The best addition I made to my Great Plains drill (other than a Loupe Seed Monitor)

The Great Plains 1500 grain drill has one very frustrating short coming. The small seed cups are unprotected and if it rains they get wet. This is especially frustrating if you are planting clay coated seed. The coating melts and makes a sludge in the bottom of the seed cup which plugs up the plastic fluted feed and you have to pressure wash the inside of the small seeds bin to actually get it clean. Super frustrating when using the small seeds to drop slug bait when no-tilling. 

A couple years ago I got a local tent and awning company to make me a fitted grain drill cover. It was expensive but it is essential when it rains and you have seed in the drill. It is made so it folds down over the front and back and has cutouts for the flashers. It folds back up into a compact square and I have a place to store it on the drill.

It rained last night. Not really enough to do much good. But the threat of rain was enough to speed up the hay baling operation significantly.

Unfortunately we still have another 140 acres to go and everything is turning color. It is supposed to be 90 degrees by the end of the week so that will be the end of nice pretty grass hay.

I am trying to plant alfalfa. We had to wait on lime and I didn't get it planted early like I wanted to do. I also decided to water the ground before planting. The plan was to plant into the moisture rather than plant into dry dirt and then irrigate. This was a solid plan but then I needed to do hay and then I started seeing a broad leaf sprout so I decided to harrow it all again. I should have waited till the rain was past and then I really would have had a sprout to work up but I got in a rush because I thought I could plant yesterday.

But then there was a flat tire, and apparently there is something in the fuel tank because the tractor kept dying when I turned right, then it completely quit and it took me an hour to bleed the lines and get it started again.

I planted 10 acres of Teff but didn't start on the alfalfa as I didn't want to plant the alfalfa in the dark. 

This morning I got to the field just in time to tarp the grain drill. Spent the rest of the morning working on hay equipment in the rain.

 

It is going to be a great day I can feel it in my bones

The week loomed but failed to inspire me into great production levels. So far I have not accomplished what I should have but more than I would have. It sounds better on paper than it looks in real life...

I finished working 25 acres for alfalfa. While the neighbors endlessly flogged 200 acres. I got tired of moving clods the size of small pebbles around and got the Nephew to put out irrigation. Of course it turned out there was considerably less hose on the irrigator than we thought so that kind of went south...

Yesterday I cut 20 more acres of alfalfa. Some of it was getting very rank and had annual ryegrass choking it. The alfalfa in the picture is short and light green with yellow tinged leaves. Might have a little bit of a deficiency. I of course can't remember the blend I used in the spring. 0-0-50-18? Should probably add more, also write things down and not lose the tablet. Of course the Weather forecast on the TV this morning says possible showers Wednesday. Maybe I should cut the 30 acres of red clover also. If you are going down people enjoy the show more if you add flames.

Big Old Jetliner, was circling the farm yesterday. Probably signal jamming my GPS so my field lines are crooked as some sort of a nefarious plot to disrupt my sanity. I showed them as my sanity was already disrupted and I can't drive straight regardless of GPS. If I had autosteer I would probably still auto wander...

 

 

The week looms ahead of me

I need a service truck. An air compressor mounted on a Chevy Luv trailer is not the ideal setup. 

Over the years I worked off the farm all my farm equipment suffered. Especially my service truck, a 1989 Ford F250 with a 460. (Lack of exhaust plumbing under the engine seems to have confused the O2 sensor and my helper put the front wheel drive assembly together wrong. And something is wrong with the electrics so it doesn't start reliably and shuts off randomly while driving)

I left the grain drill next to the field I need to plant. It had two flat tires. On the same side. The two tires I just had repaired.

If only I was not lazy and would get more work done...

This week, need to spray weed patches with Gator Sprayer, Plant alfalfa, make cow feed, cut hay, fix brakes on Moline 1355, fix rain spout so my wife can steal water from the state of Oregon for her garden, fix the tire on my LN8000, and clean my shop.

If I do one thing on the list it will be a success...

 

I observe how to farm in the modern way

I have been watching the megafarmer's helper work ground next to my hay making misadventure. It is amazing and depressing at the same time.

This is probably 300 acres of river bottom ground and they are flogging it hard. I think it is going in to corn again.

They started with one of those huge John Deere articulated tracked machines and like a 20 foot disk ripper. Ripped it at least twice and now using second one with a heavy harrow and roller set up to smooth and break clods.

Earlier in the week I watched the tractor operator dig mud out of the rolling baskets behind the ripper at one end of the field, while raising dust at the other end and could see where this was all going. 

