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12/08/2008: "A Day in the Life"

Despite what you might infer from the lack of blog activity, I have been quite busy. Quite busy! The best days are ones where I've gotten all my tasks and materials organized in a list, and I just tick them off one by one in a semi-frenzy down at the farm. This post documents one such moderately successful day.

Here was my task list for this day, back in early November:

x Pick up some long 2x4's at Home Depot on the way in
x Look at shop: what will it take to make door taller? How much of the structure will have to be exposed, removed and replaced?
x Stack and inventory the fertilizer and soil amendments
Set up a second sump pump in the basement
Add some hoses to carry water away from downspouts
x Put bracing on barn beams at the top juncture
x Plant fava beans in the strip that I missed
x Measure width of rotary cutter for dolly
x Measure width of tiller for dolly
x Get tractor out of cowshed
x Measure wheel track - did Steve actually move tires in?
x Put tiller down on pad of shop, not blocking door
x Attach the backhoe
Take pictures of the broken tiller so I can figure out what parts it needs
x Feed the bees
x Raise the cutter up with a jack so that the beam can be removed
x Dig out the west orchard spigot
Check the fluids on tiller
x Put away tractor

The x's in front of items denotes things that actually got done, in the course of a day at the farm. Not too bad, for a six hour work day (once you subtract off the travel time).

The opening photo on this entry is from the third-to-last task: digging out the orchard spigot, which is part of the frost-proofing plan for the farm. When I purchased the farm, there were PVC hosepipes all over the property, and from time to time one would freeze. This would lead to a winter morning fountain, a phone call, and an emergency repair. Bit by bit I've been replacing these with frost-proof hydrants; this one at the west end of the orchard is last vulnerability remaining for this year (there are some other sections of the outbuilding water system that still are vulnerable, but they're no longer connected). I had tried to dig out this PVC pipe with a hand shovel a couple of weeks back, but it was very slow going with all the rocks that I kept running into. So on this trip I got out the tractor, and then got ready to work with the backhoe.

First, however, I had to drop the tiller off in a location where it could be easily picked up again. My plan was to eventually build a dolly to set the tiller on; this would make it easier in the future to attach the tiller to the tractor hitch. But for now, I decided to just set the tiller on the apron of the shop and put a tarp over it.

Then, the backhoe had to be re-attached. I was kind of nervous about this; we had done a walk-through with the salesman from Brim Tractor, but even the salesman admitted that sometimes it took longer than you'd expect. However, I got the tractor positioned within the requisite half inch of alignment on the very first try! I had some frustration getting the quick-connect hydraulic hoses connected: one went on easily, but the other just wouldn't catch. After several frustrating attempts, I took a little walk; off in the distance I could see neighbor Ed putt-putting away on his Gator vehicle down to the marsh - no help there. Walking back to the tractor, I finally noticed that I had left the front end loader in the travel position, a foot off the ground; perhaps the weight of the loader was causing back pressure in the system? I lowered it to the ground, and voila! the connection was possible.

You can see the concentration on my face, operating the backhoe... I'm still pretty green with it, and I didn't want to break the pipe while digging the hole! Plus, the daughters were watching, and I'm sure they would have chuckled if Dad did something wrong. I have to say, though, that I was able to dig an adequate hole alongside the water line in about ten minutes, a vast reduction in time and effort. I still had a little scrabbling down in the hole with a trowel to uncover the joint, but it was pretty easy once you have a deeper hole alongside to scrape the dirt into.



The wheat seems to be coming up pretty well out in the field; there was a strip of tilled soil that I wasn't able to plant in fava beans a couple of weeks ago, so the girls and I went out and threw seeds onto the bare earth and stepped them in with our shoes.



I'm also trying to be a better beekeeper. After a summer of neglect (and probably a swarm that was never noticed), the bees are still in their one-story hive body. In that size hive body they will do better at keeping the box heated in cold weather (lots of bees, not much volume), but they lack sufficient honey food to make it through the winter unaided. So, I'm committed to feeding them this winter to get them through to spring. So far I've fed them a 12 ounce jar of sugar solution twice in the late fall, about three weeks apart. This appears to have had a good effect, as there are lots of bees now after the second feeding. The key will be to keep feeding consistently until nectar sources show up in spring. Part of the reason that I planted the large fava bean plot was to give them an early spring food source.



