Almost Too Hot

It hit 92 here this afternoon and I haven't ventured out of the house since dinner. Nothing really urgent needs doing that I have to endure that heat and humidity. I finally gave up on waiting for rain and set up a sprinkler on the garden this morning. Its doing pretty good considering how dry its been but this heat will make it wilt. Seeing some early blight on the potatoes but they are producing well. Some pods on the peas and should have a few ready to eat in a day or two.
This heat will be burning the crops on the sandy hilltops as they run out of moisture. Its been great for haying and I got most of mine cut and baled within the past week. Nice working late in the evening when there is enough moisture on the swaths to bale well.

We are actually pretty lucky to get enough rain to produce some decent hay and then dry enough to harvest it.

What A Relief!

I've emptied 9 grain bins in the past 24 hours and my back isn't even tired. The grain vac has to be one of the best inventions ever. And what a relief to get rid of that high moisture wheat without any spoilage or beetle infestations. I'd been a little worried about it ever since the weather started to warm up. The small fan did not seem to be doing  much drying even after running a month. The big fan at the West farm did dry some. It all came out of the bin in good condition and is sold to make space for the new crop.
It was a long scenic 100 km round trip to get the grain vac but it was worth it. It was worth shooting a little video as the countryside is half yellow with blooming canola. Clouds were looking their best so this video will make you think all this world's a sunny day.
Now if I can get a day or two without extreme wind so I can get the chem fallow under control maybe I can get back to haying. Hardly a day without a rain shower.

Spraying Oats June 26

Finally got unhitched from the sprayer yesterday. Crop spraying season used to be a lot shorter it seems. Now, with pre or post seeding burn off, chem fallow, roundup ready canola, then in crop weed control, the sprayer is one of the busiest machines on the farm. And thats not even considering fungicides or insecticides like a lot of farmers us. I don't get into that stuff myself.

Crops are actually looking pretty good now that it finally rained for the first time since winter ended.  A few of the reclaimed low spots that I was able to seed are now flooded and likely won't produce much but that is the chance we take on those areas.

Bison In The Hundred Acre Woods

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...

Hauling Wheat March 2019

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.

Cattle

Not sure what to title this one. I'd been dreading and stressing about this day for weeks. A mix of sadness and relief that the yearlings went away on the cattle trailer this morning. Glad to see those two little horn headed yearling bulls go as they were getting to be a problem. The two heifers, I could have kept as replacements at least one anyway. I kind of regret letting the best one go.  Maybe next year.
It went surprisingly well. I was out at the shelter in the dark shortly after 6:00 am. Could not sleep anyway so might as well get to work. Luckily it had warmed up to -5F or so and the relentless wind had dropped.
I got lucky, the four I wanted were still in the shelter/confinement area. Wearing my trusty headlight and throwing down some hay to occupy them, I was able to pull the steel gates in place to pen them up. Then wait til the extra cow and bull were ready to walk out and let them out of the gate. So far-so good. Now to clear the snow away so the truck and cattle trailer can get around. The 2090 started fine seeing as the block heater had been plugged in almost 24 hours. My half mile riveway was heavy going with hard packed snow drifts but they reluctantly yielded to the mighty 8 foot Cancade dozer blade. The yard took a little longer as I needed to clear a big "turn around area" for the truck and trailer. That goes slow with an angle blade pushing less than 8 feet. But not bad work with the heater blowing warm air and CBC radio to entertain and inform me what is happening in the rest of the world.
The trucker showed up in good time considering I was ready about 3 hours before the appointed time. No great drama or excitement with the loading. Only one of the four remaining cows seems to be concerned about her missing calf but its for the best he is gone. The last thing that old decrepit cow needed was to keep feeding a big calf. Now she can concentrate on getting herself back in good shape maybe.
No video from today. I just could not bother with a camera this time. Later in the afternoon these cats were sure enjoying the sun on the sheltered side of the barn so I took this shot.

Baling Oat Straw with the 847 September

I'm catching up on various videos I had saved on my I phone and editing them into something. I included a bit of recent drone video showing our early snow. Its certainly not my first baling video on youtube but it is the latest. Theres more to come but I'll try to space them out. I see my channel is approaching the 1000 subscriber mark. I sometimes wonder how much money I am missing out on by not monetizing my youtube videos.