The ground is in the dreaded golf ball round clod stage and has no moisture, but I don't think it is going to matter, with that much weight and horsepower, it will break down.

If it doesn't, they will just plant the corn into dry soil and apply so much water that the ground melts together. The cost and time do not really matter. 

My neighbor that owned the place was one of the really good old school farmers. He has been gone a good ten years and the ground is rented out for a lot of money.

I remember him out at my Uncle's farm store at coffee time talking about working ground. Talking about the different soil types on his farm. The good Chehalis soil by the river and how to work the heavy clay Wapato on the wet ground. 

Back when a really big tractor was 110hp, and irrigation was hand lines or a big awkward Vermeer, knowing how to work your ground was incredibly important.  

You didn't work up more ground then you could get packed back down before it dried out. If you were under a dust cloud when spring farming, you were in trouble.

I actually bought his 16 foot equipment and have been using it to work up 20 acres to plant alfalfa. I thought I was doing it wrong when I plowed 30 acres and let it get a little too dry on top. In fact I am fighting that problem with the alfalfa ground.

But the newer and better farmer is doing 300 acres at once and that is modern efficiency. I keep thinking of my farming advocate neighbor who likes to quote USDA stats about how one modern farmer produces more that 20 old time farmers. 

I think it is more like one modern farmer has displaced 50 farmers who knew their land and lived their local farm existence. 

Progress... 

I am watching out the window of my ancient New Holland 1085 stacker as my neighbor works ground the right way. I have a friend that keeps sending me Tristan Swartz videos where he talks about his small scale dairy farming. The old ways are never coming back.

 

 

 

I fertilize oats but have adventures along the way. Probably more of a quest for fertilizer rather than a trip for fertilizer

Some years ago I purchased a 1972 Ford LN8000 with a 6-71 Detroit diesel, 13 speed, tandem axles, 24ft bed. It is loud, rough rough riding, and it is getting long in the tooth. I can't remember when I acquired it. Probably 15 years ago. (The earliest reference I found on this blog for  Detroit 6-71 was in 2011.)  I bought it off of Craigslist. Got a good deal because the car battery the guy was using, wouldn't spin the engine fast enough to start, and there was an air leak in the shifter so it was stuck in low range.

It is bad enough that the nephew quit using it to haul hay. Kept falling through the holes in the bed I suspect. I have been using it haul fertilizer. I got stuck when we had the thunderstorm and got 2” rain in 15 minutes.
The front tires sank to the axles in the hay field so I just left it until I could get help to get it out.
A month later, someone got it unstuck and drove it out to the field road.

Only problem was the left front tire was flat came off the bead.
I had to get fertilizer so I ended up fixing it.
I couldn’t get a jack under the axle with the tire flat. I was a little worried about taking the forklift down the hill with no brakes.  Then I had a grand idea! 

The Crane Truck.. 

 

I lifted the left side off the ground, found a can of starting fluid and a lighter and popped the tire right back on. Only a small amount of flames. Pretty slick concept really.

The next day I topped off the air and set off to get fertilizer. 

Our formerly local cooperative, which is now owned by some company from Idaho, has decided to rebuild the local fertilizer plant. Apparently the new thing is to close all the small plants and move to one big location so as to be less convenient for 80 percent of your customers. Great idea! 

Since I had to drive a half hour to the other soon to be closed location, I just continued on another ten minutes to the competition who are slightly cheaper. 

On the way a wasp nest dropped off the sun visor on me.  

I killed it. 

Then my neighbor called me and somehow I ended up driving right past the dealer whose box I was using and driving 2 miles out of the way to get one bag of of Orchardgrass seed that turned out to be $200 for 50lbs. Of course they only take cash or check…but I have cash from chicken feed so no worries. Maybe I will get a planting job.

I had to pickup 6,000lbs dry 40-0-0-6 (urea based) and 400 gallons liquid two different types in 350 gallon tanks. 
The guy at the fertilizer plant had a tic. He would suddenly, and with no provocation, jerk his head to the right and go “uurrrrp!”
Scared the heck out of me the first time it happened. Of course I jumped and turned to see what he was looking at.
Freaked me out. After that I pretty much managed not to react. Nice guy I didn't mean to be a jerk.

But I digress... 

Now, you need to keep in mind, It was a good half hour drive to the fertilizer plant in a 1972 Ford LN8000 with a loud under powered Detroit 6-71 engine and a 13 spd transmission that you have to shift for every little hill to maintain 54 mph.