I put more bracing on the support beams in the barn on this trip: hopefully that, and some drainage re-shaping of the ground on the uphill side of the barn, will get me through this season with an intact barn.

One of the last things I did on this trip was stack and inventory the fertilizer bags in the basement of the barn... what a heavy, dirty, difficult job that was. I don't have photos of the process, as it was done late in the day while the girls waited in the truck. Luckily, my mantra of "lift with your legs, not with your back" appears to have paid off: I'm still walking upright after organizing about 4 tons of soil amendments!

Comments:


Congratulations on the tractor purchase.

We bought a compact tractor ourselves this year similar size to yours. I'd
be interested to hear more about your thought process on the tractor you
bought. The implements you use and the tasks you put it to.

We have a homestead in the Northeast where we keep goats and grow vegetables for
ourselves, a group CSA and my wife sells at farmers markets.

Primarily, we got the tractor for backhoe work, tilling and light logging.
With ours we got a backhoe, loader, box scraper, tiller and a set of forks
for the loader. For extras, I had three chain hooks added to the loader
bucket and one to the back of the backhoe bucket. I also got a 20' length
of 5/16 chain with grab hooks. I use one of the chain hooks everyday I am
on the tractor, they are some of the best money spent. I also went with Ice
chains for the rear wheels as we get stiff winters here in the NE. For a lot of
this, I had my brother's advice and experience to rely on, he has had a
tractor for several years had already figured out a lot of the hard
questions.

One of the things I wish I had thought to do was have the dealer weld hooks
and a 2" receiver on the pallet fork mast. You can never have too many
hooks and a receiver hitch on the front can be really handy for moving a
trailer.

The box blade was great for dragging out the pasture before I went in with
the tiller. The box blade has scarifier hooks that pull through the dirt
like hooked fingers. I turned up a lot of roots with it and saved my tiller
from a length of chain and a tiller blade someone lost twenty or more years
ago. Probably luck, that, but good luck any way.

For this year, we've prepared a small amount of field (less than an acre)
with the tiller. Reworked the road left by our logger. Dug and backfilled
waterline trench. Hauled in trailers of manure to compost. And dug out the
floor of the shed to make it into a tractor shed. Next year, in addition to
tending the field, we'll be doing a lot of fencing. We need deer fencing to
protect the vegetable garden and pasture fencing for the goats. This winter
there will also be logging to bring in next winter's firewood.

It was a scary proposition signing the PO for the tractor. The payment on
the Tractor is larger than the mortgage was on our house. But the things we
want to do will go a lot easier with the tractor. And someday, we might
even see a return on it.

I don't post much about the tractor, but you can see what we are up to here
http://artofproprietation.blogspot.com/ on my blog.

Afella, in NE

Kurt responds:

Hi Afella,

I'm still new to the tractor life, so I haven't completely figured out all that we can use it for... here's the list I made for myself that convinced me that it was worth it to get a tractor with a backhoe:

Tile north yard
Tile south yard
Dig trench for new water line from house to outbuildings
Replace barn foundation
Tear out blackberries
Cellar drainage project
Foundation for new garage?
Reshaping swales for water retention
Dig out stumps to replace junk apple trees

Admittedly, it probably would have been cheaper to rent equipment to do this, but with my limited time on-farm I wanted to be able to just show up and work, not show up, rent equipment, haul it, work, haul it back.

In addition to the backhoe work, I have been doing the standard soil preparation activities of discing and tilling. Next summer I'll be mowing to keep the weeds in check, too. A buddy of mine is supposedly going to lend or sell me his post hole digger, and then I'll be doing fencing, too. All in all, I've come to view the tractor as an essential efficient tool to manage the farm.

Thanks for writing, and good luck with your tractor!