I deliver hay and do farm stuff

The other day I stopped by the Farm Service Agency to find out about low interest loans for on farm commodity storage.

The nice lady was quite happy to see me after eight years of me avoiding the place. She said I was still in their computers! 

It was a little disconcerting to hear her negativity on the farm economy for next year. However, she was encouraging with our plan to focus more on selling small bales to horse people. It seems to be the only bright spot lately. 

We need to add storage to house another four semi truck loads of hay. (around 2,400 bales of 14" x 18" x36" @ 65lbs each) Storing it outside under a tarp is not working. It makes a mess when it rains.

It sounds like we will be a shoe-in for the loan program. Three years ago the estimate for the addition was $40,000 ready to move in. It seemed a bit expensive then. Who knows the price now.

I helped my nephew haul a load of hay earlier in the week. I haven't been moving a lot of hay in the last few years. This was 110lb three tie bales. It wasn't too bad. 

The delivery location was not great. Tight location. Nephew just finished rebuilding the bed on our machinery transport truck so we decided to try it out. He loaded up the Skid Steer with hay grapple and I drove the old Ford Louisville tandem and we kept coastal traffic at 45 mph for a few miles.

I did feel a little guilty about taking two trucks and not just stacking in the barn. I have had worse barn stacking jobs. I was happy to see the roll-back deck worked flawlessly. 

Unloading truck with skidsteer and hay grapple. Worked pretty slick. The grapple also rotates to facilitate stacking.

Not a great picture but it is proof of life

The next trip with the truck will be to help Muddy Valley move his farm equipment. Probably next week.

Down the highway... My ears are still ringing! Lots of gears to make it to 55 mph.

A link to an interesting perspective on the Future Farmers of America

I have been amazed at the efforts of the Future Farmers of America to stay relevant in todays idiotic world. I was at the Willamette Valley Ag Show this week and was impressed at the number of FFA members who were involved with the show. Of course everything depends on your local advisor and some are incredible and some are completely worthless.

However, the National FFA organization seems to have understood that it is more than just "cows and plows," as the pathetic nerds at National Honor Society like to say, as they hug each other and frolic with rainbow flags.

And therein is the  issue. I suspect FFA has become a refuge for students who need to escape the bullshite of modern high school life.

There are two ways to look at that idea.

Mother Jones has found the last bastion of non doucheness left in America and they are exposing it...

CLICK here to see how the Future Farmers of America are a bunch of racist colonialist homophobes. (Thanks to my nameless buddy for texting me the link hoping to provoke an "intelligent discussion)

Also, if I were advising a young person of color... I would encourage them to join FFA. My observation is that you actually learn useful life skills. Skills which are not taught in public school. Like, how to run a business, public speaking, how to run a meeting, how to suffer in a dorky uniform in hot weather, how to talk to old people, how to put up with girls taking all the leadership positions, and if you are a kid with brown or black skin, how to win a place in society based on merit. 

But, what do I know? I am just a racist, inappropriate, insincere, and sarcastic old fart...

Also... I would really like to know why the percentage of farmers in the USA who are black went from something like 14% to a current rate of 2%. I can tell you the liberal bullshite interpretation of why this happened but I am betting there are correlations with declining farmer numbers in other areas. I am of course looking for support for my theory of megalomaniac family farming but do not want to give any support to other groups that I don't like. My world is a schizophrenic world, but at least I am never alone.

I go to an Agricultural Show

Yesterday my Brother and I went to the Willamette Valley Ag Expo. We needed pesticide credits so we went early in the day. Unfortunately we looked at the schedule wrong and the pesticide classes are today. I am not very excited about going back.

One of the highlights of the show is a hot lunch served cafeteria style. It is $12 with your admission ($5). This year it was chicken fried steak or lasagna. There was no steak left when we got there but there was iceberg lettuce. I do love iceberg lettuce and Ranch dressing. The lasagna stayed with me all day.

My brothers Wife and Son came up in the evening for a progressive type dinner that was supposed to feature Oregon grown delights. They were meeting with friends. 

My friend at the N&S Tractor booth gave me a ticket so I got to join the tour.

