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.

So Close But So Far

I guess I should look on the bright side and be thankful I didn't get soaked riding home on the open tractor. It was threatening thunder storms most of the afternoon while I was raking hay but I figured why wait. I've done that before and nothing happened. There were empty grain bins I could go inside if it did start to rain heavy so I kept on til the job was done. And it didn't rain.
I even dared hope I might make it home, hitch up to the baler and come back to bale the hay. It wouldn't take long. Hay looks nice and green having had no rain at all on it.
But I guess not. I had barely parked the Massey in the quonset and I was hearing raindrops on the metal roof. It didn't amount to much but it might not be over yet. And I guess I'm done as far as baling for today. Once again I'm a day late. If it rains much I can use the time to work on repairing a major breakdown on the haybine. Just one big bearing destroyed  but a big job to take apart just to see if the roller shaft is ruined or not. If so, maybe its time to part it out and look for a replacement. This cattle hobby is getting expensive.

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.

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.

Days of Summer

Keeping busy on the farm is never hard to do. The above photo shows just one of the little jobs. Moving a grain bin from one side of the farm to another in hopes of replacing the wooden floor.
Most of the grain is now sold thanks to good prices and a grain vac to take the work out of loading grain in a steel bin on a stifling hot day. Last year's flax still sits waiting on me to make up my mind. I'll need the space (assuming this crop makes it) by harvest time but til then I am watching prices as I think there is potential for it to increase. Although 13.20 per bushel is still a mighty good price. Maybe I am just greedy but I don't see much flax planted this year and there should not be an over supply to push the price lower.
Heavy rains, threat of hail and tornados every few days keep it interesting. The extreme heat has let up which is a relief. A new disease (to me), has hit canola fields in Sask. Aster yellows and if it is as bad as some say, we will not have a big canola crop this year. I see signs of it in mine but the crop still looks good. Nothing we can do about it.
Flax, not quite flowering yet but looking good and clean. That group 2 herbicide I used on wheat for herbicide resistant wild oats seems to have done a great job. Cleanest field I have seen in a while . Oats just headed out and looking better than last year.
New potatos from the garden taste great and I guess the old ones in the bin from last year will be left for the cats.
Theres still acres of hay I could cut and probably will cut some of it just to make sure I have more than enough to get through winter. I've put some money into new parts on the haybine  which should inprove cutting performance. Its a learning experience.

Cockshutt 40 and Haybine.

Got a little break from the heat the past couple of days. Those 80+ degree temps were a bit much at times. Than an inch of rain brought us back down to the high 60s today which is easier on the crop and me.
Wouldn't you know I would be loading grain on the hottest days of the year. One of the hottest places to work is inside a steel bin on a hot summer day. I'd likely never have survived shovelling those few thousand bushels but the grain vac sure saves some labour.
Of course canola price dropped the day I sold mine but has since increased. No big surprise there. Oats at $3 a bushel looked pretty good a couple of weeks ago when I locked the price in but this drought in the U.S. corn belt is really starting to push grain prices up.
Haying going well and the 35 year old haybine is doing a good job. Should be even better when I add the few hundred dollars of new iron parts to the cutterbar.
The old Cockshutt 40 works well on the haybine but for any serious amount of cutting I will go with the comfort of the air conditioned cab of the 2090 Case and stay out of the grass pollen that causes a lot of optical and nasal distress.
The inch of rain this week will do some good. I was lucky to get my hay baled without a drop of rain on it though.
Our living skies were filled with the sounds of spray planes recently as insecticide and fungicide rained down on the fields. Others sprayed with high clearance sprayers in hopes of maximizing their profits by eliminating every insect and fungus that might be present in the field. I'll take my chances and sacrifice a little yield in exchange for one less carcinogenic chemical to handle.
Heres another local farm blog some might find of interest.

A Week of Progress and a lucky accident

Its been a pretty progressive week. The CIH magnum tractor is back in service thanks to my sister in law driving for parts and my brother's help assembling them. I sprayed the oats which is a nice looking crop and not bad for weeds. Also got my flax sprayed yesterday in near perfect conditions. Not too hot or windy and everything worked, even the A.C. The canola is showing first blossoms, guess it won't get the second application of glyphosate now. Really it is not bad for weeds so should be fine.
Got the rest of the summerfallow worked and looking good (for now).
Just for a test I hitched the old Cockshutt 40 onto the new (to me) haybine and cut some of the grass around the yard and driveway. It is old and faded but cuts grass like crazy and will be a big improvement over the old sickle mower (or wearing out my swather trying to cut hay with it).

I shot this video Tuesday evening during a severe thunderstorm. Lucky we missed the tornados that were spotted in a few areas that day.
We had a day of hurricane  force winds on Wednesday, Shingles were lifting and sheet metal on a shed roof was threatening to lift. Probably not smart but I got up on the aluminum ladder and put few screws in to hold the sheets down, although I was in danger of becoming a human kite at times.

The lucky accident? No, not falling off a roof but nearly crashing my air seeder into a grain auger and hopper bin. I had just moved the air seeder into the centre of the yard so I could cut the grass where it had been parked. Slight downhill slope but seemed fine when I unhitched it. About five minutes later I came out of the quonset to find the air seeder parked up against the side of the hopper bin and nearly on top of a grain auger. Within inches of crashing into the legs of the hopper bin or running over (and crushing) the grain auger tube. That could have been a multiple disaster that would have ruined my good day.

Sask. Summer

Its been a fairly typical, mostly nice summer so far. Some bad hail and wind storms have hit some farms in the area causing crop and property damage. Crops are looking pretty great considering the poor start we got.
My flax fields are cleaner than usual, more good luck than good management I suspect.
Gradually getting most of the bins emptied of last year's grain in preparation for the soon to be new harvest.
In other news I have bought a John Deere swather, sold an IH swather and bought a well used New Holland haybine. The haybine is a bit of a "fixer upper" but as long as I don't charge myself anything for labour I will come out positive I think.
What else goes with sunny summer days in Sask. but antique car shows. Being self employed I allowed myself some time off yesterday and today to support the local "museum day" and see the antique car club vehicles out on display. I even parked the old 64 Chevy II near the rest of the antiques. Seriously, some of the "antique cars" were newer than what I was driving. As usual I could not resist shooting a little video to add to youtube.