Farmerjan's journal - Weather

[Bruce]

Or instead of the word move, give her the black spot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Spot_(Treasure_Island)

 

[farmerjan]

Yeah, she needs something..... in fact she is gone again, her husband is home by himself. I don't understand him staying with her, except that being so totally dominated by her is the lesser of 2 evils???? Nope, being by myself is definitely the better of a situation that I am treated with so little respect. Can not imagine being so "hen pecked" ... I got out of a bad marriage and can not imagine being back in one where someone else is that dominant. I would like some company/companionship some times, but being alone and fairly content, and liking my own company most of the time, is definitely better than being with someone I am not happy being around.
Oh well, his/their life. Wish she would just put it on the market and go back to Mass where some of her family is....

Got all the hay that was mowed, raked. About 20 + acres of it I guess. 10 acres of 2nd cutting for the friend that had back surgery, 10 acres of our orchard grass. Took about 4 + hours as I was putting 2 and 3 windrows together since it was pretty light. He will have some help tomorrow so they ought to get it all sq baled. Son was going to mow more this evening but got tied up doing some other stuff, got the tractor moved, and says he might go get it mowed in the morning. Would like to get this other place done, we do it on shares, and would be nice to be done there for the year.

Weather has been really nice. Seems like we often get this in advance of a hurricane event. Looks like it is going to be pretty severe when it comes ashore, and some models have it turning north and then we might get some residual rain wed or thurs.. I just hope for everyone's sake that it is not too damaging.

Tired from all that nice sunny outside time on the tractor so I am going to hit the sack.

 

[Baymule]

It's about time you got some nice weather to get the hay in.

 

[Bruce]

I don't understand him staying with her, except that being so totally dominated by her is the lesser of 2 evils????

Maybe he's figured out divorce is too expensive.

 

[Mini Horses]

Sounds like that divorce would be a "crawl away with the shirt on your back" one.

 

[farmerjan]

Yeah, I think it is a combination of things that they stay together. He is a nice guy to talk to, and has always been. She is just such a witch.

Sun again today, mid 70's already and heading for mid-upper 80's . Dropped chance of precip to 10% right through wed now. I sure hope he cuts that other place and even a couple of others that we could maybe get done. But if we do get some rain towards the end of the week, some of the cooler season grasses will grow and there will be more to cut if we wait. But I sure would like to get down with it before we get into cold weather.
Just realized we might only cut that one more field because the corn is about ready to chop and we need to get that done and bagged. Don't want it to get too dry or it won't ferment right. Got to get the bagger, get it set up etc. Takes about a day to get everything ready so they can just go to chopping. Need to get the one tractor back here too so it can run the bagger, it is one we use when haying. Really need to get that done before he leaves to go to Miss for the regional "Roadeo" competition. He leaves sunday the 15th of sept.

Going out to move the one portable coop here at the house with my purebred birds in and then fill buckets to go fill waterers at the meat birds. The younger/smaller group is starting to really eat now. Takes them about 2 weeks to get "oriented" . They were mostly out in the undergrowth yesterday evening scratching around when I went up to lock them up for the night. One is still scrawny looking, but several are starting to grow and look good.

 

[farmerjan]

Well, don't believe the weatherman. LUCKILY, we were not in the corridor of the sudden "50% chance of a thundershower" at 4 p.m. It did get dark, and you could hear some thunder int the west and north and see the clouds, but it skirted us. We were baling hay and got about 4 wagon loads which is in the neighborhood of 400 bales from the 2 fields. I went around and picked up the ones that got "kicked off the wagon" like when the baler is going around a corner and the baler kicks one out at that moment. Picked up about 10-12 all together, he put most on the one wagon that was not quite full, and I took 4 to the barn where I have the nurse cows. One had some weeds in it, 2 had 1 good string and 1 falling off string. He was baling a little bit faster than normal to get it up. Then we got the 4 wagons in the barn in case it did rain. Still a little thunder to the north and west, but looking at the radar it is going to stay above us.

It did get hotter and more humid today. He had help for about 2 hours, not the guy who I thought, but another guy who a friend suggested. Kid obviously doesn't want to work.... didn't even bring any water, kept saying how hot it was, then his back hurt....If I could stand on the wagon with this unstable ankle, I could have done twice what he did. So he called his girlfriend to bring him some gatorade as he was dying, and then decided that his back hurts too much. My son said he can bale some, stop, go back and stack it and then bale more, faster than this kid could stack it as the baler was kicking them off. He's like 25 maybe, big, husky kid, not overly fat.... but obviously not into "physical work".

