Christmas Vacation projects are under way and some other happenings.

I had an early afternoon off work a week ago so I drove up to get a keg of Sam Adams for the holidays.  It is a 1.5 hr trip one way to get there so I do not do very often.  I was over half way home when I realized they gave me the wrong keg of beer.  I turned around and drove back to get the correct one.  When I got back they offered me a gift for the mistake.  

My very own Sam Adams Lager Tap Handle!!!! 

Sam Adams Tap Handle

 I started my annual winter vacation from work on Christmas Day.  There is a very long list of projects that need completed and I know I will not get them all done but here are some I have completed so far.  

First up was building a bench table to hold the mini fridge for the new building.  This is where I am going to store medicine for the animals and Beer for the shop.  The table is also a nice spot for the radio and to set things while working on something to keep them off of the floor.  

Rough sawed lumber bench.

Next is a project I was supposed to be completing for the last two years.  My wife got tired of waiting and decided to go ahead and get it started herself.  The screen door and old house doors I used when I built the pig shed finally fell apart.  I have had them tied shut and been putting this off for a while.  

My wife did the first door and then I helped with the second one.  It was dark and raining when I remembered to take the pic so please excuse the bad picture!

Rough sawed lumber barn door.

 Both doors were made using leftover lumber from the cow and pig shed construction projects.  They were both very simple to build and work perfectly.  I should have done this a long time ago!

Rough Sawed lumber barn door inside.  

I didn't take a picture of the outside of the second door.  One thing we realized already was that we cannot tightly attach the Plexiglas.  It expands and contracts a lot with temperature changes.  When we put them on it was near freezing.  With the 60 degree temps the last couple of days they are all warped.  I will be adjusting this tomorrow so they do not do that any more.  

I wanted to attach a picture showing the effectiveness of the buffer strip we installed last year.  The fields in the background of the picture below are next door at my Dad's farm.  You will notice it is light in color and dormant for the winter.  It is also very short.  

In the foreground of the picture is the buffer strip.  It is very green and still growing.  I let the cows eat it off at thanksgiving.  It was very short when I pulled them off and has grown back another 6-8" already.  If the weather stays mild all winter I fully expect to be able to let them eat it off at least once and possibly twice this winter.  

Riparian buffer strip collecting nutrient runoff from the feed lot.   

I also noticed another very cool thing this week.  I have covered my pastures with the composted manure from the feedlot this fall.  I also coated them with the extra buttermilk that I am getting from the dairy.  Currently my pastures make my buffer strip look like it is not growing.  They are very dark green, very healthy and growing very well.  I am quite excited to see how well they produce in the coming year. 

I am still looking for some help researching land application of buttermilk.  There is literally no information on the topic and I would like to know more about the details of all the little interactions in the soil after I apply the milk to the fields.  If you or anyone you know can help with this please send me an email and we can go from there.  I have done some small scale testing and the results are promising but I still want to know more!

 I haven't had a calf born on Christmas day since I was a child on the dairy farm.  I thought I was going to have my first one born on my own farm this year and we did.  However, it was not what I expected.  Beef cake was in labor when I went out to check everyone on Christmas morning.  I noticed immediately that something was not right and got some help.  The calf ended up being still born.  The umbilical cord got broken at some point and the because the calf was not alive the cow didn't go into labor correctly.  We ended up having to put the calf by hand and Momma is pretty sore but she looks like she will be ok.  After everything was done and I let her back out with the other cows last night, her daughter came over to console her.   Today she seems to be doing better.  Hopefully she pulls through it without any internal damage and goes on to have more calves.  

Other than the disappointment from the still born calf, we all had a great Christmas together as a family.  The winter had been extremely mild and this is the first winter since I have had children that I have been able to spend the holidays with them without worry of having to go to work for snow removal.  

On my "TO DO" list is finishing the plumbing in the new building, finishing the weaning pen for the pigs, getting the neighbors tractor completed and out of the building, getting my next project in the building and started!  

I wish everyone the best for the holiday season and hopefully you all get to spend some time with your families!   

 I will be doing my annual New Years eve post this week so keep tuned in!!!

Goodnight everyone!

Kenny

Buttermilk tanks are in full use and first tractor repair in the new shop!

