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/
The title almost says it all. Just discovered the last of the 2018 calf crop arrived this evening. The cattle had not been back to the yard in a few days but did turn up this evening when they saw me out there with a pail of oat chop for them. Surprisingly a little new born calf was galloping along with the other bigger calves. I had almost given up on that last red cow having a calf this year.
I finished putting around $300 worth of new parts into the 41 year old haybine to get it working again. A few new sprockets and a bearing should (hopefully) be all it needs to cut the rest of the hay crop. Nine head of cattle don't need a lot of hay for the winter but they do need some.
Crops are looking pretty good and really advancing. We've been getting some "just in time" rains to keep them growing.
Here is some video of a crop tour from last week as seen from the top of the 52 Mercury. Driving by oats, canola and wheat.
Here is another photo from the weekend activities. It was quite a workout but many hands make light work as they say. Thats about all I can say about it for now.
Yes, by our standards today was a hot one. I saw mid to high 90s for the first time this year. Humidity was high too and a hot wind blowing. Not good for flowering canola but it did bring on a good old thunderstorm which left me with 6 tenths rain, if I can believe the gauge. It looks wetter. A few hail stones too just to scare us.
Its no use me complaining about the heat over on the ag forums as the guys from Southern U.S. always have me beat for heat and humidity. But they can't figure how I function on the farm in our winters extreme temps either.
I took the drone up for a short flight mid day. Showing the canola which is fading fast in the heat. Some blossom fall-off is normal at this stage but the heat and wind will accentuate it and is hard on the crop.
Still sitting with a broken down haybine and more hay to cut. I could (and might) use the swather to cut what hay is left but it is a little weak in the wobble box and I don't want to stress it out too bad as it has a couple of hundred acres of canola waiting on it in a few weeks. Combine needs some major disassembly and repair as well. Or do I keep pouring oil through it for another year? Seems lately that everything I own leaks oil. Or anti-freeze.
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.
WE had our now traditional trail ride on Canada day again. The weather mostly co-operated although a wild wind blowing. One of many pictures shown here. j
I made good use of the drone today searching for a missing cow. I had a good idea where she was as I'd seen her going into a forest of cat tails yesterday evening. Walking in there was like a 7 foot wall of jungle. I could have spent a lot of time and energy and maybe found her, or not. I sent the drone up from about a quarter mile away and did a slow scan above the slough maybe 50 feet up. Spotted her pretty easy. It was still hard enough to find the exact location on foot but by afternoon I found she was not alone having a new born calf.
After four months waiting to hear from youtube re: monetizing my videos, they e mail today and say they still need more information. Just stalling for time I guess. I've already met their specs for channel views and subscribers so I don't know what more they need. Good thing I am not in it for the money.
And it is raining pretty good today. I've been busy as usual trying to keep up but its a struggle. One job not finished and the next one needing to be done. This was a week of grain hauling. I'd built up quite an inventory and suddenly decided it was time for it to go. With the uncertainty of grain markets due to tariff wars, GMOs, etc and other excuses, I was pretty sure prices were headed even lower. Thanks to the 108 horsepower vacuum cleaner we loaded a good many semi loads from Monday to Thursday and emptied at least 12 bins if I recall right. No grain dust to breathe and less back strain compared to the old fashioned way of moving grain.
Crops looking pretty good thanks to the rain that finally showed up just in time. Patchy canola fields due to some poor emergence but they are filling in and will make a decent crop.
I need to be hitched onto the haybine cutting hay as it matured a bit early due to lack of spring rains. Although with today's soaker it is just as well to be still standing and not rotting in the swath.
Weed spraying is late of course. My canola will only get one application of Roundup but it was not bad for weeds compared to some years. Still got a field or two of oats need spraying for broad leaf weeds but that won't likely happen for a couple of days now as it is mud everywhere. I saw 20 mm in the gauge this morning but have not checked it since this afternoon's downpour. Got to be well over an inch now I'd guess.
Somehow I managed to work in a short crop tour to the hundred acre woods with the Merc last weekend. Got a bit of drone video of it.
Its been a challenge, as usual, trying to get crops sprayed on time. Well no chance of being on time any more but I'll get them done eventually. Wind blows like a hurricane some days so nobody in their right mind will run a sprayer and blow herbicide all across the country (and his neighbour's crops). We finally got a decent day yesterday and I got all of two tanks of heribiced sprayed on wheat. Might have made three but a front tractor tire developed a bulge that threatened to leave me stranded if I kept driving. Thanks to my "pit crew" we had a new tire on and rolling again about 3 hours later. Not easy changing a big 11.00x16 tire on the farm without benefit of proper tire changing equipment but we got it done.
Today, clouds and threatening rain means the sprayer gets a rest and I get to catch up on a few jobs that I haven't had time to do. As usual time flies when you are trying to do too much. I did take time to take this photo of a nice sunset last night. Actually I didn't take any time as I kept rolling right along as I took the picture.. Talk about distracted driving!
Wheat looks good from the ground but a drone view from last Saturday makes it look a bit patchy.
When its too windy to be running the sprayer (frequently), to avoid going crazy watching and waiting on the weather, I spent some time trying out the spot weld cutter. Up til a few weeks ago I never even knew what spot weld cutters were. Its almost a necessity for repairing old car bodies. In the learning process I managed to break all the teeth off the first one before I got all the spot welds drilled out. Second attempt with new cutters went better. Or maybe I was more careful or learned the right technique.
Its not a "how to" video. More of a "how I did it".
Then a little, or a lot, of work with body hammer and dolly and the badly dented hood on the 52 Merc is starting to look a little more presentable. No, the truck in the picture is not the 52 Merc but it looked so good that I had to use it in the video.
Actually a lot better but still far from body shop standards. The price was right though. To be continued.
