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Or is it?

After baling for Farmer Mike on some rented land he controls, it was time to do a little baling here on this farm. We have about 3 straw bales remaining for the goats and then we’re out… completely.  The straw we have been using for bedding has been from the stockpile we set aside 2 years ago (2008).  It’s a wonder it’s lasted this long.

A few days ago, Farmer Mike offered his John Deere, small square baler for us to use.  Well, I thought we should take him up on his kind offer.  We have approx. 300+ bales to bale and rain has been in the forecast for days now.  Normally, I would use the the neighbor’s JD 24T baler, but with time being a luxury we did not have, I needed to get our season straw baling done ASAP.

After driving the tractor to Mike’s, I hooked up to his baler, with hay basket behind that.  The drive, on a tractor, takes some time.  All the while I was thinking I should just use the neighbor’s baler… it would have be quicker.  Well, well, well, I couldn’t have been more wrong.  Mike’s baler is a little bigger than the neighbor’s and has more teeth on the pickup.  I was able to bale in 2nd gear, with no problems.  Before picking the baler up I had raked 2 windrows straw into one larger on.  Needless to say. I was glad I went the extra mile for this more modern baler.  And with the hay basket catching the bales as I bale, was a true time saver.  This device is wonderful.  One can easily bale about 70-75 bales and haul them with you.  There is no going back to get the bales, putting them on rack and bringing them back to the place.

Here I am using a bale basket while baling our wheat straw.

The first day, we had nearly all the straw bales baled.  Not put away, but baled.  The bales we did get put away, Madison helped with.  The next day, we put most of the baled oats straw in the loft. When Carol was busy with Chas, Madison would be in the loft, helping me pile bales until I could get in the loft to stack them.  We had a few issues with the bale conveyor,  but after some minor repairs, we were back in business.  Later, I went out to the field and made a few rounds in the wheat field for 70-80 bales of wheat straw.  It was smooth going. I really liked Mike’s baler.  Gotta get me one of those.

As I was finishing up with the baling of the wheat straw, it started to drizzle.  No biggy, I was headed home anyway.  Oh crap! We need to put this stuff away.  After pulling into the yard, I helped Carol stack the rest of the load of oat straw (on the ground) into the barn.  When we got done with those bales, we still had the hay basket still full of bales.  I was quick to drop the load off near the barn – that’s when the work really started. Austin (just back from work), Carol and myself high-tailed the wheat straw into the barn.  We already had some straw in the loft, but we like putting bales along the outer walls of the barn.  By doing this it helps hold the heat of the animals during the cold winter months.  It makes a huge difference.

The last couple of days reminded me of when I was growing up, helping my dad and grandpa do the baling, in the 1970′s.  It seemed we always baled straw on some of the hottest, most miserably days of the year.  It was just the way it was done back then I guess.  Today, we started the day with temps in the 90′s°F with high humidity.  Later in the day, Carol mentioned to me that our weather station alarm went off – I had it set to sound off at 95°F.

Again, using Farmer Mike’s baling equipment was a Godsend.  I’m sure grateful for his help and so glad I never p*ssed him off when was younger.  I don’t think we could be doing nearly as well as we are without his help and guidance.

The morning started as many mornings prior – with a walk around the pastures, checking fences.  The weed-load (weeds touching the “hot” wires) is extensive.  I was determined to get SOME spark through the entire fence – from beginning to end.  The problem was not weed-load this time.  Those rotten goats had tangled the hot wire onto the barbed… easy fix.  While walking the fence line, near the creek, I notice our Highlander cattle following me on the other side.  When I walked east… they walked east.  When I walked west, they did as well.  OK… I know what that means.  These furry cattle think they need fresh pasture.