I think I was expecting something a little different. Perhaps more educational? It was supposed to feature Oregon grown items and I expected small portions with labels or maybe someone promoting products. Instead it was just dinner lines in each building with the main entree from a local meat producer. Also, Iceberg lettuce. I opted for the Italian dressing as I felt I needed to be more "cultured."

I also like meat. Not a huge fan of dead sheep but anything is good with salt and a little char.

You can't go wrong with meat! Mashed potatoes, boiled beans and Iceberg Lettuce!

Other than indigestion all day and much of the night, I was happy with the show. There were lots of free pens and key fobs this year. Lots of big ticket farming items. Four booths selling baler twine, (which I thought was a bit odd.)

The vendors were paying a lot of attention of the young people. Lots of kids were sporting new hats and had bags bursting with pens, cheap frisbees, writing pads, and candy. Lots of candy.

I have no idea what this says about the farm economy. There was almost nothing for small farmers. (IMHO) But there was a lot of equipment there.

I know the grass seed industry is not seeing much cash flow, commodity crops are crap, I think filberts are doing better, straw and hay are okay. 

Just my observations. The show seemed to have a lot more energy this year than in the past. There were very few empty booths. I saw two vendors I remembered from 20 years ago when we sold moisture testers at the Portland show.

I am sure this is a favorable result of the Booming Biden Economy!

How much I ended up charging to plant a hayfield/pasture

This is what it cost to plant a 12 acre pasture. This does not include the price of glyphosate or application of aforementioned evil poison...

100lbs Fawn Fescue $175
100lbs Orchardgrass $275
100lbs Climax Timothy $155
Recharge seed inoculant $116
129 gallons 10-34 liquid fertilizer $496.65
No-Till planting for 12 acres which was two directions at $30 per acre $660
(or I could have charged 5.5 hrs @ $120/hr which actually came out to the same price)

Total price was $1877.65

I think that is a lot of money for a 12 acre pasture. But I am not really making a lot of money on the job. I ended up getting the seed and fertilizer and it took forever. Plus, I paid for it all.

I was hesitant about charging for the second pass but it took a lot of time to do the first pass at an angle in this field. Second pass in a circle took a little over an hour. But the price I charge for planting reflects a high maintenance and expensive grain drill, a 180hp tractor, diesel, tires, and since it is a 1980's White tractor-the hydraulic oil I leak per acre.

I really feel that the cost in seed and fertilizer is pretty telling in relation to farming today. I know I am selling a service but I would have worked the ground. That would have doubled or tripled the farming cost but there would be a much better seed bed and better weed control.

Seed and fertilizer was $100 per acre and I assume Glyphosate was another $35 per acre.

Not a lot of room for error anymore...

I think it if fails I will replant for free or a substantial discount. Sort of feel guilty about charging so much...

Planting a pasture

Yesterday I planted a pasture. I avoid doing pastures as I have never had a lot of success. 

I live in Western Oregon. It seems to me that all the farming is done elsewhere. There are never good deals on tractors or research on alternative growing methods. The Rodale Institute is PA. When you look up farming information and get excited because the web address is "OSU." You soon find out that the research was done by Ohio State University, NOT Oregon State University.

It is pretty crazy when the catalogue from Great Plains MFG shows a set up just like mine replanting pasture but my experiences have mostly been failures.

There were three problems with this planting job. 

First issue is it is too late in the year for me to have confidence in good seed germination. My experience is that the seed just sets there and rots. If it does come up then it frost heaves out of the ground.

Second problem is that this is an old Turf-type Fescue field. Turf fescue has Endophytes bred into the seed which help prevent disease but cause issues with animal health. It was sprayed with glyphosate a couple days ago but there will still be seed sprouting later on. Also, the fescue sod is hard to kill. If there is any sod that is still dormant from summer, it may still come back. (not likely but I have seen it) 

The final issue is that the fescue is planted in 15" rows. The fescue rows have sod which is taller than the bare dirt between the rows. The no-till drill doesn't track well on the ridges. You have a lot of depth control issues. I could compensate if I could plant at an angle to the rows. However, this is an odd shaped field and there are few straight lines.

I suggested several alternatives. First I could no-till Cayuse Oats which will do "okay," winter planted and have a pretty decent hay yield. Take the hay off in late May when the oats are in late bloom. It is a little late for Oats so it would be better to wait until our winter weather break at the beginning of February. This would give time to make sure the fescue was dead.