The Courage of The Early Morning

That is the title of a book by Billy Bishop , the flying ace of World War one. I must have read it years ago and the title stuck in my mind and usually I'm reminded of it on the rare occasion I actually do get up early in the morning. Once I'm up I enjoy it though. On a day like yesterday when there was fog in the hollow indicating a fine day to follow, without the annoying and soul destroying winds that plague us all to frequently, it was worth getting up at 5:00 am.
It was because of those wild winds, which made it inadvisable , or just plain crazy , to try and spray crops. Some mornings it was even windy by sunrise. Not June 7 though. I got in a good day of crop spraying. Put over 30 road miles on the tractor running back and forth for tanks of water/glyphosate, and probably more miles than that in the field. And only a gentle breeze at most.
No time to stop and take photos as I'm always under pressure spraying crops but I did take this quick shot over the steering wheel while driving by the "big slough" over on Winstanley Grove. So named back in the days when most sloughs dried up except this one.

You can see the rows of canola plants looking good. Looks like canola planted on summerfallow is superior to what I planted on flax stubble this year. In the years when it rains every other day the canola will germinate quick. But in this , the first dry spring we have had in years, any seed planted in dry soil is taking a long time to germinate (waiting on rain).

A Nice Day

So why not move some more snow. And make a video of it. The wild, insane Northwest wind  put up a few hard drifts in places  that needed  to be cleared. The driveway was swept clean down to the sand and gravel.  Since then we have had nothing but strong South East winds. And cold. Today was the first day above freezing  for over a week.
That new  calf turned  out to be a heifer. I've let it and the cow out to join  the herd and they are getting along  good. All 8 of them.

2090 Clearing Snow

More of me rambling on about the boring details of my life on  the farm. While multi tasking driving the tractor clearing up a bit of snow. I thought I was shooting some great overhead views with the drone while working but found out later I had not pushed the record button and missed the best shots. I did salvage a little from later segments to at least show some of the great outdoor scenery we had on the first as March came in like a lamb. (Old saying is that if March comes in like a lamb it will go out like a lion). Stay tuned.

March First and Plans Changed

March came in cool (-10F at sunrise)  but sunny and clear with no wind, a bit of fog and hoar frost.

 Great photo opps but I was busy getting ready to load cattle so I missed some. As it turned out there was a re-scheduling and I had to release the cattle that were slated to load. Hopefully in a few days it will happen. Its unfortunate because I got lucky and had them penned up with no stress or excitement. Its not always that easy. Hope its easy next time too.
I'd had the tractor plugged in ready to go for 36 hours so figured I might as well make some use of it. I cleared away the snow in the high traffic areas of the yard. Probably a waste of time as it supposed to warm up to above freezing by the weekend and maybe a  lot of that snow will just melt.
I thought I was shooting some great action video with the drone while I was moving snow but later found out I didn't. Just a bit of between the scenes video having actually missed what I really intended to shoot. Why can't somebody invent a screen (phone or tablet) that does not just appear black when out in the sunlight? I find them really hard to see and  lot of the time I'm just working by instinct and guess work, unless I can get into a shady spot.

The Best Laid Plans

Of mice and men, gang aft agley. Old quotation by Robert Burns. I don't often have well laid plans. Ideas and hopes maybe but I know how often things go wrong so don't have my plans carved in stone.
This turned out to be a seven day week as I wanted to finish the summerfallow I did not quite finish last night due to time and low fuel. That went so well and quick that I figured why not try the hay too. Although the weather tried to hold me back by threatening clouds and the odd spot of rain, I threw caution to the wind and headed down the road on the open Massey and wheel rake to turn and double up the hay swaths at the hundred acre woods. A lot of the hay looked ready to bale while some was still damp and green underneath. I decided to try and bale at least the driest of it so headed back with the 2090 and baler.

