The sound of a Minneapolis-Moline 585 diesel cutting hay

The Nephews have been fixing tractors. 

There is a backlog of  favorite tractors which need minor repairs and were parked and never fixed.

The first one to receive attention was my Minneapolis-Moline G1355. This is the first tractor I really bought on my own. It cost $4500 in the 1990's and had a few hours on it then. It has chopped silage, plowed (no three point), baled thousands of acres, cut a lot of hay, pulled the Great Plains 1500 no-till dril. 

We quit running it because of a clutch problem and the three speed wasn't shifting. The clutch issue was due to the throwout bearing assembly locking up to the the PTO shaft. This was due to the tube the throwout bearing assembly coming out of the three speed and binding to the PTO shaft. I have no idea why this happens, but it also happened on the White 2-135.

The three speed was missing the bolt that keeps the counter shaft indexed, the big nut came loose on the over drive clutch pack, and there was a tiny o ring missing on the tail assembly.

I cut hay with the 1355 last week. Unfortunately, one of the Titan Goodyear Radials 18.4x38 has now failed and the sidewalls are so bad I don't think we can put a new tube in it. Sounds like a $1400 repair.

I put this video on YouTube ten days ago and it already has 5,000 views. Must have hit a key word there somehow. Maybe lots of searches for 585 diesel.

Making hay when there is no sunshine.

The weather is impossible to predict. I look at two weather apps. I have started using CoPilot to help predict. It is still just a guess.

At the beginning of last week I cut 5 acres of Teff and 12 acres of Alfalfa. I had a good ten day forecast. Tuesday afternoon the forecast suddenly charged. There was rain scheduled for Saturday.

I fluffed the hay fields every day. I was able to bale Teff  on Friday. I finished up at 8 pm but didn't stack it as the forecast for rain had been changed to Monday. 

It rained early Saturday morning. 

The only thing hurt was my ego. Never leave hay in the field over night

I am having problems with my BC5070 baler. It is making hump bales. No sending enough hay to the far side of the chamber. Sometimes it looks like there is a little bite out of the bale on the knife side. I have checked the hay dogs and springs. I have adjust the sweep arm. I have also adjusted the sweep arm to plunger timing. I must have not adjusted it correctly. There is an issue.

Above you can see teff bales in the rain.

Sunday t was baling alfalfa and the Goodyear Blimp went over. That was pretty random.

CoPilot AI has given me a chart for this week. Today and yesterday there were showers. It told me to cut anyway. I didn't as last weeks prediction was problematic.

I baled the Alfalfa Sunday. It needed one more day. Some of the bales have gone up to 22-24 percent moisture. I used Conklin ProServe lactobacillus based hay preservative which is supposed to result in fermentation/curing and not mold. We shall see.

As the summer winds down

I feel the end of the summer is here. Today is August 31, and it feels like fall. We are already getting mice moving into farm equipment.

The Nephews have been busy. The harvest was early and went fast. They have a friend staying with them and he likes to drive tractor. We have most of the farming already finished.

I am a little worried as being caught up generally means not enough fall income.

I only did a couple semi-loads of straw. 

But, I digress...

The Nephews have been fixing tractors. They got the G1355 running and we split it and repaired the three-speed. (It was mostly them, I did some of it)

There were some issues, but it does run. Used it on the double rake. The a/c even works.

The G1355 steers so much better than the 2 wheel drive White tractors. Does leak a little oil. But, it was ok.

For some reason when I write a caption under the photos it makes a google link. I don't want to redo the blog. 

The second picture with smoke was a disappointment. I had put the G1355 on the baler. I baled three bales and there was a pop and a cloud of smoke and the engine stops. The main cab power wire somehow got under the clutch lever along with the wire harness for the lights. 

I ended up removing the cab floor which revealed a major hydraulic leak. I had to switch tractors. I am going to need to remove the fuel tank to get to the lights and turn signals. Probably a winter job.

The G1355 was my first big tractor with a cab and a/c. My daughter and I spent many hours in the tractor chopping silage, working ground, baling, and planting. I found a remaining sticker and it kind of makes me sad.

We also accumulated a White 2-150. My nephew rebuilt the injector pump so we could find out what was wrong with it. It has good hydraulics, the PTO works, the three-speed shifts, AND the engine has a pretty loud knock. This is basically the same tractor as the G1355. It has the Minneapolis-Moline 585 cubic inch engine which is infamous for the con rod going out through the block.

I really have no idea what to plant this fall. I suppose it will be annual ryegrass. There is really no crop that will make money.

Midsummer baling and things that sap my energy

 This was a bad week. I have been trying to bale a small area of test plots. I need to put them in two tie bales.  It has been problematic. 