I gave the cattle a little “come bossy,” just to let them know the needed to keep track of me as I was going to open a gate for them.  I’m not sure I needed to give them a call our not, but they seemed to get a little excited after I gave them shout.  When I arrived to the crossing gate for the creek, I already had some of the red cows in the water heading my way.  I no sooner got the gate open before LaVerne (one of our big red cows) was looking around me, trying to get to the fresh pasture grass.  Following her were the other Highlanders… all but Sadie.  Sadie, our dun colored heifer, and her boyfriend Donkey (a donkey) stayed north of the creek, with Farmer Mike’s Ayrshire heifers.  They wanted nothing to with crossing the creek.  So be it.  By now, the other cattle we running and kicking like spring calves in the fresh grass.  And for those who stayed behind, there is way more grass over there than they can eat down.

Hoping Farmer Mike and his son would find their way over here for some combining AND knowing the weekend was quick approaching, I figured I better make plans for storing wheat… at least until Monday.  The solution was sitting over at my grandparents old farm.  It was a 2500 bu. grain bin, tucked away in the trees.  It was last used about 20-25 years ago.  For all I know, I could still have grain in it.  I hope not.  I called my sister, who takes up residence on the old place and told her my situation and my idea.  She thought it all sounded good.  With the nod, I told her I had to get my chainsaw and a bite to eat and I would be there in about an hour.  When I arrived, she had already gotten a good start on the clean-up.  Using the skid-loader, she was able to push a small pile of rotted boards and such.  It was time to get the saw fired-up.  I cut limbs and she pulled them away.  After about an hour, we had widened the small road past the granary.  It was truly hot and heavy work, but the results proved to be worth every drop of sweat.  There should now be more than enough room to put the auger in-place and still be able to drive past it with a tractor or truck.  Besides being functional, the results were also aesthetically pleasing.  The removal of 25 years of neglect… accomplished!

With the granary area cleared and looking so much better, it was time to see what was in the structure.  Spider-webs and oats was the running theme of the bin’s interior.  The oats felt mushy under foot – weird.  When I tarted scooping the oats out the door, I discovered why it felt soft.  It was rotten – looking more like black, muddy compost than anything else.  It was nasty!

After the task of cleaning the bin, we headed to the grove to retrieve an old auger.  I would need to guess, but I doubt it was ever used by anyone in our family.  It was probably purchased at an auction prior to my dad’s bought with cancer, brought home and sat.  When I looked at it, most of the parts seemed to move.  I was hoping it was in good working order.  My sister and I chained it to the draw-bar of the tractor and pulled it from the jungle of overgrowth.  We got it moved and into place in-front of the bin.  Since the PTO shaft was rusted solid, I poured some wast oil on it, hoping it would loosen by morning, when I might need it.

Back on the homestead, Farmer Mike’s son was done with the harvesting of the oats and was well under way with the wheat.  His dad had picked up a portable moisture tester from another friend and the wheat was testing lower than 13% moisture… perfect for storage conditions.  And as long as wheat prices keep showing a bullish trend, the newly harvested grain will remain storage.

We now have oats in a flare-box and in a truck at Mikes.  We also have a truck and a gravity box full of wheat.  I’m hoping for no over-night rain.  Night-fall was upon us… time to pull the plug.  I’ll unload the wheat in the morning.

Small grain harvest is upon us, no doubt.  The other day I helped Farmer Mike with the swathing of his field of organic peas and barley, and today I planned on cutting our oats and wheat.  The problem is that it rained last night.  Not much, but enough (2/10th).  When I checked on the small grains in the morning, they were still on the damp side.  Why cut when it is wet, right?  The grains dry quicker when they are standing.

Since I was not able to head to the fields right away, I figured I would do a little work in the farm’s wine vineyard.  After 4 years, we finally have some grape vines that look like they may produce a few berries this year.  To help support these heavier, producing vines, a series of wires must be strung along each row.  Our rows of vines are 400+ ft long so 12.5 ga. high-tensile wire is necessary for the main support wire.  I was able to put wire up on four rows before lunch time.  The vines look so much better running along the wire.  Almost like a real vineyard… lol

After a quick bite to eat, I set out to swath the 12 acres of oats.  When that was completed, I was quick to start swathing the wheat cutting.  Our wheat field is 38 acres large.  I was not expecting to finish the swathing… and I did not get it done.  Of the 38 acres, I would guess I have a good 12-15 acres still standing.  I hope to complete that task in the early afternoon hours of tomorrow.