Ever since I was a little kid I dreamed of having a shop where we could put a piece of equipment inside to work on it when it was cold and wet.  I finally saw that dream become a reality this week when we rolled the neighbors old Oliver tractor in the shop to tear it down to repair the steering system. 

Scott got all the parts today so we can get them all put in tomorrow and get it running again.  It still needs the injector pump rebuilt but for now we are working on this item so we can get it completed and get it back out of the shop before the electrician comes back to finish the wiring.  

I have been using my new setup for the buttermilk tanks for a week now and it is pretty darn awesome!  For anyone who hasn't been following or is out of the loop, we started feeding buttermilk to the pigs and cattle this year as a supplement to their hay.  The buttermilk comes from a local dairy and the milk is from local farms.  I tested it out over the summer to confirm that the idea would work and that the cows and pigs would both like it.

The results have been amazing.  When making butter, almost all of the butterfat is removed from the milk leaving the protein, amino acids, and all the little micro nutrients that come with milk.  As we all know, when a baby calf is born they drink their mothers milk to grow.  Cattle may be weaned off of breast milk as they get older but they, just like us humans, still like milk!  So, when offered buttermilk they will drink it.  The micro nutrients and amino acids in the milk balance out what little things may be missing or are low in the hay they eat and also help in digesting what they eat.  The results are even better than I thought.  The cows didn't lose weight and thin way down while feeding their calves this year like they have in the past.  They maintained their weight and the calves grew much better this year as well.  The pigs showed very similar results as well.  I have been able to reduce the amount of supplemental grain that I feed the pigs to a very low amount as well.   

We have already had both beef and pork from animals who consumed the buttermilk.  I was concerned on how this change in diet would affect the flavor and fat in the meat.  I have noticed no changes in the fat content of either the beef or pork in the first batch of meat.  I also did not notice any change in the flavor as well.  

All that being said, lets get back to the new building!   I needed a place to keep the milk inside for a few reasons; 

• to keep it from getting too hot  
• to keep it from freezing
• to have it in a place were I can keep a clean setup

In setting this all up I tried to keep it simple and easy to use.  In almost every milk house on every farm in the world there is a hole in the wall with a flap to keep the cold out for the milk truck hose to go through to hook to the tank.  I did not want a hole like that.  Instead, I installed a piece of pipe through the wall with quick couplers attached.  This way I do not have to have any open doors for a hose to go through.  The delivery truck just hooks up outside.  

On the inside a hose hooks the two tanks up to the pipe in the wall.  A simple flip of a valve allows the delivery guy to select which tank to fill.  When done, he simply shuts the tank valve and disconnects outside.   A bucket under the pipe catches any spillage to be fed to the pigs. 

The milk is pasteurized so as long as I keep it cool and circulate it it doesn't spoil.  It will still separate if I don't mix it though so once a day I circulate any milk in the tanks.  The picture below shows everything hooked up to circulate the milk.  The pump is an electric one and is set up on its own switch.  I have a long hose to hook up to another pipe going through the south wall to pump milk directly to the tubs that the cows drink from.  Once the wiring is all done the pump will be on a remote control switch so I can turn the pump on and off while down at the corral.  This will make it very easy for one person to put milk out to the cows and pigs.  

I also am putting in a picture of the heater and the new electric service the electrician and I installed last weekend.  This pic was taken during installation so you can see there is a mess as well!

 

I also moved Scott's and my toolboxes to the new shop.  The only thing left to move is the air compressor.   I also need to get a small rolling work cart to keep in the shop for when we are working on stuff so we don't have tools all over the floor!

Today I cleaned the lot and spread the pile of manure I had built up while the weather was nice.  As I was getting started the pigs decided they wanted to go out to the pasture to enjoy the day.  If you look closely you will notice that the baby piglets (3 weeks old) are running right along side of momma!  Man are they growing fast!