Second suggestion was to work the ground. This would insure a kill on the fescue and make a smooth field. Again, November is a little late as we are heading into the rainy season.

My customer decided he wanted the pasture planted now and if it didn't come up we would do it again in the spring and he would pay me again.

So I planted.

The field was supposed to be 10 acres. I opted to plant two directions because of the difficulty with the fescue rows. This was not real successful. I picked a good straight line but soon found I was turning around way too frequently. Then I discovered that the field was more like 12 acres.

I got 100lbs of Fawn Fescue, 100lbs of Orchardgrass, and 50lbs of Timothy. The recommendation was 10lbs two directions but I wanted to go a little heavier. The goal was 30lbs total. However, having two acres extra was a problem. I scrounged through my shop for left over part bags, buckets, coffee cans, of any sort of forage grass. I found 25lbs of Kentucky 31, some Kentucky bluegrass of unknown vintage, and 25lbs more lbs of Timothy. I have 25 acres on the counter.

The other issue was fertilizer. I rebuilt my fertilizer applicator system with mixed results. I thought I had a system that I could easily agitate my fertilizer. This is handy if you have crappy 10-34 from Valley Ag or if you are mixing 32 and 10-34 as they tend to separate overnight. I needed the agitation as I was adding a Compost Tea inoculant called Recharge. 

My friend has worked with these folks, CatalyistBioAmendments. They are in Colorado and seem less sketchy. I need to email them and see if they offer a similar seed starter. I had a picture showing how one side of the drill came up faster due to the inoculant but it doesn't show up well on a computer screen.

Compost tea additive is just a bit hard on the filters

My agitation comes from the bypass which is how I regulate fertilizer pressure. The servo valve directs flow back into the tank instead of the usual method of restricting flow to the boom. There is a three-way valve on the boom which was made by Texas Industrial. A TIR.2401 three-way valve. This valve is now discontinued and I can't find instructions or a parts breakdown. It used to direct flow back into the tank when the fertilizer boom was shut off. Now it mostly just sticks open so if I want agitation I have to slowly reduce speed so the bypass directs all the flow back into the tank. It is a bit frustrating. A new high quality valve is like $400.

But I digress...

I mixed the compost tea inoculant in with the 10-34 fertilizer as this puts the mixture right down with the seed and set the Micro-trak Spraymate II at 8 gallons per acre. Everything was calculated for 10 acres and I foolishly mixed up very close to the correct amount. After making the first pass I had to go back home and mix up a second batch to make sure I came out correctly at 24 acres.

Then it started to get dark...

It was impossible to see anything and the GPS didn't work as the field had multiple slopes. The second trip I put down my marker, put the 2-155 in fifth over and ran at 7 mph. It took me 3 hours to do the first pass and an hour to do the second pass.

Skip this post it is about Politics and hasn't been edited.

I am finding this election cycle very depressing. 

I never thought "they" would let Trump win. He is disruptive. He annoys establishment Republicans.

Now that Trump has won both the popular and the vote of the Electoral College the rationalization by both sides has began. I don't think anyone knows why the election turned out the way it did and so everyone is trying to figure out how the results agree with their perception of America.

I was talking to a friend who believes white people exist to oppress black people. He is sure the future is oppression of women and black people. He feels that the working class black folk who voted for Trump are colonialist apologists and kind of ignorant.

The Republicans are scrambling to kiss Trump arse and get jobs in the administration and still probably 70 percent of them want to screw him over. Mitch McConnell is pushing the election of a new speaker of the house to form a "loyal," opposition to Trump.

The is both good and bad. The problem with the Trump is that he surrounds himself with sycophantic idiots and you never know when they are going to claim there is secret plot to replace the senate with Reptilians or turn on Trump and claim he wants to put all women in jail. Both of those ideas are completely crazy as the Senate already is made of of Reptilians and... well I digress. My heart isn't really in a political discussion this morning.

A lot of people who tend to set out of elections voted for DT again this election cycle.  Why did they set out the last election? Why did they come back for this one?  At this time it sounds like there were a lot of male black and latino voters for DT. Also, quite a few women did not follow the gender line.

