Heat Wave

Day before yesterday was 104, yesterday 107. Around 4 p.m. employee and I went to the river. The river was actually hot feeling. Don't ever remember that before.

I think the record for yesterday was 110 in 1956. Day before was 105 in 1997. I think. May be off on my days.

Have a new helper. I hate breaking in new people. Explaining how to rake and bale. Don't make piles with the v-rake. You know YOU are going to be the one to bale it. Watch the moisture tester and stroke counter in the baler. If the moisture goes over 16 percent let me know! That is why we have the moisture tester in the tractor.

Don't slip the clutch. Don't drive into piles of straw at full speed. Do you have enough water?

I like hiring high school and college girls. They are always happy. And I can't get mad at them unless they do something really stupid twice in a row.

I started on my $30 a ton straw yesterday. Baled half a truck load. The stuff is crap. I don't know what I'm going to do. I desperately need the money but I'm thinking of pulling out. I've got to find the fellow buying the straw and see if he will take it.

I have a fellow who owes me $$$ for hay. He is trying to cut me down on the price. But, I lost his phone number and now he is annoying my land lord.

A/C blew up in the cab in the stacker. Found a loose hose fitting and fixed it. I was drenched with sweat by the time I was done. Tried to boost the air in the 2-135. Got it colder by adjusting the A/C pressures up a little. Then the fitting on the gauge set blew out with a whoosh. Lost my added r-134 on that one.

Then the combine. It is freon and it is not working. Burnt my hand working on that one in the 130 degree engine compartment.

I want to go away...

Why I love to farm

I think I’ve been a bit on edge lately. Seem to perhaps have become a bit negative.

The latest round of negativity may have started with the NewAgTalk discussion of why we farm.

It was wonderful.

Everyone farms because they love it. No one posted that they farm because, they don’t know what else to do, they were born on the farm and partied so hard in college they couldn’t do anything else, or one summer they came back home to help out and somehow just never left even though it has been 20 years (me).

My favorites are those who make statements about the lifestyle choice.

I tell myself I farm because I love the lifestyle, the beauty of God’s creation, the wonderful people I meet, and the freedom to be my own boss.

Translation: I work my arse off in the heat and dust all summer so I can work on antique broken farm equipment in the winter and freeze my arse off.

The plus side of this is that I have ended up with a small arse. This would be better were I female.

Then there are the folks who make the statement along the lines of, “I came to enjoy farming more when I treated it like a business instead of a lifestyle.”

Translation: I got tired of being screwed by all the other farmers and I decided to screw them harder then they screwed me…

I farm because that is what I do. Sometimes I really enjoy it. Sometimes I am just angry. I guess I’d do something else if I could figure out what else to do.. Somehow I think that I’m going to end up in a Marx farm set from 1968. Have a tidy old barn, a few cows, chickens, one small tractor-a Moline 335 or perhaps a 670 super, my wife will tend a little garden, we will have a fruit room full of canned vegetables and peaches, several wooden crates of potatoes, and the house will smell faintly of honey comb.

Sometime I am going to realize that ain’t going to happen. I have not the self discipline nor the motivation for subsistence farming. I can never afford my own farm. At best I could end up a hired man for a giant farmer. However, I could be what ever I want on NewAgTalk forums-so perhaps there is hope.

I had another round of annoyances with the local farmers.

Fescue straw is worth nothing this year. Last year it was worth 85 dollars a ton in the field. This year I am lucky to get $35. I decided to bale because I am broke. It is just trading dollars for slightly more dollars and really is not worth the trouble but I need $3500 and I can get paid right away for selling my 100 tons of straw.

I have been getting straw from my good friend and cousin. He has some rented ground which he farms in partnership with a local who is kind of a big time operator. They have been friends since childhood I guess. They have a good relationship. The BTO appears to be clueless, “oh I can’t figure out how to run my sprayer, can you show me how? Oh did I screw you in the arse, Oh I didn’t mean for you to think that, I wanted you to think I’m a nice guy. Let me tell you how God has blessed me.”

So BTO screws my cousin and my cousin rationalizes it away. Good basis for friendship.

I call my cousin about the straw. It is a bit of a problem as while I am supposed to be friends with BTO and I have asked for this field a number of times he insists on giving his share to someone else. Last year I paid them $40 a ton stumpage for the straw I got.  Cousin says I can have his share. I tell him I don’t need exactly half, I want a clearly defined field. Doesn’t have to be perfect just needs to be mine. Cousin says ok. (had some problems with this last year.)

That afternoon another neighbor calls me. Very apologetic. BTO offered him the BTO’s share. Neighbor wants to make sure everything is ok with me. Offers to buy any extra straw I may have from that field.

Now that is how it should be done. I almost just gave him the whole field cause I don’t want to bale in the projected 104 degree temps.

BTO is a jerk.

But, of course I will go plant his stupid little triangle fields and listen to him say what a nice guy I am and why he never understands why his neighbors don’t like him. Perhaps we can talk about God together.

Later me can go to #$%^ Promise Keepers and hold hands.

Not much of a businessman

I have been told this before... I'm not a very good businessman. I'm really not sure why I try to give people good deals. I really don't think I care that much if people like me. In fact most of the time I would just rather be left alone. So, I can't say I am trying to buy friendship. I see the prices everyone is charging and I think, "boy that's a lot of money. I wouldn't want to pay that much," and I cut the price a little. That is kind of insane. OF COURSE IT IS A LOT OF MONEY-that is the point!

So, yesterday I sold some hay at Gopher Valley. She had bought hay from me the day before, so I knew the lady had lost her job so instead of charging $10 a bale for the 110lb three-tie bales, I charged her $8. And then since she only had $16 in her pocket, I through in another bale for free-since I was already on the stack and it seemed a shame to just get two bales.