First it rained, which put us behind a couple days. Then I discovered a bearing out on the double rake. There were no parts in stock and it is a metric bearing which cross references to a standard bearing which is 1 mm bigger. 

Then I go to the field and I found another bearing out. Not sure how I missed that. I hosed it down with chain lube and it stopped getting hot. I also picked up another fire extinguisher.

The field is made up of a lot of small test plots. The test plots are separated by bare dirt. I need to get all the straw off of the bare dirt.  This requires a separate adjustment on the rake. Hitting the ground with the rake tines tends to break tines and ruin bearings.

Then I raked the rows too heavy. The BC5070 does not like to make 16 stroke bales. I should have brought over the White 2-60 but lately I have just not had the mental energy it takes to do it right. I am using the White 2-135 and have to unhook and hook between the rake and baler.

The Tachometer in the Digital Dash has quit on the 2-135. Probably a simple wire. Or not. I can tell when it is 92 strokes per minute. Or maybe it was 102. Nothing broke. Lots of crappy bales but I stuffed them in the stacker and brought them home.

Last weekend I attempted to ride motorcycles with my nephews. By the time I figured out how to ride again, I broke the bike. The nut and washer came off the countershaft. I looked them up on eBay. A little hard to find as they are special. However, I walked back along my path and I found them. Of course they are now setting in the ash tray of my pickup. Where they will stay for the next five years...

My daughter moved out Friday. This was dramatic and stupid. She is going into a cycle where I suspected something was up. Similar events happened a year ago. She went to live with her Aunt and Uncle. Much frustration could have been avoided if her aunt would have communicated with my wife. Fucking boomer hippies with their missionary complex. I called up the Uncle and provided needed information.

While it was a bad idea to move for three specific reasons. I really wish I could have negotiated things down to where she would be back in two months or so. She really had a good setup here and I really needed her help.

I had been working her back into my farm operations. I was getting her to run the rake and building small successes.  

Eight years working at that fucking university and my daughter comes back from one of the last "Conservative" colleges in the Northwest in worse shape then when I dropped her off.

Keep your children away from iPhones, the internet, Democrat relatives, and Liberal Arts Universities... Also, I am pretty sure weed is bad for you...

Rain and straw baling and a fire

We had a rain shower Sunday. It was not enough to do anything but put me behind in baling straw. Just enough also to lower the quality. I am now probably a week behind what I promised the farmers.

The weather has been super dry and we have had lots of 80 and 90 degree F days.

Thursday should have been our last day of combining annual ryegrass but we caught the field on fire. The combine was unharmed. Of course it was insured. 

The fire was not serious but putting it out caused problems. The field was planted to Orchardgrass last fall. It came up to oats and annual ryegrass. The plan was to either do hay or silage early to pay for planting the orchardgrass as it wouldn't grow enough for a crop this year.

However, no one wanted silage and we had too much hay, so we decided to just combine the annual ryegrass. This was a little hard on the Orchard Grass. 

So was putting out the annual ryegrass fire with a disk...

My nephew was first on the scene. He saw it from the house. He got on the disk before the combine operator knew there was a fire at the other end of the field. Several neighbors showed up with water trucks also. I had my gator sprayer converted to a fire truck. However, as soon as I opened the fire nozzle it broke in half. Cheap Chinese Shite. 60 gallons goes pretty fast out of a 2" hose, but does a lot with fan nozzle.

Fortunately I have friends with access to a whole box of surplus fire nozzles and I was set up in time for putting out hot spots from the second fire.

We got the fire out and soaked down the field. Or so we thought. I went back to recharge my phone and the wind came up. Suddenly the fire was back and twice the size. I got the 2-155 and Steiger covercrop disk going and disked around the fire. It was pretty exciting with the wind. It was a little hard on the field. 

Today I am drying out the annual ryegrass windrows for baling. I got ahead of myself last week. I got my daughter to start raking so I had double windrows everywhere.

I am using the White 2-60 and a pull type fluffer to let air into the windrows. This is going into big bales and the baler guy says he can take 8ft windrows. The fluffer doesn't really move the straw around much so I am hoping I won't have to redo the raking. Plus, I am supposed to be working on another field.

July farm update and Alfalfa

 

It is hotter than the hubs of Hades. Or at least hot for Western Oregon. Temps are in the 90's for the next couple weeks and I am having motivational issues. 

I need to bale 2000 bales of wheat straw. The bales are 14"x18" x 46" I have a New Holland BC5070. It does not like 90 degree weather. I think I will be stuck baling from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and then 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. so that I can get weight in the bales. 