There are two distinct socio-economic classes in this country. There are the college educated people who work for government and company management. For example, you get a degree in environmental science and you intern with the local soil conservation district, and then you get a job in NRCS and you are making rules for farmers and you know nothing about farming plus your professors and peers claim farmers are colonialistic environmental abusers. Then you wonder why you are not getting cooperation.

Then there are the rest of us who work for our living...

The Democrats continually insult our intelligence. They pushed Joe Biden when he was obviously mentally unfit, they pushed him into the presidential race for the second time when he couldn't complete a sentence. Then, they screwed him over for the Vice President who comes off as a total idiot, and claimed she was the most capable person available. 

There were bizarre campaign decisions like courting the Dick Cheney endorsement. They honestly tried to rehab Dick Cheney? Lefties wanted to prosecute Cheney for war crimes. It was hilarious. Plus, conservatives are still not happy about the Bush/Cheney war that lasted for ever and gained us nothing but hatred.

In the final weeks of the election the Democrats made insane claims about Trump executing Liz Cheny or prosecuting those you disagreed with him. The Democrats when over the top when they manufactured a Trump conviction. That conviction told us all that if we offended the wrong person we could go to jail for violating a whole lot of stupid rules that no one ever pays attention to.

Finally, there was illegal immigration, supporting the economy by printing money, and the Democrat instance on abortion up to actual birth.

People that I know want unrestricted immigration stopped. We believe several key points about current immigration policy. First, no control means that gangs, drugs, and criminals across the border. The cartels are obviously in charge. This brings in corruption with US government officials, it ruins the asylum process as the people you are escaping are following you in. It has given us new gang problems. 

It is diluting the worker pool. There are too many unskilled or non English speaking people and it disrupts local industry. Plus, there is now a demand for housing but most people can't afford to build or own.

Abortion is a problem that must be solved. I feel the Republicans will totally screw this one up. (There is too much money being made off of abortion (on both sides) to ever solve the problem.  Abortion should be available for up to 12 weeks, then restricted to heath of the mother, rape, incest, or being a Democrat. Most countries in the world are opposed to killing babies in the last month. It is insane we even debate it.

But now I am bored and want to talk about farm equipment. I wait with anticipation to see how the short pants RINO Republicans will totally screw this up. 

Maybe Joe, Mitch, and Nancy will get us in a shooting war. That is about the only thing left.

I ignore the obvious and waste several days on complicated solutions to a simple problem

I have been working on my under the sink water filter. I broke down and ordered a different on-demand 110v pump which I put in front of the water filter to pressurize the system. 

It was very noisy. It ran all day.

I decided the pump was not getting enough water so I drove in to Lowes to get fittings to go to 3/8" tubing instead of 1/4" tubing. 

A the stoplight to turn into Lowes I saw the hay customer I had forgotten about and I discovered I had left my cell phone at home. So I turned around.

After selling three bales of hay I returned to lowes.

This was an exercise in frustration as is every encounter I have experience at Lowes.

Everything is now push on and PEX fittings and nothing was right. Finally a very nice you man asked me if I needed help, and then kept trying to help me until I we actually found a brass t-fitting that should have worked. 

The problem is that I need a female to female ferrule type thread adapter. The t-fitting for the water filter has a female swivel on one end and male threads on the other and the center fitting goes to a valve and direct to 1/4" tubing and a different ferrule than I can find.

The replacement T-fitting had male 3/8 ferrule type threads on all three ends which required more adaptation. 

Then I discovered the fitting on the filter was no removable and that fitting was 1/4".  So I decided to cut some of the extra feed line off and at least fit things in better.

Which is when I made my most important discovery. I ofter wonder what is wrong with my mind. I can do in depth trouble shooting, but I often miss the obvious. I am probably getting dementia.

The feed line was plugged with sediment.

Of course I did not have a new ferrule for the valve end so I cut if off short, cleaned the line, spliced a clear 1/4" line to the filters. 

I could have done that two weeks ago...

This is what the inside of the 1/4" feed line looked like when I cut it open.

In other news...

Someone has been actually reading old posts from this blog. I can see it on the analytics page. It must be someone with a national service provider as I can't actually tell what city they are from. It could be someone in Ireland. It is actually kind of neat to see what they are reading. I used to post a lot more and I think I did more interesting things back in 2011. I think life was better back in 2011.

If you are reading old posts I want to say thanks and I hope you enjoy them!