Farmerjan's journal - Weather

[Ridgetop]

What a shame about getting so delayed on the car you bought from the estate. And you don't like it for yourself either so that is a downer.

Good job saving the fencing posts before they went to the dump! Those T-posts are crazy expensive now and so are the wood posts. It is a lot of work to remove the wire, but if you can do it while sitting down and over a period of time it will be worth it. We are going to try to salvage all the existing fence posts as we put in new fencing at the Yantis place. We are putting in higher fencing so will need to replace the fence posts. Once we have some perimeters up, we can use the short T-posts for interior pens. Not concerned about the dogs going over those fences. Those posts will be useful to use for that. We still need to apply for the conservation fencing program once we get to Texas.

 

[Baymule]

I keep getting advice to just hire a bulldozer to clean my fence rows. It’s fast and will get it done—and leave me with a big ball of mess. Solution? Set fire to it! Then load all the unburnables on a trailer and haul to the junkyard. Uhhhh…. Nope

If I cut out all the brush, I can burn it as I go and save the T-posts.

 

[farmerjan]

I want a bulldozer to come in and clean out the fence row here... nice wide open to put the fence... big pile and burn it. New fence up and DONE....but there is no old fence here.
I am not unhappy with this mess to work on and it is all in one place to do it. You can't afford to pay fencing guys to take it down slow and methodically like you as the landowner can do. It is the waste of material that just gets to me... especially since at least half of the T-posts are ours that we put in this fence over the years as we did patching,repairs. Why they wanted to take out all the woven wire fence along the road and all when it was in very good shape I will never know... guess they needed to have farm expense write offs or something....I think that the fence just didn't look "nice enough"....the piece up along the woods needed replacing that I fully could see....
I would rather have this all here at the farm to work on... although there is something to be said for being able to take the fence off the posts first... my knees would not have done those very steep hills and gullies very good there right now... the only other plus to it is that there is added weight to the trailer to go to scrap with the wire and old bent t-posts.
No sitting here to work on it... I am constantly climbing over to get to wire that is catching somewhere and cutting it... will have to work on taking some of the staples out of the wood posts but it is not practical to try to pry them out with the posts "moving" as I try to get them untangled from the wire. Alot easier to just cut the wire and pull it from under the staples on the wood posts in order to get them free... and cut the "clips" on the t-posts to be able to slide them out of the tangled wire.... Still a job.....

Cloudy with a little bit of wet this morning... then going to pass through and another wave late this afternoon.

Only got down to 47 last night... 20 degrees warmer than the night before.... CRAZY temp swings. Supposed to be alot colder this weekend...

Got several texts out for testing... expect next week to be pretty busy. Might take a ride down by the co-op and see how busy they are and maybe get the forester or the ranger's oil change/lube done.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Depending on how bad the t posts are bent, your DS should be able to unbend them. My hubby has done that quite a few times with used t posts, usually finds a tree with two trunks close together and uses it to brace the t post and then pushes the bend out of it. They rarely end up perfectly straight again but at least they are mostly straight and still useable.

 

[Ridgetop]

Good idea. Even slightly bent T-posts can be used to hold up garden netting, etc.

 

[farmerjan]

Some of these T-posts look like a hoop house bend .... But yeah, we have straightened some out that aren't too bad.... some are not worth it...
There are 20 T-posts and 19 round wood posts already out of the pile. It is just too cold out there today... wind is blowing and it hasn't hit 50... just raw. Need to take a few of the staples out of the wood posts that I can get, some will just get pounded in but some I ought to be able to grab to pull out.... not going to dig into post to get some out.
Even too cold to try to put the short pieces of posts around the porch... my ears are freezing with the ear thingy and the hood... fingers numb... NOPE... inside stuff for the rest of the day.

 

[farmerjan]

COLD this morning. 20, 🥶 but sun is out. Still a breeze but not quite as windy as yesterday. Forecast says more wind though... and tonight is supposed to be in the teens.....

Didn't go to the Maple festival this morning. It is not much fun to go and do it by myself, I did last year..... Deb didn't come out to the farm this weekend, I called her and didn't hear back and went by last evening on my way home from going to get milk at the farm, and she wasn't there and no signs she had been out. Haven't heard a thing from DS.... they were supposed to work on the radiator on his dually yesterday.

It is only supposed to get up to MAYBE 40 today... if the wind doesn't pick up I may go and work on the fencing stuff...
So, since I didn't go get buckwheat pancakes, I ate hot cereal with the maple syrup on it... I don't normally put milk in the cream of wheat... Load of clothes in the washing machine... get dressed and going to do up a sink full of dishes. Then see......

 

[Mini Horses]

This cold snap isn't nice winds here,too. Need to light disc garden. Hoping that gets done next week with slow work. Are those chickens you have there laying? Won't be long before our chicken swap visit have some feathered cream legbars I want situated outside this week, too. I plan a couple farm days.

 

[farmerjan]

Sunday evening.... Got up to 42 today, not as windy so not as cold feeling as yesterday.

Clothes soaking in machine, they were pretty dirty and I want to be here when they do the spin to be sure there is no repeat with the freezer door coming open. Have not found where I "put the key so it doesn't get lost"..... .