I keep watching the weather reports and the grain reports.  One looks better than the other.  When our part of the country seems to get rain [at least] once every 3 days, it’s the markets that seem most positive at this time.  In the last month, wheat prices have climbed nearly $1.50.  So that’s encouraging.  Last year, the prices hovered around $8, but $6.50 is better than $5.

The wildlife out here is prolific.  I chased hundreds of pheasants out of the oats and wheat – a true experience.  The best part of the evening was at around 7PM.  I was able to watch a lone deer stroll along the fields, nibbling on some of the freshly cut oats.  You don’t see this kind of the stuff in the city.  This solo doe didn’t seem to mind the noise of the swather… she was in no hurry.

After the storms last night, the downed hay was too wet to rake. What to do, what to do? In the morning, I went out to the field of freshly baled hay. If I can’t rake or bale I might as well roll the bales on their side. If one rolls the bales so the twine stings are not facing the ground, the mice can’t chew on them. The bales were too damp to stack. Like the hay that was down in windrows, the bales also need to dry.

I then put the bale spear on the loader in front of the IH 560 and then hooked the 3 pt bale forks on the back. The small square bales may be too damp to put-up, but the 600lbs round bales of ditch hay were not. I was able to collect 15-20 grass/mix bales that I got baled on Saturday. Hopefully, we’ll get another cutting from the ditches this year. Typically, we get two cuttings but this year it looks like we may easily get 3. What a difference a year with rain makes.

Out of the woods on my grandparent’s old farm, AND after cutting down some trees that seemingly impale anything that sets undisturbed for too long, I was able to recover an old, homemade, 30ft, hay elevator that my dad must have purchased years before his death, in 2005. After getting it back to the farm here, Madison and I squirted every chain link with penetrating oil… then she tapped each link with a hammer to break the rust. My initial fear was that if/when I put power to the elevator the chain would break, but it didn’t. Wouldn’t you know it but the old thing ran like a charm. It’s safe to say this year we will have an elevator to use for putting hay in the hayloft. No more throwing the hay up into the loft, no, no, no…. no!

BTW: According to the data recorded on our home weather station, last night we had wind gusts topping 66mph and sustained winds of 55-58mph. The winds were so strong that it took the hood of the pickup and tossed it nearly 25 ft. east.

It was a long, hot day. The first of many, I’m sure.

Shortly after 7:00AM, I set out with the hay rake in tow. Although we didn’t really have a dewy overnight, I still wanted to rake or turn over the hay windrows while the hay had some night-time moisture. When the hay gets too brittle, it loses too much of the drying foliage of the clover, alfalfa and/or grass.  The moisture helps toughen the hay, keeping the leaves attached to the stem. With the windrows being so thick, the hay on the underside was still ‘green’, while the top ¾ was nearly dry.  I thought if I turned the hay over in the morning it would be ready to be baled in a couple of short hours.  I was right.  It was surprising how quick this cutting dried.  I had cut it only 36 hrs beforehand.

It didn’t take too terribly long to get the 10 acres of hay raked.  I knew I would be able to come back to the farm-site, unhook the rake, uncover and hitch onto the baler.. then head out after going over it with the grease gun.  Before being able to do so, I received a call from Farmer Mike.  He was at a farm a few miles away and he needed a little help getting a repair done on his corn planter.  Since I was heading back to the farm anyway, I told him I’d be there in a few minutes.  I jumped on my cycle and helped him out.  About 15 minutes later I was heading home again.  It was a quick fix.

