

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I know I was supposed to be finishing up the winterizing projects. Finish installing parts on the bailer and finish emptying wood out of the old house. We are getting my future craft area all cleaned out so that we can use that as a staging space for the bathroom remodel in February. It already has a sink, toilet, shower head out there currently.

But honestly, I did not want my future fencing tools/supplies and metal storage area to blow away. This building was originally a chicken coop then did duty as a lamb shed. When we had the terrible windstorm that ripped part of the barn roof off it rolled this building about 100 yards. It is odd to see a building rolling across the ground. Even weirder when I was able to move it and it was still intact! Since that time it has tipped over once and spun ninety degrees in place from the wind. I have been wanting to get all of my fencing supplies and tools out of the machine shed. They take up four pallets worth of space and I wanted to be able to put metal scraps and pieces under cover so when I need pieces for weld repairs they are all in one place and not spread out over 100 feet and buried under other crap.

It does not hurt that it is the allure of a new project enticing me to do something. Mr Rainman and I got the last railroad tie installed under the building then filled the one foot gap with an old 2×8” board. We had to chase out one cat before we could get started. I don’t want any kind of animal living under the shed or for that matter in the shed. The door on the building is made out of chicken wire and if I just add a six inch piece on the bottom it will keep out all four legged creatures. We will need to add hardware cloth to keep the little birds from flying in and building nests in the rafters. I ordered twelve inch long deck anchors so that I can attach the building to the railroad ties. They were incredibly expensive at $3.60/each. I only ordered a dozen from the entire building. The additional weight should help keep the building from blowing away, plus putting it next to the machine shed helps break up the wind at least from one direction.

Once we tore off the bottom board on once side and started to clean out the building we realized that if you shake the walls the entire building was moving. This meant we had to look at the bones of the building. There was a roof joist that was not touching the sill plate and one of the sides it had split. It needed two new boards cut and then attached to the old joist. We even squeezed the split joist together and put a few screws in it before attaching the new joist to it. For all the purists out there this is a shed. It has lasted 70-80 years already so I just need it to last another 50 years. We found another roof joist that looks like it broke in half but it was still perfectly aligned. We just slapped another 2×4 up next to it and screwed it in. I had five new 2×4 but we used about 20 to fill in all of the upper and lower sections of the wall. Doing this really stiffed up the old building. We had one soft corner where we installed three new upright 2×4. By this I mean we just toed in another one next to the soft spots. We also put some supports in near the top of the roof to stiffen the roof. I am going to have to climb up on the roof and install a metal roof and I don’t want it breaking. I have some old used metal tin that did not get used up when I roofed the barn. It is old and aged and will go perfectly with the building. I will even reuse the roof cap it currently has as those are hard to find.

My Mother-in-law wanted the building to maintain its old look. To do this we are going to use a bunch of eight inch by eight foot boards that have been laying outside for the last ten years. I bought a unit at a charity auction and have had various projects that I thought I would use them on and never did. The unit had gotten spread out all over the ground and needed to be restacked. It was the perfect time to get boards because they were all weathered. We will line the inside of the walls with the new boards and put the weathered color outside. There are a ton of knot holes in the wood. They had covered the knot holes with cedar roofing shakes from the inside. We tore all those out to get a better fit for the inside boards.

Once we tore off the scraps of 80# asphalt paper, another reason the building probably held together well, we pounded in all of the nails on the outside walls. Surprisingly, the cupping on a lot of the boards was pulled out by hammering in the nails. We will use black screws from the outside to attach the boards to the frame and to attach the inner boards against the gaps and knot holes.

We are going to cover up the windows. I have an old window from the old house but honestly, it’s a shed and I have already ordered a solar, motion sensitive light for the interior. No power required! I had hopes that we would be able to finish it up on Sunday but the rain is pouring down so it is going to have to wait. I love using the tractor as a working platform when cutting a lot of boards. I can adjust the fork height to the perfect working height.

Annmarie spent the day canning spaghetti sauce, we had been freezing the tomatoes and she was able to make three gallons of spaghetti sauce! So now we can have spaghetti every month.

Staycation day 5

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It seems like every project is two steps forward and one back. I was able to work on the machine shed ridge line install yesterday. I had found some small two foot peak sections somewhere on the farm but they were not enough to cover the entire ridge line. I purchased some trough metal that I turned upside down and used as ridge cap. It was at a close out and I only paid about $8/piece. I was trying to use up my leftover roofing screws from the barn. The only problem is I ran out with only 27 left to be installed. They are oversized as I was reusing metal tin and needed a larger size to go through the existing holes. This meant I had to drill a pilot hole first. I drilled those 27 holes before climbing down from the roof and of course could not find a #14 screw anywhere in town. I had some #10 but they were red! I ended up ordering some and they should be here this week. Luckily, I ran out of screws as the sun was heating the roof up to unbearable temperatures but I kept trying to get it all done so I would not have to climb back up on the roof. I ended up going to town to get some oak, some trim for the cook stones enclosure, sheep and lamb pellets and some bolts to fix the gazebo door.