Dishes done and went to the farm to do some on the posts/wire/MESS..... DS also wanted to get the cows off the hill and the calves weaned off.... that should have been done a month ago... 4 have calved, but luckily 3 did not have calves on them.... They came from the nurse cow pasture and the calves are still there, been weaned off nearly 2 months so that is good.
One of the cows (HIS) is high strung and she had a new calf AND she has one bad eye.... she went over the fence and headed for the hayfield out back..... he tried to get her back in the field (has a new calf ) and it got through the wire on the end of the field, heading south....and he was afraid that she would wind up on her way to NC.... but got around her on the old railroad bed road, got them headed back towards the barn and I got the other gate open and she went right up there and is back with the cows where she should have stayed. I told him that she needs to get sold after this calf... she is too "volatile" all the time.... nervous nellie and no common sense to her....
So the calves are weaned in the barn lot.... cows are back across the driveway and out to pasture, 3 calves tagged and matched to the cows....he will bring around the ones that are calving up in the back, that should have been brought down here closeby to calve.... put together with these that we just pulled the bigger calves off....and they will all wind up down in the "calving field" in another 2 weeks... We will then get them all across the driveway into the barn; and get the calves tagged and all, so that they will be ready to go to summer pastures by the end of April/early May.... depending on the weather and grass growth.

So this all interrupted my detangling the fence posts etc somewhat.... but I did get another 10 metal posts and 6 BIG wood posts untangled and ALL the staples out of the wood posts... these were corner and end posts and had 8 staples in each one plus the wire wound around and tied off so alot of cutting and stuff. Hope to do more tomorrow.

The wind was very light this afternoon compared to yesterday so much more comfortable to work even with the cooler temps.

Got a farm scheduled for Tuesday aft to test, haven't heard back from 2 others....

There is a bull sale DS wants to go to on Friday evening at 6 p.m. It is about 2 hours away and he has wanted to go to this one for a couple years so the tentative plans are to leave here by 4 or a little earlier on Friday to go. That is IF he does not decide to sell the next group of calves.... I heard there was a HUGE run on calves hauled to the sale this past Friday... we took ours the week before... people must've heard how good prices were.... have not heard how prices were this past friday.... I told DS that ANYTHING he does not have committed to going to WVa or the ones going to VT....... we need to sell.....take advantage of the prices before anything goes haywire.... talk around about the 2 bank failures, the economy not looking very stable..... and I do not want to wait too long. Grass fever is going to be hitting people real soon.... although it looks like we are going to have a chillier than normal Spring... into late April/early May..... and I want to get rid of any/everything we do not absolutely HAVE to keep......at these high prices.... let the grass grow and have more/longer grazing this year.... and see how things play out. He heard from a couple of guys that the instability of the economy might hurt prices in the future so he ought to sell some more stuff... of course, I am chopped liver and don't know anything..... .

@Mini Horses , I have 2 of the 4 chickens left... something got 2 one day in broad daylight... lost one of the lt brahma's and the Buff rooster... the other lt brahma is laying on the front porch, hiding under a chair, and I have no idea if the wild buff hen is laying anywhere... I will probably find a nest full of a zillion eggs one day.... So I have to find another buff leghorn male or a pair or 2.... and maybe will be able to entice this hen into a coop one day and lock her in.,...also wanting to find some of the New Hampshires.... there is someone close here that is advertising chicks... but not wanting to deal with them right now.
Trying to get this fence put up.....

I am beat and going to bed here shortly. DS said they had the wrong fan belt so went as far as they could on the truck.... plans are to get the right one tomorrow and hopefully get the truck done....

I am going to go to the nurse cow pasture and see how many of the heifers I can get in the catch pen, tomorrow...might take a time or 2 and see if I can get them all in the barn lot.... he might have to set up some panels since there are so many there.... he says he will move them to the barn and Caleb is going to come and they are going to put together the group of 30-35 that are going to WVA pasture... and then he can pull what he needs to get spayed to go to VT and anything that is not A-#1 to keep for replacements, is going to be fed there until he takes some to the sale. It has been decided that we will put a group at the nurse cow pasture to get bred.... and that way I can leave my longhorn there to get bred back also.... it is just so hard to try to move her somewhere with her horns... she is so good with not using them on other animals.... but there aren't many places she can go that I won't start worrying about her getting into a bad situation with other cows and she does so well here that I want to just leave well enough alone... plus, getting her in with other cows and she cannot go through the chute with those big horns.... might change the dynamics... and I just like her.....she has a new calf on her... 11 months after she calved with the twins and I lost one... pretty fertile.... she's a sweetheart... quiet, bothers no one, just does her thing....

Time to call it quits....tomorrow is another day.

 

[Baymule]

Salvaging those posts is a money saver and is a CHORE! Toss in cold and wind, keep your determination hound. Every one you pull out of the pile is one you can use somewhere else. I have my pile of T-posts that I got such a good deal on, hope they are enough to get outer parameters done. Wood posts are high and I haven’t found a “deal” on them. BJ and I bought a bunch of posts years ago from an old man whose fencing crew were his sons. They salvaged posts before putting in new ones and we got a good deal on them. We used them in fencing the farm in Lindale.