When I was getting ready to purchase my tractor last winter the salesman saw my tractor parked in the shed and told me that I may not want a new tractor because the new one is taller and may not fit.   After I told him that this might not be a great sales technique as he is not a salesman for storage buildings, I told him to find me a tractor and I would figure out how to get it in the shed!  Well, the time had come a week ago to "Get it in the shed"!  The best part of having a large tractor with a large bucket is it is very easy to move soil.  After about 20 minutes of digging I lowered the dirt floor of the shed enough to fit the new tractor in.  Now she is neatly tucked inside when I am not using her so she can stay dry and out of the sun!

I am expecting two litters of pigs at the end of the month as well as our last calf of 2015 / first calf of the 2016 season.  Beefcake had her calf 1/5/15 and is due to have her next calf just before Christmas.  Going to be an exciting winter and spring!  We are going to have to enjoy the next three months cause as of the second week of March things are going to get pretty hectic pretty fast!

Have a great week everyone.  Let's hope this nice weather continues all winter.  I am looking forward to a mild one!

Kenny

New piglets and long overdue building updates.

Hello everyone, 

Once again I have realized that it has been a month since I made a post.  I am finding that as things grow here on the farm and my duties at work evolve as well I am being pulled by more and more people and tasks every day.  Some tasks are of my own doing, some are of necessity for work or for the farm, and others are from other people who look to me for assistance and help.  While trying to cover and complete all the possible tasks I can I end up forgetting other tasks that I set aside that may be important to me but are not a high priority.  For instance, my blog post gets set aside so I can feed cows before heading to bed early to get up early for a long day at work.  Then, one thing leads to another and I end up not coming back to complete the task I set aside.  I am going to do what I should have done a while ago and schedule it into my calendar so I have some time set aside for this important task which I enjoy so much!

So, now on to what I am sure you would rather read about!

The bigger of my two Berkshire x Tamworth sows had a litter of piglets on Saturday morning of last weekend.  She is the one that had 16 in the summer.  This time she had 14.  She lost 6 in the summer due to still born's and a few got laid on.   This time I wasn't expecting her to have them when she did.  I thought she was still a day or two off, so she ended up having them in the cow shed.  Ten were alive when we found them and moved everyone into the pig shed.  Three of the ten got laid on the first night because they left the hot box to lay with Momma, and one more had other issues and passed away.  So this time she is only feeding out six.  

The pic below is right after we moved them.  

This is a pic of them this morning.  The biggest on is about 7 lbs already and the smallest is around 5lbs.   They are growing at an unbelievable rate! I put my shoe in the picture for a frame of reference.  The one in the top right corner of the picture is the biggest by at least 15-20% and is the one in the center of the picture above standing on top of everyone to eat!

Here are some quick pics of the building.

I still have to install the electric and water and plumb in the tanks.

Here is the door from the inside.  The building looked huge when we first started, I even thought it was going to be too big and be out of scale with everything else.

However, once we moved two of the tanks inside it quickly became small!

This is a picture of the new heater.  However, shortly after I took this picture this morning the heater quit working!!!  With temps due to dip down to around 20 degrees tonight it looks like I will be making a trip back to Rural King today to get a replacement. 

I am certain that the regulator for the gas is not correct.  The pilot light has too much pressure and will not stay lit because it blows itself out.  It worked for a few days but the longer it has been on the stronger the gas flow has gotten.  It is nonadjustable and the only way to fix it is to replace it. 

It is what it is I guess.  So I will be headed out to get another in a few minutes!  Have a great day everyone and have a safe week!

Kenny

Been a very stressful couple of weeks!

I know I haven't been posting consistently lately and I apologize for those of you who keep up with the farm.  Between harvest season and trying to keep this building project moving along I haven't had time to do much else other than work! On top of everything else going on, I managed to come down with bronchial pneumonia and strep throat last week as well.   Makes for a miserable week!

I haven't had a chance to take a picture of the inside painted yet but the wife and I spent several days and nights last week getting the inside of the new building painted.  We used a mold inhibiting water sealing paint so we can wash the walls and keep them clean.  

There is a reason why mostly women do the painting,

This was literally within 10 minutes of me starting painting the second day.  I know have three pairs of pants that have paint all over them.  I also destroyed one sweatshirt that will now be permanently a barn sweatshirt!

