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.