Had a flat on the wagon as he got to the field, had a 2nd wagon there so called me to bring the jack and a spare and the elec lugwrench and all. I did, we changed it, and I wondered how much help this guy was going to be, because as Michael took the big heavy floor jack off the truck, this kid got off the wagon and came over. I took the spare off the truck and rolled it over to the wagon. When michael jacked the wagon up and got the flat off, he told this guy to jack up the wagon a little so that he could get the "not flat" tire on the spindle and he used his foot to pump the handle on the jack one time.... I mean really??? I just sorta looked at him because most people would bend down a little and use their hand/arm to pump it once.... I had 2 full and one mostly full, bottles of water that were cool but not cold and I gave them to them. But obviously that didn't do it. I went and got more water, and ice and some sodas and tea and put it all in the cooler so that they would have more to drink when they finished the first field. By the time I got back after hauling the water to the meat birds and all, Michael had just finished the first field and I went to the other field to meet him and he was by himself.... told me about it and said he could do it faster and would just as soon do it himself in that case. So he took some of the water and a pepsi into the tractor, and went to baling.
The thing of it is, the windrows were light, and it wasn't like the bales were coming off like bullets, there was a little bit of time between bales. He//, there were times when the bales would be kicked off so fast one person couldn't keep up.... we used to have 2 on the wagons when we were in heavier first cutting....

Oh well, it's done, in the barn on the wagons. He did not cut that other field, I hope he does it tomorrow as it is still looking dry until wed, with only a 10% chance then and about a 30% thurs afternoon....

Got up to 93* today, after a nice night down to 61*.

Gotta get up and go test in the morning so going to go to bed in a few minutes. Not a terribly early farm, will leave here by 4 a.m. they start at 5a.m.. No set up as they have weigh jars and all so really a pretty easy morning.

 

[Baymule]

You got the hay in the barn! That young man wasn't worth a bucket of warm spit.....he might have done better at video games.

 

[CntryBoy777]

Thought ya would get a kick from this.....
.........I've dealt with plenty of those kinds that thought they wanted to unload trucks....they wanted the money, but didn't want the work....throwing tires ain't for wussies....

 

[farmerjan]

Well, I got up, went to test. Came home, did the meat birds and came to the house. Michael was going to finish cutting that other place. He said he did get part of it cut yesterday before he started baling. Will finish cutting it today. Then is going to unload a couple of the wagons onto the flat bed trailer to deliver to a couple of the hay customers. We are not going to take on any outside hay customers as we will be lucky to have enough for our regular ones. There are alot of weeds in some of these fields. What we call sand briers, or horse nettle. It looks like prickly spined plants with yellow cherry tomatoes. It is in the nightshade family. Invaded the hay fields this year. animals don't eat it, and customers don't want it obviously. So our yields are smaller and he will pick through the hay as he loads it to try to not take much/any of the "weedier stuff".

Aggravation.

@CntryBoy777 , yes I got a chuckle from that picture. That is more than that young guy did yesterday. Honestly, I was a little surprised that he didn't come over and offer to get the spare off the truck for me. I mean really, just common courtesy??? I guess I am too accustomed to polite guys who have a little respect for a female. And with the limp/uneven walking it is a little obvious that I am not exactly 100 %. It just surprised me that he just stood and watched me do it. Then to pump the handle to the jack with his foot, one downward push.....
I don't know.....

The farm had part of that storm that stayed north of us yesterday. Got between .7 and 2 inches between the 2 different houses of the son and father. Said it POURED at about dark.... so the lightning and thunder I saw/heard when I was getting the birds in. They are partway through chopping so hope they don't get any more for a couple of days to get some serious work done tomorrow. They get a guy come in to do some of it custom.... get the big silo filled in one day and a bag done. Then the farmer can work on refilling the silo as the silage settles and do some late planted corn to put in the smaller silo. He says it can take them 4-5 days to fill the big silo and then still have to refill to top it off and it is very time consuming. Glad we got it done today before they start to change feeds. Another farm cancelled Sat because they had just changed to new silage and the cows need to adjust and usually drop production until they used to it.

Forecast shows sun and 0% chance of precip. Reality is cloudy, just plain overcast. Not a sunbeam or blue sky in sight. Sure not hay drying weather.

Looks like Hurricane Dorian has gotten ugly, a cat 5 ???? No matter whether it comes ashore or not, Fl is going to feel the winds and rain and storm surges from it. Thoughts to all in the general area. All according to what it does, we could see some wind and rain.... I know @Mini Horses will feel it on the coast. Sure hope that @Southern by choice and @Goat Whisperer and @OneFineAcre don't get too much wet out of it.

Time to eat some lunch.... tuna fish is sounding good. Don't have any tomatoes, gotta go rob son's neighbors garden again, he told him that they are going to waste.....
Got to go get some peaches from the friend again. Her mom wound up in the hospital in Ga and she is down there and said to come get what I can use as she will not be getting to anything in the garden any time soon. They have one more late ripening tree that I may as well go pick as the husband won't be doing anything with them and her freezer is full and canning is not his forte'.