I had enough time to repair the gazebo door, cut off the door handle bolt and install a new one. I still ended up beating and bending the door into submission to get it on. Our original plan was to use the door to get to the grill outside after I built a lean to on the back of the gazebo. Nope, not going to happen. That door will be staying shut, it took a hammer and a couple of minutes to get it shut the first time. The grill will be going inside the gazebo. I just have to figure out where the grill is going to go as I need to run the power to that spot.

Today I took the second repaired cattle feeder out into the alleyway and got it ready for a large bale. I dumped some more scraps onto the burn pile. All the burn piles are starting to grow pretty fast now as we continue cleaning up. I got the weight box for the tractor and took it over to the machine shop so it could be repaired. The supports keep bending from the weight of all the metal horse shoes. I beat on the three point supports with an eight pound sledge hammer then proceeded to weld some supports on all three attachment points. I am hopeful that it will keep them from bending now during the winter use. I am still welding pretty roughly but it is holding and that is the main purpose for my welding skills.

I took 1000# of sheep and lamb feed out to the barn. We are storing the sweet feed in the large grainbin we have in the momma/baby area. I put 450# in it today and I am pretty sure I can fit another 1000# in it. The lamb creep feed gate is up and we are now feeding the lambs where the mommas cannot reach. This should hopefully help the mommas not slough so much weight. I took all of the leftover feed bags and net wrapping and bagged it all up and took it out of the barn. Annmarie had been complaining about there being no box knives out in the barn. I found two knives in the trash bin, some lamb nutrient mix and some hoof treatment powder. So now we know where all of that is located.

Annmarie really wants the house number holder completed so I started welding that project today. I am a mediocre welder so hopefully this turns out well. I got the rough frame welded today but had to let it cool off before I could work on it some more. Tomorrow I will grind it smooth and try and make it pretty. Hopefully the tile will still slide into the end. We will know tomorrow!

The porch lights went out for the third time! This is after I wired the new ones in. I took the main one down again, took it all apart and used a voltmeter this time to check everything and the switch. It turns out that it was the cheap porch light bulbs. They had blown up with all of our power losses. I bought LED this time!

Staycation Day 3

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It’s that time of the year again where I take the much needed Staycation. As always, this time of the year I will be working on getting ready for winter. This also means I will be attempting to finish up a few projects I have laying around.

Day 1 staycation :

Saw me going to town for half the day. I had to get the new diesel pickup titled in our name. I also washed the exterior of it and spent about thirty minutes at the car wash vacuuming out dog hair and leaves. I got some wipes to wipe down the interior but they are too wet. I need to take a roll of paper towels out when I use them to dry the plastic afterwards. I found a plastic tool holder area behind the back seat so I will be able to keep a few things I use on a regular basis back there. I bought four new tie downs and they will be stored in it. I may put a pair of gloves in it also plus a set of battery jumper cables. I also purchased a steering wheel cover and some new floor mats. I almost got some seat covers but I was not sure they would fit. I will do more research but I need to get a heavy duty set of inexpensive covers for the front and back seat. The seat covers will have to wait until after I get the steering fixed and the new shocks installed.

I attempted to buy hose clamps while I was in town and could not believe the price at $3/ea. I ended up ordering them online for $0.35/each and will wait the six days until they come. Yes, I had to order more than the 10 I needed but I usually end up using them for something. I just need the 1/2-3/4” size to fix the black poly pipe in the lavender. I accidentally cut it with the hedge trimmers a couple of weeks ago.

I was going to finish the window trim around the mud room window but did not want to drag out the table saw so I attempted to cut the board longwise with the radial arm saw. After the board exploded in my hand I decided that it was not a great idea. I need to find more wide boards then I will run them through the table saw first. I gave up on this and went and sharpened the chain saw and went out to the old chicken coop area and hacked on a tree. The tree keeps growing lower and lower so it needed to be raised back up so that we could see out past it and I could drive the tractor under it. I knocked all the limbs I wanted off of it and left the branches laying around so that the sheep could eat all the leaves off of the ground. The nice thing about early in the staycation I can just pick and choose from all the items on my to do list. As I start lining things off the list my choices shrink and I may be forced to do something I managed to avoid all summer.

Day 2 Staycation:

I went out and brought the first cow feeder back to the machine shop so I could repair it. Big surprise, I needed some grinder cutoff wheels and used them all up on the Gazebo so I had to make a quick run to town. I bought 12 so there would be extras in the toolbox. I managed to not buy any DeWalt tools despite it being the last day of the sale, buy one tool and get the battery free! I just bought two 20V off brand batteries last month that fit the DeWalt and I am going to try them out. They are more than 50% cheaper than the DeWalt Brand batteries.

