The title pretty much says it all. There will be a lot of farming related posts here as well as some ancient family history and photos. Another family history blog I have is at....
http://nevardblog.blogspot.com/
Beautiful warm weather for Easter weekend. Up to 73F on Friday which is well above normal. Still hardly any rain but somehow the grass is starting to grow. Cows are happy to get out and forage for what they can find but they always come back to fill up at the bale feeder.
Finally got a picture of the little new calf that is now two days old. Looks to be doing alright. First one for the year. I was planning to add a photo of it but it seems google or blogger has come up with some new way to confuse me and I can't figure it out. Maybe later. Ok, I got it.
Fields drying up early but I've only seen one tractor out harrowing so far. I'm in no hurry as its not late. Been practicing my body repair skills (car body, not human) and its going well. Got the spare fender for the Mercury patched up and looking 100% better. Even sprayed a bit of red primer paint to cover it up. Amazing how good a match red primer is for the faded red of the car. Or else I'm that colour blind.
Nice sunny days lately inspire me to get out and get something done. That new ground where the cats cleared a bit of bush for the new bison fence last fall was left way too rough for my liking. So I spent a good part of the afternoon with the tractor and blade pushing and dragging dirt around to level it off. Of course the curious bison came along to see what I was up to. My own spooky cows would have taken off on the run in the opposite direction but not these.
The ground looks better now but needs the stumps and sticks gathered up and hauled away.
I got a little sand blasting done on the "new to me" fender skirts for the 52 Mercury that were mailed to me by a facebook friend. Some people rant on about the evils of facebook but I'd have to say its been all good for me. Met some good people there.
The sand blasting went well but I got side tracked (as usual) and attempted to weld the crack in the original hood from the 52 Merc. Yes, the one that I cracked in the process of straightening and repairing the dent. I'm still a real amateur with wire welding but managed to get it welded up and looking half decent. In spite of burning a hole through it in the process. Nice thing about welding is you can usually repair the damage you create accidentally.
Not sure if I'm going to tackle actually cutting out the rusted portion of the replacement fender and welding in a new patch. It looks so easy on youtube but I might just fall back on my old standby (Bondo filler).
Got a little renovation done on the vintage barn in my yard replacing a big window with one half the size. I was able to find some almost matching vintage drop siding to fill in the hole. I'm no carpenter, more what my dad used to call a "wood butcher" but it looks good enough for me.
Kind of sad to watch great Uncle Jack's old barn being salvaged for barn boards for decorative purposes I guess. Its getting weaker as boards are removed and our strong winds will take it down flat one of these days. Its been a great background for a lot of my photos over the years. But its not my barn or my property so...
No, not the weather, just a lousy head cold that hit me a couple of days ago. I've had worse but its still miserable enough. Glad it waited til I finished the grain trucking. Although I 've got a bin of canola I need to transfer this week, weather permitting. I'll try not to think about that $1.50 or so per bushel I have lost on it since this time last year. Thanks to the political problems with China
So heres the latest video showing my Rube Goldberg repair on the rear axle of the 52 Merc. Its a nice new bearing but the problem was the housing that the bearing sits in had a bit of wear so the bearing was not tight in it. I used my old standby, J.B. Weld to build up the worn area. A different formulation this time. It did not look too inspiring as I applied it and bolted it all together. But I guess time will tell how well it worked. Its entirely possible the new bearing might have worked just fine without any assistance from me.
A good day's work getting the wheat hauled to the cleaning plant. Still a month to go til it goes in the ground but its good to know the job is done. Weather was nice and the ground mostly dry. The one stretch of mud was not a big problem and won't be a big deal to smooth out with the blade once it dries out some.
The new residents of the hundred acre woods came out to watch me work. The bison herd has been there a bit over a week and seem to be enjoying their new home. They are the first livestock on that farm since my uncle went out of cattle over 20 years ago.
I'm not normally a morning person but I've been up well before the sun the past 3 days. Wheat contract needed to be filled now that the terminal finally had rail cars but we had to do it "on the frost" to avoid tearing up my yard and driveway while it was thawed. Saturday morning was a false alarm as it barely froze the surface overnight but Sunday was a go. 18F overnight and the mud was hard as concrete. So even a loaded semi did not leave a track.
This morning was the same and with an extra truck on the job it was all done by dinner before the ground turned to mud.
Fence went up last November in preparation and this week in March the bison herd arrived. The hundred acre woods now has a small herd of bison roaming in it. Probably for the first time in 150 years. My grandfather and uncles would be amazed to see them on the land they used to farm. I only gave up about 20 acres of farmland. The rest was poplar woods and uncultivated grassland but that gives the herd about 80 acres to live on. Hopefully the rain falls and the grass grows to keep them fed.
Just a quick drive by photo as I passed the farm yesterday. Hopefully more and better pictures to follow.
Late to install the snow blower on the 11th of March but I figured it would be easier to park back in it's storage corner of the shed if it was connected to the tractor. So its on and I'm ready now in case we get a late winter snowstorm. Always a possibility here.
Its finally warmed up after a record cold February and beginning of March. We nearly hit the thawing mark today.
Its been a low snow winter adding to the concerns we are in a continuing dry spell. Somehow we grew an excellent crop last year on the minimal amounts of rain we got. I can't see it happening two years in a row.
Our most profitable crop, canola, has taken a serious hit thanks to China rejecting imports from Richardson Grain. Politics. Using the farmer as bargaining chips as usual. That represented about 40 percent of our export market. Prices had been mediocre prior to that and took a drop after the news hit. So its 1990s prices for our canola. Yet the seed companies are expecting us to pay 4 times what we paid for seed in the 1990s.
Got the 4 yearling calves hauled out last week so cattle feeding is a little slower here now with only 4 cows and the bull left. They seem a little quiet and depressed. Missing the young ones I guess.
The recent warm weather gave me the opportunity to take the drone up for a short flight over the yard. And of course I shot a bit of video.