Right out of the yard the shuttle tanks I was using to hold fertilizer started sloshing so bad I thought I was going to lose one off the side. 10-34 fertilizer is like 13lbs to the gallon, so 200 gallons sloshing is a big deal.
I stopped and added straps. Not a big deal but the winches did not line up with the tanks. I finally found some clamp on winches in the bottom of the tool box. Now I am one my way.
So, I took off down 99W and about 2/3 of the way home the accelerator goes to the floor and won't return. Later I was to discover that the alternator broke off and fell on the throttle causing the diesel engine to run wide open. Not a big deal as it is an old Detroit 6-71 and you pretty much run it up against the governor anyway. BUT To shift I had to reach down and pull up on the accelerator pedal. 

A bit dicey in downtown Amity… 

When I got home I popped the hood. 

A few minutes with the welder and I am back in business. Of course the tire went flat again so there is that... 

Spreading fertilizer on oats for hay. I should have spread fertilizer and then planted through the fertilizer but wasn't able to coordinate getting a spreader. We really need a working fertilizer spreader. Hopefully we have enough days left for good growth on the oats.

 

 

Adventures in oil changing

Well, that went badly...

I think this picture speaks for itself...

 

 

Election day and attempting to make hay

Two things that are depressing in life...

Watching the election cycle and making hay when you know it is going to probably rain in five days...

The election is predictable doom and so is rain at hay season.

I cut 25 acres of meadow foxtail and timothy hay yesterday. Some of it was so heavy I cut at 3.5 mph with a 150hp tractor. CaseIH DC103 mower which is 10 foot cut.

I added up the acres left and realized we have over 200 acres of grass hay to do. I probably should say "I" as the nephew has other things to do. Like welding stuff in the shop and combining and driving truck and delivering hay.  Its not like I can just send him off to cut and then fart around the shop anymore. 

I can't do 20 acres and then wait a week for a good weather forecast, I need to cut 20 acres every day so  there is always material to bale. 

The elections always go badly. I voted for Trump because I despised the alternatives. I voted for local candidates not because I liked their ideas or claimed policies but because I despised the alternatives.

So you just get further behind in politics and the hay will be crappy.

I have been listing to the radio. This is a mistake. I started "Dune," on Audible and I should stick with that. I was also listening to a Carl Jung book about repressed memories and how the mind manipulates itself to cover trauma. That was too depressing... I do not want to remember my alien abduction. (Or do I???)

But, I digress...

I find the Trump/Conservative Police State attack on Thomas Massie and their promotion of Ed Gallrein pretty depressing. They are lying about Massie who has consistently voted for conservative issues but has stood against big bills with sketchy things hidden in them, and Trump's troubling promotion of spending, surveillance/secrecy and bone headed foreign policy moves.

Honesty, Donald Trump campaigned on opposition to the CIA and the "deepstate," and the CIA and the "DeepState" got him into an unwinnable war with the most insane people on the planet. Of course it could be true that Iran almost had the bomb and "was weeks away..." But looking at the totally fabricated reasons we got into nearly every conflict since World War Eleven, I am going to be a bit skeptical. 

It is interesting to see Gun Owners of America and the NRA are not supporting Gallrein. Gallrein is establishment security state Republican, typical big farmer douche, and he will tow the line for the donations.

Interesting that Massie is getting a lot of support from young conservatives. But the Republican party has never known what to do with young conservatives and that goes all the way back to the Rush Limbaugh on talk radio days and the royal screwing the Bush clan gave us. 

Now I will say this is all open for debate. What really angers me is the character assassination directed at Massie. It is fine to attack if you are pro Big Government, tax and spend, War Hawk, Security State, and so on. But, don't say he is the worst guy ever or make up crap about his girlfriends or lie about his voting record which according to the scorecard put out by the Heritage Action center for this session, he is at a 92 percent while the average House Republican is at 85. They have his lifetime score at 83 percent but I have to go work on hay so no more commentary.

Looking forward to local elections, will two more lunatics join the Yamhill County board of Commissioners or will it just one crazy vs two sort of conservative people with big ideas that will never fly?

Either way we are getting a bicycle trail... 

I am applying hay preservative. I should have done it when I cut as the stems have probably closed by now and I am only getting it on top of the windrow. But it makes me feel better. I am using a preservative that is lactobacillus in a molasses base so I just dumped in a lot more molasses and declared my program a success. Perception is reality!