It went well until I was about half way done and I noticed oil spray on the baler hitch which naturally indicates a leaking hydraulic hose. These things only happen when I'm five miles away from home. Never when I'm working near the yard. It was the hose that controls the twine wrapping arm so it only leaked when I had to wrap a bale. But it was quite a leak and I soon realized I would lose a lot of oil if I continued. About the same time I noticed a broken pipe on the cross chain of the baler. Not uncommon on this baler and I even carry a spare. Unfortunately I did not carry a spare bolt to replace the one I accidentally dropped into the baler while trying to bolt the new pipe in place.
Ok, I can work with one pipe missing. But can I manually run the twine wrap as the bale is turning? Probably, but I could also get caught and wrapped up in a bale. Not worth the risk so I headed home in the dark to take off the damaged hoses for repair tomorrow. Looking across the field at my last canola I'm thinking I need to be swathing that pretty quick. With rain forecast for tomorrow night I guess I will have to sacrifice those last few swaths of hay and try and get the canola in the swath tomorrow. It will be an all day job, maybe more, depending on how heavy and difficult it is to swath.

Over 20,000 Views

I was surprised to see my 2013 hay cutting video has over 20,000 views as of today. Maybe I should monetize the videos and live off the proceeds of the ads on youtube?
It is interesting watching it now and seeing places I cut hay through in 2013 that are now under water deep enough to pretty much submerge the haybine. Wonder if we will ever get back to normal water levels here in Sask. ?

Supper at 10:30

A little late for supper on a normal day. But considering I didn't have dinner til 4:30 I guess it is not too bad. Hay raking this morning took a little longer than I expected. After a quick stop for some sandwiches and a pill for my aching head I headed back to the field with the baler. This time working in the cool comfortable cab of the 2090 Case.
In and out of the cab numerous times for the first few bales as the twine arm would not start the wrap on the bale. Apparently some damage was done during last week's plug up. After a while it seemed to work ok and I rolled along putting up 43 bales finishing all that was cut.
The last few bales might be a little damp as the tires were showing moisture after the sun went down.
It was interesting to see this old horse mower gradually emerging as the water levels continue to drop in the little creek. No doubt it was dry ground when the mower was parked there many years ago.

Raking Hay, New potatoes

I've posted most of the other views of haying here so I guess it is only right to include the raking operation.

 I used the old Super 90 Massey and the six wheel Pollard hay rake to turn two swaths into one on the weekend. It saves wear and tear on the round baler. Makes a better bale I think too. Not so much need to weave side to side on the swath to get the bale even. When it is one big swath coming in slowly it just rolls up nice and even. Plus I  don't need to drive so fast and shake the baler (and myself) up. Hayfields are notoriously rough here. I broke a hitch pin on the haybine yesterday after bouncing through a deep hole.
The old Perkins diesel works as good as it ever did before the head gasket failure but the mosquitos and grass pollen take the fun out of open air tractor driving. It was good to get back in the 2090 cab to bale.
The wheat is looking great as this photo from this morning will show. There are no great canola crops around but I am reasonably satisfied with mine (in the background of the photos) considering the year it has been.

First new potatoes out of the ground today. A little later than some years but welcome whenever. Now I need to clean out the bin . Planted way too many last year it seems.

July 14 Hay Cutting

Got in a productive afternoon of cutting hay in the hundred acre woods and also on the hillsides of the next quarter. It went well until a knife guard broke late in the day. I was sort of prepared, having a spare in the toolbox. Unfortunately I did not have the right wrench to loosen the bolts. I finished up the patch I was working on anyway, leaving a narrow strip of uncut grass from the broken guard. I wasn't going to finish today anyway so now there will be a little more for tomorrow.

In other news, the IHC B110 truck has no rear brakes. I didn't think I was going to get the rear drums taken off to inspect as they require a special brake puller to remove. I got a little creative and came up with a crude but effective improvised adapter and was able to pull the drum off without too much trouble. Now the search for replacement wheel cylinders. Its only a 55 year old truck. Shouldn't be too hard to find parts.

Here is the adapter plate. Don't laugh too much.

My Day Was Going Well....

Until I did this.