The bales are for a feed store and the wheat is some of the best quality I have seen in years. I had to pay the farmer $25 per ton for the straw. I am getting around $110 a ton for the straw (sold by the bale) so that means $85 a ton minus $50 per ton for harvesting costs. I am not sure it is a good deal but it is what I do.

Grass hay sales are crap. We are selling almost half of what we got last year. 

However, Alfalfa sales are good, see further down in the pictures.

Last fall I no-tilled Orchard grass into an Oat field. We got a good rain and had a good sprout of oats and annual ryegrass. We hired the spraying done as our sprayer was broken as usual. The local Co-op sprayed thirty acres with the center boom section plugged so we had some interesting test plots.

The first lesson, which I have learned over and over and over again, is to never no-till until the crop you are planting into is Round-Up Yellow! 

Other observations are that annual ryegrass will suck the water and nutrients and must be managed. If you look a the picture you can see that the areas with rows have broadleaf weed pressure but do not have annual stubble. There are no rows where the annual is thick.

This field looked like it had a decent stand of oats and enough annual to take for hay. The first cutting was good but I rushed it because of rain and baled too wet. We did sell it but it was a mess.

The second cutting looked like it would work, However, the dog fennel came on strong after a late rain and spoiled the hay quality. 

Sometimes the ratio of hydraulic fluid to hay production is a measurable negative quantity. I sprayed these pants with tire soap (because that is what was in my pickup) and my wife actually got them clean. They were almost new.

The only crop that is really selling now is Alfalfa. Western Oregon alfalfa is a challenge. We have heavy dew which bleaches the hay and 90 degree day time temperatures which cook it. 

This year we set the mower narrow. Then used a tedder /fluffer with multiple ground driven wheels. (See past blogs) 

The wheels are set at a very slight angle and you pull it as fast as you can go. This lifts and fluffs the hay but does not turn it. The point is to get the hay off the wet ground (we irrigate heavily) so that air can circulate. 

I just let it set for six days and on day seven I set the double rake to put two windrows side by side. I started at 7 a.m. while the hay was still damp. 

The idea was to rake both windrows together on day eight, but by 11 a.m. the hay was down to 16 percent and I started baling. 

Since Alfalfa is the only crop actually selling right now, we decided to fertilize. Our fertilizer choices were highly influence by what was leftover from spring planting. (My brother also got professional advice)

The suggested rate was 4 gallons of 32 solution per acre.  

We were a little tight on the 32 but had more 10-34 so I did 3 gallons of 32 and 2 gallons of 10-34.

We still don't have a real reliable sprayer setup so I decided to use the Gator-sprayer at ten gallons per acre so I added 5 gallons of water. One tank would do 5 acres. 

This was not the best idea I have ever had. It took a while... For some reason the rate controller decided not to open up for ten gallons at 8 mph so I dropped to 8 gallons per acre and 8 mph. I suspect there will be interesting patterns.

The never ending hay season, fireworks, making repairs

The fourth of July was my goal to finish up with hay this summer.  We now have more unsold mediocre quality hay then I have made in 20 years. It is a little depressing.

I picked up the last of the second cutting annual ryegrass, oats, orchard grass, dog fennel hay yesterday. I thought I could tell which was good and which was mostly dog fennel but it all looked the same to me. I would pick up a nice annual bale and the see a big flake of green dog fennel. Apparently, it has beneficial uses, but there is not much demand for 140lb bales of the crap.

The fourth of July was eventful. We were invited to two picnics. My neighbor is making a bit of a new start in life and decided to celebrate his freedom with a $1000 package of fireworks. I was able to convincing him into saving half for New Years as I figured that it was going to take three or four hours to launch the whole extravaganza.

I had a few really large mortars left from last year so we made a bit of a display. I nailed six launchers to a 2"x12" board and tied the fuzes together. We did salvos. His were less powerful but much more colorful so I set of five of his and one of my giants and it made a nice display. No one called the cops or posted angry comments on facebook so I guess it was all good.

There were young folks around to cheer so it was not weird that two old dudes were lighting fuses and running away, laughing like maniacs.

The field was surprisingly dry so we all got to run around and stomp out embers. Fortunately, I had the Gator Sprayer and a adjustable fire nozzle. 

I have been putting in the hours making hay, but there were several major failures that had me waiting on parts. There was a certain level of stress as I really don't like to leave hay in the field overnight, let alone a week.

I have been trying to get my motorcycles running so I can either ride or sell. Changed the oil in the Honda Ascot and put in a new battery. Trying to fix the oil leaks. The Triumph  started on the first kick.

(I gave her a good tickle first.)

Honda was harder to start. Required a new battery.