This picture isn't the most recent but it does show close to what it looks like right now.  The roof, gables, ceiling, and insulation are all done.  Andrew Hostetler will be installing the windows and doors tomorrow and the garage door comes in a week or two.  Once the doors and windows are in I will start working on lights, heat, and water!  Going to be basics until I get caught up.  Need to get the building shut in and clean the floor so it can be sealed.  Once that is done then I can run some of the main water and gas lines and then I will get the tanks moved in before it gets too cold!

Some sad news to report.   I received a call late Friday morning asking me to come home quickly.  The neighbors house had caught fire and they needed me to help make sure all the gas was shut off. 

The fire started near a boat and some other items stacked at the corner of the house.  Everyone got out ok and the only loss of life was two cats that wouldn't leave the house.  Most other items in the house were lost.  They did manage to save some stuff but 75% of the house was burnt before they could get it out.  This house was over 100 years old and once a fire starts on one of these they go quick.  They are very dry and did not contain many of the fire retardant materials of today's construction materials. 

On Saturday I did have the opportunity to once again do something I always wanted to do as a child.  The local Ruritan had an antique tractor pull.  I took the new tractor down and ran pull back tractor for them.  I was extra happy to have my daughter and one of her friends stop by to ride for a little bit after their round of trick or treating in town.  

For those that do not know much about tractor pulls you can google it and get all kinds of pictures and videos.  With the old school tractors and sleds, someone needs to pull the sled back to the beginning of the track for the next tractor.  Below is a picture of me following the sled down the track while someone was pulling it.

I wanted to show off a couple of pictures of this years heifers.  First off is 50's daughter.  This is her first calf to Legacy.  She looks just like her mother other than being completely black.  She is growing quite well and will make a great mother in a couple of years!

The other girl I wanted to post is Fuzzy Wuzzy.  She was our first calf of 2015 and was born on January 5th.  Her mother is our biggest cow and is named Beefcake.  The best part is that Beefcake is also due to have our last calf of 2015 near Christmas!!!  That doesn't happen very often!!

I will try to get some pictures this weekend once the doors and windows are in showing the progress.  I am greatly looking forward to getting this building done so I can get a break from the rushing pace before the snow flies!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Kenny

Pouring concrete in the new building, a new baby calf, and a special interview for my EPRI/AFT project from last year!

Another busy weekend has passed and rolled right into a very busy week!  New concrete, new calf, and some new updates to the EPRI project from last summer!

We poured concrete Saturday morning.   I started at 5am with making sure the driveway was cleared out, grades were as close as I could get them and we were ready for the concrete.  Short of some little tweaks here and there I was pretty close with everything.

First truck arrived at 7:30 am.  We barely got the wire down and the two form boards that we needed set and he was ready to unload.  I am posting some random pics of the pour so that those who have never done this before can see a little of what is involved.  

I used a trench drain so that the floor could be evenly sloped from all corners and would also be much easier to clean as the space you are washing into is much larger than a small square or circular drain.  It also drains out the end so if something falls in it is not lost forever!  You will also notice that it is pinned in tight and also tied into with rebar and wire.  You pour the concrete under to lock it all together so it is one piece.  If you do not get the concrete to encase it well enough the concrete will break around the drain and fail.

Above the guys are getting the concrete spread and close to finish grade so it can be screeded of with the screed board.  To set the screed level you float the edges to the proper height and then using a long board you hand screed (scrape with the board) the concrete to finish grade.  After screeding to grade you use a large float to make it smooth and let it set for a while till hard enough to support some weight.

Once the concrete has set enough to support some weight they guys slide out on it on special kneeling pads to finish it off.  I wanted the shop floor smooth but not like glass so they troweled it one time to make it smooth but leave just a little roughness so you don't slip when it is wet.

The front apron has a broom finish so it is much more coarse so you don't slip if wet, dirty, or snowy.  This picture was taken just after everything was done and the guys were packing to leave.  Total time start to finish was about 3 hours total concrete was 14 yards.  It went very fast!

We always have to date our pours and so everyone got to put a hand print in.  If you look closely we had friends over for the day and their daughter got to put her print in with everyone else.  You may also notice that my sons print seams a little strange!  That is because he was upset for some reason and when he put his hand print in he tried to grab a wad of concrete so it is more of a claw print!  He will be able to tell his kids about that one!

