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Friday, July 13, 2012

More stacking

I over-slept this morning. My identity is the lazy farmer so I guess that is to be expected.
I have been thinking about the nice folks from Florida who came to visit me with their short bus but that would turn into a long and rambling story. I think I will just post some photos. My brother is hard at work already and I think he swathed late last night. Or at least I saw lights on the river bottom when I got home with the stacker.
I suppose what frustrates me most with the stacking this year is that I've had two really good days where I made a lot of money, and then the rest has been small fields and long hauls or bad bales. I should probably charge differently.
I have been wanting to buy a combine from Orin but have been waiting for money to come in. Need to pay the fertilizer bill first. I texted him between stacker loads last night and he noted he had sold two of them. I added up the accounts due in my head and realized I could buy his whole fleet for what I am owed. (They are cheap inexpensive combines) I hate to be like the biblical character who was forgiven a debt and then went out and threw someone in jail who owed him money. It ended badly for that guy. Just the same, I need to be better at saying "no!"
I've been calling people and telling them they need to pay. They always say they will, one guy sent what he had and I said, "thank you very much!"
Some photos...
I swear the fields never end... This is how I started the day yesterday.

The bales kept popping out of the stacker. It was a rough field. After much investigation I discovered a very simple problem. A pulley had worn so bad that the cable on the hydraulic cylinder setup that keeps the bales from sliding clear to the back of the stacker had worn through the pulley and into the pin. I finally noticed the cable was frayed. I feel pretty stupid as it is something I've checked.
This was at 4:30 p.m. and there was not time to make it to a New Holland dealer by 5 p.m. We found a pulley in our bottomless scrap heap and with a welder and some extra cable (that we didn't throw away) I was going by 6:30.
I picked up the prettiest orchard grass hay I have ever seen. It was so bright it was almost blue. The hillside was so steep the bales would fall out when the second table went up unless I was pretty careful.
Then I went on to pick up a truck load of my own hay. Finally! Listened to Ground Zero and discovered the world is going to end. Listened to that talk show guy that does the impersonations. He wasn't very good last night so I went home and went to bed.
And that is the story of my life...

A short rant: I can hear my brother talking to my little helper outside. My little helper is working hard. My brother is completely occupied with irrigation and swathing and so is not helping us. I am stacking. My helper is mowing, raking, and baling. I am supervising remotely.
We did have brother's son helping but now we are off the farm and the logistics of taking someone with you who doesn't drive yet does not work out well.
So, yesterday the helper headed the rake tractor in to fill up the hay preservative and he left it. He very likely left the electric control box turned on that runs the rake. The tractor wouldn't start. He couldn't get to it with the booster cables, he can't walk very fast anymore. This would not have been a problem but he took his 10 a.m. coffee break before starting the tractor, and the rake needed to be in the field and raking at 10 a.m. not leaving the farm for the field five miles away at 11 a.m.
So... the field that I started stacking at 10 p.m. was not finished and will have to be turned which puts us behind today and we need to mow hay and I need the mower tractor to grind feed and I have to stack 10 miles away and will have to come back for two acres before tomorrow.
Meaning, I need to get my lazy arse out the door and to work!
I hate the logistics and management. I just want to make really straight rows and really pretty hay. I don't want to tell people how to do really obvious things...
Have a nice day!

2 comments:

  1. Coffee breaks? I guess that is the difference between being an employee and an owner/operator. When I have a pressing job, the coffee break is optional and usually non-existent. I might compensate with an extra long noon hour though. Still working on that lazy farmer life style.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Interesting for us city folk.

    I assume that the hay will eventually become hamburger, so thanks for the hay.

    Grace and peace.

    ReplyDelete

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