After the detour, I baled and baled… then baled some more  It was hot and dirty.  Traveling down the field one way was quite pleasant – I was heading into the wind.  Going the other way was hell.  The dust and chaff, blew right on me.  For hours I was subjected to this.  It sucked.  By evening, I was so hot and tired.  And it seems when you aren’t feeling great, things start to go wrong.  It seems the grass hay was getting very dry and slippery to bale correctly… it was not loading into the baler correctly.  Instead of going into the baler (up and over the pick-up), the baler pick-up assembly was rolling the grass in-front of it, then becoming clogged. I thought I was dirty and miserable before, but when I crawled under the baler to pull the jammed grass out from the baler’s pick-up, I was shoulder deep in fine dust, chopped up hay and dirty chaff.

I decided to call it a day around 8:00PM – 13 hours of haying was enough for one day.  I guess I’ll have hay that gets rained on… we have a forecast of rain and thunderstorms for the overnight and tomorrow morning.  Oh well, I guess I’ll deal with that if/when it comes.  What I need now is a long, cool shower.  A couple of cold ones sound good as well … but they can wait until after the shower.

After the “mishap” with the Oliver tractor yesterday, could things get any worse?  Yepper!  They sure can.

Since the Oliver was still setting in the field from last night’s break-down, Carol and I went to fetch the beast at about 6:45AM.  At 45°F, I told her to take the van to the fields so she wouldn’t have to ride on the tractor with me – it was cold. 8-O  I got out there with the IH 560.  Our first attempt to pull the Oliver was a no-go.  The 560 wouldn’t pull it with the corn planter behind it.  So, back to the place I went to get a bigger tractor.  I was trying to hurry, as I knew Carol had to get cleaned-up so she could be ready and waiting for her friend who had a medical appointment in the Metro.   Well, the bigger tractor was able to pull the Oliver and planter – easy-shmeezy.  As soon as we had the tractors close to the homestead, I told Carol that we were good and that she had better get going before her ride arrived.  I went back to the house to help with our oldest daughter Chastiti’, in case her van came and Carol was busy.  It turned out that Carol’s ride was late, but by me being in the house it allowed Carol to get some of Chas’ medical charting done and faxed.

About a half hour after Carol and her friend left, it started to rain.  Off and on, off and on.  This last rain shower as been going on for about an hour+ now… and the winds are crazy fierce.  It doesn’t look good for planting corn today, or the next day… or the next.   Rain, rain, go away.  Please come back another day.

I got the 20 acres of corn ground worked with the digger so it would be ready for me to plant, later in the afternoon.  I then went over to Farmer Mike’s place to pick up my seed (he has a shed and was storing the seed for me).

The wind was blowing pretty good and in the open field it felt kinda cool.  Last year I planted corn with the IH 560, this year I would try it with the Oliver (it has a cab).  Once in the field, I made a couple adjustments to the planter and figured I had it planting seed at the right depth.  After a few rounds, the planter’s drive chain started to slip on the gears.  Time to go back to the yard to make an adjustment.  I got that done and headed back to the field.  This time, everything seemed to working perfectly… my rows were straight and looking good.  Then all of a sudden, a loud clanking sound came from the underside of the tractor.  I quick pushed in the clutch and the sound ceased.  I slowly let the clutch out… and nothing – the tractor wouldn’t move.  I then tried the other gears… still nothing.  I noticed that I wasn’t able to shift into 1st or 3rd gear…  that was odd.  What was even more odd is that I was able to shift into the gears without engaging the clutch.  THIS CANNOT BE GOOD!  Crap, crap, crap!!!  I got [maybe] 25% of the field planted.

The tractor will need to sit in the middle of the field overnight, until I have some help to get it pulled back to the farm.  The stinker of it is that I just bought the tractor last fall.  Money well spent?  It doesn’t look like it.  I really need this tractor.

Hey folks… we’re looking for a small crop sprayer.  Although we are in transition to becoming certified organic, we still feel we have a use for one.

We’d like to try an experiment. I have read a couple of articles now, about adding raw milk to low fertility soils to help revitalize them.  We have such soils.   The land has been farmed out with conventional farming practices and the dirt is tired.  We’d like to start bringing it back.  Since our budget is low, we thought we’d start by applying a mixture of raw milk & water to our pastures.  It is said to energize the enzymes that are in the soils, creating a healthier pasture.  Can you help us? Do you or one of your neighbors have one that is no longer used?