Apparently after 33 years of careful operation I have run a tree through the grille of my tractor. Never heard or felt a thing but saw this gaping hole in the grille when I got out of the tractor. I should have known better. Cleaning up a mess of dead fall and beaver logs along the edge of the field with the blade and it was going so well. That just ruined the rest of the day although if I was a "glass half full" type of person I might consider that another inch or so would have also pushed a hole in the oil cooler. If I had stepped on the clutch even a second later I guess the tree would have continued its journey right into the main radiator rendering me helpless 5 miles from home and the anticipation of a huge expensive repair bill at a time when I really don't need that.
On the bright side I did get the grille straightened out pretty well using some wooden dowels and plastic hammer the next morning. I pretty well closed up the hole but did not risk trying to solder it. With my history I would probably only have made the hole bigger and ruined another day.
Our cold, late spring just gets later. I even had the heater on in the cab late this afternoon.  I did get the left over flax straw piled and burned yesterday in what is probably the driest field . The field I harrowed today was the worst I have ever seen for excess water levels and erosion. Water runs in off the neighbors field, flows from one slough to the next and eventually gets high enough to run over the road on my south boundary in it's meandering journey to the lakes some 20 miles south. Apparently my request to the municipality several years ago for a culvert at that location got filed under "F' for forget about it.
I should be well into planting crops by now but so far have not even got a start on the 3 to 4 days of anhydrous application ahead of me. It seems anhydrous tanks are in short supply and I will just have to wait my turn until the next tank is available.
According to Gorges Smythe those annoying cat tail plants are edible. I think cat tails and ducks might be the biggest crop on some of these acres this year.

By The Dawn's Early Light

Its not often you will see me out and about before the sun in December but the trail cam caught me this time. Flax hauling day and I needed to get over to the Hundred Acre Woods early with the tractor and grain vac plus get the snow all cleared for the semis to get around. It worked well. The mildest day in quite a while made it good working and had all the flax out by noon. Flax price had dropped about $3 a bushel since I priced this lot in November so I got lucky this time. Not so with the other grains.

Hay In A Day

Its an old saying seen on some New Holland balers from the sixties, "A hay in a day machine". Today it was not a baler but a haybine that I was working with. Cutting some hay in and around the hundred acre woods as I like to call it. One thing about all this rain, it sure made the grass grow. And this old (seventies vintage) haybine cuts grass like no machine I have ever owned. Even the wiry prairie wool that made other knives hammer and stall in protest, this one just keeps cutting through. Although I was a little surprised to hear how much it rattles in the video. That Gopro camera gives me a whole new view of how the machinery works.
Sitting in the cool, clean cab I thought about those who cut hay here many years before. Behind a team of horses , sitting on the hard iron seat of a ground drive mower. At the mercy of the heat , dust , mosquitos and whatever other pests stirred up out of the long grass, it was a different world but the only one they knew.

Anniversary of D Day (and a good day to spray)

Yesterday,, June 6th was the anniversary of D Day when the allied forces hit the beaches of Normandy in 1944. My dad missed out on that by about a month. Long time readers of this blog (are there any?) might recall reading an excerpt from dad's Memories of WWII that I published here back in 08.
As the title to this post indicates, today, June 7 was a great for crop spraying. About the best I have seen in long time. Not too hot, windy or wet. When conditions are that good I really need to take advantage. In spite of a late start I did get a couple of hundred acres sprayed. Finished up the chem fallow and about 130 acres of canola sprayed. Not bad considering I had a good 20 miles of road transport (at 13 mph) plus the usual time spent pumping water and mixing chemical. Say what you will about Monsanto's GM canola but it sure makes weed control a breeze. Cheap effective herbicide (roundup) and a very wide window of application takes a lot of the stress out of spraying crops.
More by luck than good management I managed to finish up with just enough chemical on the chem fallow. The sprayer tank ran empty within a minute of finishing the field.
How I wish I had spent a day this spring harrowing, piling and burning the residual flax straw on the canola field. It is unbelieveble how hard those lumps of straw can be. The roughly 15,000 pound tractor bounces over those straw lumps like a cork on the ocean and the driver (me) does likewise. It makes for a tiring day and a resolution to not let this happen again next year.
The canola is emerging as good as any year I can ever remember in spite of the rather dry conditions.

This photo from a couple of days ago was taken as I had just finished a 40 acre chem fallow field. It is pure luck that this picture survived. It was on the card inside the camera that got lost in a stubble field today. I was going to take a picture at "The Poplars" of the lilacs that were blooming and discovered the pocket I always carry the little Canon Elph in was empty. Guess I forgot to snap the pocket closed and the camera fell out. That could have ruined a perfect day. My best guess was that it had fallen out when I crawled under the sprayer to drain the tank after finishing chem fallow. After a bit of walking around sure enough, the little black rectangle was laying there on the straw. The transport wheels of the sprayer had just missed running over it.
Storm clouds gathered in the west and the wind increased as I finished up the last 40 acres of canola. Might get a break from spraying tomorrow.