There has been a lot going on since my last post so I am going to hit the high points.
My brother has come on board here on the farm as well as at work. This has been a game changer for him and I as well as the farm and at work! Between him and I, we did more custom work in the month of September than I normally do in 4 months! The good news is that I have a great feeling that this will increase in the spring, especially with the addition of a seeder to the lineup here!
I demoed a new seeder this fall for the farm. It is an APV air seeder mounted on their custom designed harrow tool. It is designed for use in overseeding/renovating pastures as well as minimum tillage and full tillage seeding. I tested all of these types of seeding in the fall and was able to get a pic of one of the fields that came up before the weather went totally bad!
As you can see this was a field we plowed and only went over it one time with the disc. We let the seeder do the rest and it did an awesome job!
Above is a pic of what it looked like before going over, and below is what it looked like after passing over with the seeder. Phenomenal results and the germination was terrific and very even seeding. Because it uses air and a dispersion plate to spread the seed you do not get rows of seed. This results in needing 15~20% less seed than conventional drill seeding and a more even stand that more effectively controls weeds!
Below is a picture of the field halfway thru seeding. We have had a tremendous amount of rain this year and we got a lot of rain shortly after we plowed. So we had no way to work it down much and the weeds popped right up. After running this tool over the soil it leveled it up quite nicely as well as tearing up the weeds resulting in them dying before the seed germinated.
Below is a picture of the rye two weeks after seeding. I will have to get pics in the spring after it and the triticale actually get some sunshine to grow as everything is just sitting right now due to the extreme moisture and the cold temps since seeding.
I love this monitor as well! Shows all the information you need to know and is easy to use. It is a costly upgrade but worth it in my opinion!
I also started another major project.....last year at this time. I am finally getting some progress made on this project! Since I started remodeling the barn in 2008 I have wanted to get rid of the old corncrib shed in the middle of the driveway. It made sense back in the 40's when it was originally built but it is past its usable life and is completely in the way all the time!
Over last winter I had T&N, whom I now work for, haul in a bunch of processed fill material to make the base site for the new equipment shed. I let it settle in since last Christmas. I left the site sit idle for the year to see how it would function with everything in the area and the layout of the farm. I am glad I did that as I realized that I needed to move the site towards the creek by 6 feet to allow for proper flow of traffic in and out of the cow lot.
A few weeks back I had my friend Sam and his son Andrew, who does construction, come out and help set the posts. My brother, children, and our buddy skinny (seen above on top of the building) have been working on getting the boards up for the walls. Today we started working on the Header boards. It took 4 hours today to get three of these mounted. I do want to put into perspective the task at hand though because it makes more sense once you understand what we are up against!
All of the lumber is rough sawn pin oak. Very strong, but very heavy. The headers were special cut to a true 2"x12"x 18' to be sure they are strong enough to carry the load of the roof as each bay is 16' wide. The top of the front header is 17' high and the back header will top out at 13~14' high. This will allow me to park tall equipment inside as well as stack up to three layers of round bales or a few thousand square bales of hay in there without any issues. I am even toying with the idea of a loft in one of the bays to utilize more of the space! The holdup, however, is the fact that each header board weighs around 230lbs and the loader only reaches 13'. So, we had to build a jig just to lift the boards into place and then use my dads skidsteer to stand on to attach them. You can see in the picture below just how small the skidsteer looks compared to the header boards!
I am hoping to have the shed completed before new years but I am not sure if we will make it. It all depends on if I can gather the help I need to complete it as it is not a one or two person project like the majority of the cowshed and pigshed were. Regardless of when the shed is completed, I will be taking the old shed down no later than new years break. It has got to go and I cannot tolerate it any longer!
As I mentioned earlier, we have literally had rain or snow for almost a month straight, every day. Even when it wasn't outright raining or snowing it was misty, foggy, or very cloudy! Everything is mud every where you go, even parts of the lawn that are normally solid even in a wet spring!
I say that because I cleaned the barn yesterday in a rain storm and tore my pasture up pretty bad spreading the manure to clean the barn! Working through that miserable weather was worth it, even if it is only for one day, as today was warm and full sunshine....ALL DAY!!!!!
For the first time in three months,
we actually had dry patches on the feed pad for the cattle! This brief respite from the rain and cold is short lived as while I type this the next storm system is moving in. We are supposed to get rain turning to snow with cloudy and wet conditions all week.
Now, on to new things at work!!! Things are going awesome with the new job and I am tremendously happy I made this move. I love the work and the fact that I am not stuck in an office like I was before. I get to sell the work, manage the work, and do the work! We are very busy and it looks like the work will continue steadily throughout the winter.
One thing that Troy, the owner of T&N Excavating, and I discussed shortly after I came on board was vacuum excavation and the benefits of it. I finally had a chance to see one in action when the city came to a job we were working on to fix a hole in the water main line. It was mind blowing how easily it works and how much safer it is to use when you are working around other utilities. This is not something you would use to dig a house foundation of course but is exactly what you use when digging up water and sewer lines in city streets!
We were able to demo a unit from Vermeer and two units from DitchWitch. Both companies have great machines and it was not an easy decision. In the end, we chose to go with the Ditchwitch due to higher water pressure on the wand, higher vacuum power, better locking and opening system on the door, option to use hydraulic tools with the power unit on the machine, and a full 3-year warranty on the lease option we selected. We are currently the only excavation contractor with a unit like this in the tri-state area. We are hoping that this not only makes us much more efficient and productive as well as safe but, should also open up an entirely new market of work for us!
One other little tidbit that I wanted to share. Since I am now working in a much more flexible place of employment and my brother has now come on board to help with the farm as well as working at T&N with me when farm work is not needing to be done, I have the opportunity to do things when I want to instead of when I am allowed to!
Every year since our first trip to the Outer Banks my wife and I have talked about making a second trip down in the fall to just go fishing! This year I promised her, as well as our extended family Eddie and Gail, that we would do just that! Our kids stayed with my parents and we went back for a full week fishing trip. Of course, Zeus had to go with us, someone had to keep us out of trouble right!
On one of our trips to the beach to do shore fishing I decided to set a chair up to sit closer to the water. I set my chair down, cast out my fishing line, and turned around to sit down to find Zeus sitting in my chair! I ended up letting him fish and went and got a second chair for myself!!
Something else that has never happened before on a trip to the beach.....a full family nap!!!!!!!!!!!!!! One of us is always watching the kids while we are on the beach so we never really get to fully relax. This time was so different! The one day we went to the beach and both of us took a nap for several hours.....it was truly the most relaxing thing I think I have done in a very long while!
Eddie took us out on the ocean side on the boat twice. We caught some blue fish, a couple of false albacores, a cobia that was too small to keep, and some Spanish mackerel! It was so awesome that I cannot wait to do it again....I just need more Dramamine! We also went gigging for flounder and night fishing for drum. I cannot say enough about how wonderful Eddie and Gail have been to us and how awesome it is to know we have a great place to stay any time we go to Hatteras. Eddie is a vast vessel of knowledge and fishing skills and is always ready to help when he can! We may just have to make a trip down in the spring before their season really picks up and spend some more time fishing in a different season!
My last picture is of my wife and me at our annual Buckeyes game. It is always a great time to get to go to a game with her as she fell in love with me, or started to anyway, when I took her to her first football game in the south end zone in the background of the picture!
I hope everyone is doing well and I am hoping for a very snowy winter! I don't have to plow it anymore and I am looking forward to getting to enjoy a snowfall for once instead of having to work all the time during it!
Have a wonderful evening and I am looking forward to writing my annual New Years day post!
Kenny
No comments:
Post a Comment