Here is a good pic showing the finished floor inside and the broom finish outside.  

The last picture is of the back of the new building where the new feed area for the feeder pigs will be.  The new feed pad will be between the buildings.  The rest of the concrete I used to create a permanent swale so be sure the water goes away from the barn instead of into it.  Where the concrete is is also where the pigs liked to make a mud hole and would back the rain water up till it ran into the barn.  This will stop that from happening! 

Our last calf of the 2015 calving season has finally arrived.  Frosty had a beautiful little black baby girl over night Saturday night into Sunday morning.  

Lastly, those of you who do follow the blog will remember the large expansion project I did last year that included a buffer strip to control runoff, a heavy use feed pad, and a lot of fencing to keep the cattle out of the stream that our farm is named after.  This was funded through a program that is being research by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).  They are partnered up with American Farmland Trust and together are trying to develop a nutrient trading program to allow for power companies to offset their emissions at their plants by helping install and maintain pollution sources upstream from their plants.  

There were several projects in the trial run but only four of them were selected to be a part of their campaign and for more study into the affects of the project.  We are one of those four selected projects and I had the honor of being interviewed for their future presentation of the results.  I also was able to show them personally the results of the project and how it has helped us and those around us.  

Power plants are a major source of pollution that is generated while creating the electric power that feeds our society and makes the simplest things in life, like running water and lights, possible.  For many years there have been large advances and upgrades in controls to minimize this pollution source.  However, at a given point, the return on investment is so small compared to the cost that it just doesn't make any impact.  "The law of Diminishing Returns!"  So, what is being researched and developed is a system for the power industry to be able to invest that money into other pollution sources in the agriculture industry to offset those emissions.  The return on investment in the agriculture sector is enormous per dollar spent compared to the same money spent at the power plant.  

A huge side affect of this program is an increased standard of living and quality of life for farmers who are part of the program as well as the animals and family fed by those farms.  Personally this project allowed me to be able to expand our farm to be able to support more families with the food they need without negatively affecting the environment that feeds us all.  Furthermore, because of the systems we had help installing we are also able to provide a much better quality of life for the animals we are raising here on the farm.   

  

If you have never heard of this or want to learn more please visit their website and learn what you can do to be a part of a solution to a world wide problem.  

http://wqt.epri.com

I also encourage you to check out American Farmland Trust who is teamed up with EPRI and has been the group directly working with our local extension agency and other agencies to get this out to the agriculture sector to see if it can work.  

Have a wonderful week everyone and I will be sure to let you know when the video is ready for viewing!!!!

Kenny

New building updates

Hello!  A couple of weeks have passed already since my last post.  Things are moving fast and I haven't had time to stop to do anything other than sleep at night!  The building walls are up and I am prepping for concrete.  I installed the footer drains last weekend and waterproofed the north wall and parts of the east and west walls where needed.  

I am installing a trench drain in the center of the building floor.  This will allow for a nice even slope all the way around the drain from all corners.  It is also much easier to wash a floor with a long trench drain than it is to wash one with a circular drain.  

I have man doors on the east and west walls of the building.  There are windows on the west, north, and east walls.  The south wall is solid because it faces the barn.  You can see in the picture below the waterproofing on the wall on the corner.

Just as the sun was setting I finished my stone wall to hold the hillside back the hill from the door.  Because I moved the building over it pushed it into the hill more so I needed to put in a quick retaining wall to hold the hill up.  I will get a better pic in the day light when we pour concrete!

This is going to be the new pig feeding area.  I have always struggled with a good way to wean and feed the feeder pigs away from the sows.  This year I am planning on switching the boar lot to the new feeder lot to wean piglets and feed them during the nasty winter months.  They will need to sleep in the boars nest till they are fully weaned.  By then I will hopefully have my new height restriction build that will allow just the feeder pigs into this lot and only they will have access to this feeding area making it easier to give them access to the extra buttermilk without having to compete with the big pigs!  I will let you know how this turns out!  I have roughly 5 days to figure out what posts I want and get them installed before the concrete is poured!  I may have to leave myself a couple of holes or get creative if I don't figure it out quickly!