Again, we’d like to purchase a small crop/field sprayer, in working condition.

Thanks
Rich

The last week has been a blur.  If we weren’t doing one thing we were doing another… added to the confusion, we did the taxes.

The last few days were filled with lots of field-work.  First working the soil, readying it for planting, then the planting.  Farmer Mike and I have been teaming up for the small-grain planting season.  I got to prepping a 40 acre field for planting… as well as another 9 acres.  Then Mike got to planting it for me.  The 40 acres now has non-GMO (genetically modified organism ) wheat and the 9 acres has oats. Then, yesterday, it was over to Mike’s acreage where we quickly dug and planted the same day… no break-downs – it went smoothly.

I decided to plant more wheat this year since we saw the potential of planting small grains last year.  There is something to the saying, “Do the opposite of what everyone else is doing.“  With most of the area’s big acreage farmers practicing the ‘scratch and spray’ method of farming with corn and soybeans, small grains on a minimal-input style of farming like what we do, makes sense.  Small grains like wheat & oats help crowd-out weeds, so there is really little need to spray chemical herbicides.  Small grains are also relatively cheap to buy seed for, thus reducing input costs even further.  This year we may have gotten lucky or just discovered a different way of doing things (aka… minimal-input farming).  This is what we did this year… we first used the disc to chop up the stalks on last year’s corn ground before the plowing this spring and then simply went over that with the digger once before planting.  Now that the oats & wheat are in, we won’t have to touch it until harvest.  My new belief is that one doesn’t always need the big return cash-crops if your inputs are low enough.  That’s kind of what we learned last year with the 20 acres of wheat and 20 of oats.  We made the same amount from those two crops as we did on 80+ acres of corn, the year before.  Those who farm “conventionally” may argue that it can’t be done that way… it if could, they’d be doing it… but when using a simple, multi-crop, crop rotation and planting of the correct grains, one can eliminate the need for high priced chemical herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers (inputs).  Lower inputs MAY mean lower yields, but it doesn’t necessarily mean lower profits.  And if you need another reason to try minimal-input farming… how about this:  It’s better for the environment.  We will most likely attempt spring plowing again next year as it helps to reduce winter wind erosion and conserves soil moisture.

In between the field-work, I have been doing more fencing north of the creek.  I now have all the primary fence-posts in along the creek as well as the H-post support assemblies.  As soon as I buy a few rolls of high-tensile wire, I’ll be able to string it.    The grass is growing and I think the cattle are anxious to get to it.  I hesitate to let them into the pastures to early as I know it can cost more to do so, down the road.  I read somewhere that for every bale of hay you feed before the pasture is ready, you save up to 5X that amount of pasture grass tonnage.  So it really does pay to feed up that aging hay before letting your critters out on pasture.

Oh Yeah!  Here’s some good news.  We did qualify for the federal high-tunnel grant.  I signed the papers last week at our local NRCS office.  We originally applied for the grant but was turned down (like most folks ). But then we applied under the organic initiative… and was approved.  We already have it ordered and it should be arriving May 3rd.  We purchased it as local as we could.  There is a company in Castle Rock, MN, called Poly-Tex that sells high-tunnel structures at a very competitive price.  Our high-tunnel grant was approx. $4,900 and the cost of the high-tunnel itself is a tad over $5,000… but if I pay by check or cash, we get a 2% discount.  This particular hoop-house is 30′x72′ (2,160 sq ft) and 12’4″ high.

This is what our high-tunnel should look like.

We’re pretty excited. 

More good news.  Our laying hens are in full production after taking a break over winter… and just in time… our egg customers are starting to visit us again.  Dozens of eggs have been leaving the farm in the hand of very pleased customers.  It’s nice to see them all again.  Speaking of egg customers, Carol has been selling as many turkey eggs as the hens will allow.  Some of the farm’s hens went broody before the egg orders arrived, so we’re allowing those girls to set, hopefully giving us some farm raised turkey poults soon.