I was able to weld the feeder together and take it back out to the orchard. It is all setup and one side spread open so that a large bale could be easily inserted and sides closed once we start feeding the big bales. I went up to the upper alley way and got the second feeder. It was in rougher shape and required more welding and grinding to repair. I even broke out some paint and painted over the rust spots and repairs. I tried to match paint colors but the green can nozzle was plugged so black paint works. Honestly, as long as the metal is protected I really don’t care what color combination is as long as paint covers the repairs.

Mr Gingerman helped me snag some rebar and put the now clean branches onto the burn pile behind the old chicken coop. We can now see field four and the gate from our front room window. We can break out the binoculars instead of hoofing it up there to see where the sheep are at.

Day 3 staycation:

I decided to weld up the tile house number that Annmarie made on the laser cutter. I looked in every building and her office and could not find it! I had even purchased the metal for the hanger last month. I finally gave up and measured the gazebo openings for angle iron to be mounted at the lip height so a countertop could be installed. I have been piling up scrap steel in the machine shed for just this purpose. I can get a 20” piece installed that will let me use three preexisting holes in the rim of the gazebo panel. It got two cut out and edges all ground smooth. I then took them to the gazebo, clamped them in place then marked the three holes. I drilled pilot holes in the vice then finished the holes. Once I had the two outer bolts in place I realized that my center bolt is about 1/2 “ too short so I will need to buy four more bolts to get those installed correctly.

Did not manage to get outside until the early afternoon. I went out and took down the gazebo door and tried to figure out while it will not shut. I ended up beating on it with a hammer and bending parts of it with a crescent wrench. After a couple of attempts I realized that I needed a new three inch bolt that was threaded 100% of the shaft. I don’t have any so I added that to my go to town eventually list. The bolt is for the door latch so it is fairly important to have it in place before I hang the door back up.

I asked Annmarie where the house number was located. It was in her office in the windowsill behind the barn door! No wonder I could not find it. We had it there for safekeeping. It was definitely safe from me. I ended up cleaning up all the tools and calf table away from the corral loading chute. I will need to back the stock trailer up to the chute this week so that I can get the three cows loaded up Friday morning to go to slaughter. They are going to kill three this Friday and two next Friday. The sheep are not getting killed until the first of the year.

Our momma sheep are getting skinny again. The lambs are literally sucking the calories out of them. I put a protein lick out for them and tomorrow I will get some creep feed for the lambs. Feeding the lambs separately a high protein diet should relieve some caloric load from the ewes. Annmarie has a friend that agreed to take all the sheep for a month to clean up a boggy area on their property that is a little water logged. They don’t want cattle on it. It is a hay field that was too wet to get a third cutting on it. This is perfect for us.

French drain completed

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Memorial Day I could not do any haying. So I decided to just grit my teeth and finish digging the French drain for the machine shed hay storage area. I only needed to dig the sump area but that took a while as the tractor could not reach down very far. I tried to put the clamp on forks on the John Deere bucket but that did not work very well. I think if the ground had been easier to dig in then it would have worked great but it’s not. I finished lining everything with gravel, laid down the drain pipe and buried the entire thing in gravel. I then went ahead and filled the bottom of the space with a couple of inches of gravel. After a week of being in place the space feels drier when you walk to the back corner. It smells less like moisture and the humidity is even lower. It’s pretty amazing. I

t was early afternoon so I then leveled the dirt mound for the gazebo and laid in about one inch of gravel over it. I tried to break out the compactor but the throttle cable needs to be redone. It’s torn and won’t keep the throttle wide open. It’s an easy fix, I just need to get the part ordered. As soon as we finish haying its back to fencing and getting the gazebo area prepped. The holes for the gazebo supports need to be dug before the ground turns into concrete.

The sheep almost killed the chives that I planted in the big ceramic planters next to the front steps. They really like chives! They ate them down to the dirt level and then even tried to nibble down further into the roots. I have been thinking about making a screen that goes around the planters to hold the chives in place when they get big they drop down and hang everywhere. I had taken a couple of measurements and decided that the easiest way was to paint a circle on the welding table and just free hand it from there. I am still using stick welding. I have a wire feed but have not tried using it. I was under the impression that the wire fed items needed to be clean and ready for a weld. The stick just burns through all that crap. I need the practice anyways. So I started working on it. I had to grind out all of the nails so there were no sharp edges to the design. It was fairly warm outside so I decided to weld in a short sleeve shirt. This is not something I have done before. I remembered why when I went to take a shower. I had a major flash burn to my forearms and lower biceps. It looked like I had been standing in the hot sun all day. It did not feel good in the hot shower. Eventually, I will get back to the project and finish it.