Another upgrade is a drain line for the new building with tie ins for all the downspouts for the new gutters.  I also ran a new water line down to where the headlock is at so I can use it to water animals if I pen them up in the shed for something without having a hose laying down the driveway.  

Here you can see all the new drains and the water line tying into the new building.

I know I didn't get any good pics of the building yet but I promise I will get some better ones this week.  I was much too busy hurrying to get things done before the weekend was gone to stop for pics!  Hope everyone had a great weekend and I hope this week is a smooth one.  We finally got some good rain this weekend and I am starting to see my newly seeded hay fields slowly starting to sprout.  I hope all the seed made it through the drought!

Goodnight everyone,

Kenny

Purchased a lamb at the fair and a slightly large project going on here at the farm!

The Stark County Fair was last week.  We took the kids to go see the 4-H animals sell and to see my cousins's daughters sell their lambs.  We were lucky enough to be able to buy one of them at the fair!!  They did very well and I cannot wait to have some lamb chops soon!  We will also be inviting them down for a meal of leg of lamb as well!

The big project I have going on is building a new building between the driveway and the barn.  It will house the tanks that I store the buttermilk in as well as give me shop space to park equipment to work on during the winter when I have time.  Until now everything has had to be repaired outside in the driveway or the yard which is not very desirable when the weather is not good.  It also leads to a lot of lost small parts due to falling in the gravel or the grass.  

The first step was to level the site and move my White Spruce that I planted several years ago.  

It was actually bigger than the tractor.  I took it up on the hill next to where the new house will go in a few years and planted it where it will provide some blocking of undesirable views from the new house.  We decided to leave the feed bin in place and install a feed pad directly behind it to feed the buttermilk and feed supplement to the pigs that we feed out.  This area used to be the boar lot.  However, in the harsh winter month this will become the feeder lot since they will not go out much when the temps are very cold anyway.  The boar will get to sleep with the cattle and the sows will have their lot and all the pens.  This will allow for weaning of piglets while feeding out older pigs as well.  

I am having JC masonry do the walls of the building for me.  The walls will be all concrete block.  This will be stronger in the long run and much more durable than wood.  I can also paint it and be able to wash it and not have to worry about moisture rotting out the walls down the road.  

There will be 3-5 windows, 2 man doors, and one 12'wide x 11' tall garage door.  This will allow me to fit all the different size equipment in the shed without having to worry about hitting the roof.  I am trying to remember to take pictures from the same two spots every day so I can show the change from start to finish.  However, just like usual, I get so excited to get started that I never remember to take a picture before I start any work at all.  Now I have to go back and find an older picture of the area from last year for the starting picture!  My wife was on it a little quicker than me and took some pictures just after I started digging.  

One last item that had a much needed upgrade was my bale feeder.  I have a bunk feeder that I have had for about 8 years now and I also have a Klene Hay Saver Pipe feeder, Model C-7.  I have used it for two years and I absolutely love it.  However, I have outgrown the C-7 as it is 7'x7' and can only hold one bale at a time. So, I upgraded to a C-12.  This is a 7'x12' feeder that I can fit 3 bales into snugly extending the interval of filling the feeder.  I have gone from feeding one bale every 4-6 days to 7-8 cattle to feeding 2-3 bales/day to 50+ cattle.   I actually need two of these feeders but with the building project the budget is super tight right now.  So, unless we can sell both old feeders and sell some cattle at some favorable prices this fall, it looks like I will have to use this feeder and my old bunk feeder for another winter! 

With pulling the bulls off the pasture in the winter and separating them from the herd I was able to set the breeding date for approx 95% of the females.  I released the bulls on June 30th which will put most of my calving from mid March till the middle of April provided everyone is bred.  This means I can have a herd check in the first week of October to see who is bred.  Now, because of the herd size I can start to sell any of the cattle who do not produce the best calves and be more selective in who I have on the farm.  This will also create some much needed income to offset my large building project.  

Hope everyone is enjoying the end of summer and beginning of autumn.  The leaves are getting close to changing and I am seeing the birds start to group up for the flight down south.  Sometimes I wish I could go with them for a winter!  Before you know it it will be cold and snowing.  I don't even want to think about it!

Goodnight everyone! 

Kenny