Her and her husband come back to get more hay yesterday. He is some sort of jet airplane inspector and makes big bucks and will never get fired. They were buying hay at the farmstore for $15 a bale. $10 would have been fine.

Very nice people. He worked summers on a farm. They ran Freeman 330 balers, bulled by Toyota Landcruisers. Somewhere around Stockton, CA. He said they would load the hay into boxcars. Anyone who has done that kind of job in that kind of heat has got to be some sort of super-hero...

I could sell a lot more hay to the locals up there if I had it to sell. Kind of a funny market. 

I see the fellow I'm subrenting my other hay field to got his rained on Timothy baled. 

I do think it is funny to think that he wouldn't sell me that three acres of hay. Then he got it rained on... Then they didn't take care of it till it was bleached brown. I could have sold the rained on hay as well.

I'm continually amazed by farmers. If you found 20 farmers I bet 18 of them would screw you in a business deal if they could. Of the 18 two of them would be honest about it and laugh and the rest would tell you it was for your own good. I try to be friends with the 2 out of 20-and do business with 2 honest out of the 18.

On my way up to Gopher Valley I was thinking about that issue.

I was driving by fields of grass straw. I have no straw to bale. We have lost a few acres by refusing to pay outrageous prices that those who out bid me did not actually pay. I need a couple hundred acres. I've approached several farmers with the idea that I would just take care of their straw. Pay them what it is worth and do a good job.

I know the straw is not worth very much, but I would get it done...

Back to work.

Who cares

Anger Management?

I've been trying to get my stupid 20 acres finished at Gopher Valley. So far I've used 200 gallons of diesel, made 8 trips across it, and today I broke my cultipacker.

It is an international 913 or something like that. It has cast iron brackets that attach the rollers to the frame. 

I've made three trips with it, well four if you count the first pass after plowing with the disk ahead of it... Anyway, I had finished the main field, I kind of decided to give up on it as the ground is now totally dry and will not pack, I figured if I got it down to the size of marbles I would let it set all summer and perhaps get a sprout in the early fall. So, I do the last little corner which had a lot of sod, the harrow kept plugging up so I made a trip through the briar patch at the edge of the field to clean out the harrow. The tractor pulled down and I looked back through the dust in time to see the roller jam under the wheels.

I get everything unjammed and go after my pickup for tools to remove the broken mounts. I forgot to lock the hubs, but I did make it across the creek that only runs when I need to do work in my field. But, on the way back I got stuck. I got out by locking the hubs and rocking the truck back and forth but now I screwed up my crossing and the creek is flooding my field. 

I also managed to nail myself in the knee with a sledgehammer and scrape and bruise my arm at the same time by scraping it down the broken casting when the wrench slipped off the suck nut.

Sometimes I really hate my job....Life....other farmers....Gopher Valley.... Everything....

What do I do now?

Hay is basically over, I have 10 acres of alfalfa to bale tonight. I have stacking to do for the neighbor.
I don't have Gopher Valley finished.
I need to bale some grass straw. It is worth nothing. I think I'm getting $30 a ton, stacked in the field.
Not sure what to do with Gopher Valley.
I plowed it but there is a lot of sod. I think the sod needs to sit for a month and dry out. But, I've got the disk and culipacker there.
I need to disk up some more rough hay fields, but will that actually work. Will it still be just as rough next year? Do I need to plow it all?
Can I afford to plow it?
Should I round up it and no-till oats?
How do I get it sprayed and can I afford to run my drill 10 miles in the hills to do 20 acres when I most likely will have paying customers.
I know I make more money working for other people than I do working for myself.
What about Muddy Valley.
My landlord there, wants me to work up more pasture for hay ground.
I can't afford it.
I've got 120 gallon's of diesel invested in this project already, and it is not even finished.
Then there is the fact that everything has gone to heck and nothing is actually worth doing.
I feel a touch depressed this morning...

I worked ground at Gopher Valley

I know now why I have been trying to get rid of this farm. I want it back when I'm all done with hay and need a little more, BUT, when I'm up there spending money that there is a good chance I won't get back... I kind of hate the place...

I hauled the 14ft Bush Hog disk and the 914 International cultipacker up behind my pickup. (Not all at once) It was a little touchy on the narrow roads. I pulled the 911 Melroe plow up behind my tractor as it doesn't pull very fast.

I had hired a friend to use his little 90hp 4wd tractor and 10ft covercrop disk earlier in the year. He quit saying it was too rough and wet. Where he went over the ground twice-three times it works up really nice. i wouldn't even have to plow. Where he quit the grass is three foot tall and plugs up the disk. I actually bent my 3/4" hitch pin. The bouncing of the disk worked the hair pin up through the drawbar hole. Bent the pin and when it all came unhooked the bungie cord I had holding the hydraulic hoses up out of the way, busted the rear window. 

This is the other reason I hate this farm something always goes wrong.

More bad luck will follow I'm sure.

Hot weather

It is warming up. I like it in the 70-80 degree days. Was having lunch at the Amity Cafe. Saw a huge motorhome. Fellow and wife was from Texas. Had a nice chat. They are somehow connected with Texas A&M U. They said it was 90 back home and humid. They were happy to be down the road.

Employee sick yesterday. I worry about him. Not a good thing to weigh 350lbs.

Yesterday I worked on the combine instead of working ground. Lost all the benefit of the recent rain. Ground is now like concrete again. I did haul the disk up to Gopher Valley. Going to take the cultipacker today. Need to go look at a nearly free combine today. JD 6620. I hate to go over to the green side but free is a very good price-unless......it is crap! And crap is often green so go figure...