- Thread starter
- #821
Mystang's Homesteading Circus
- Thread starter mystang89
- Start date
thistlebloom
Herd Master
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2019
- Messages
- 2,037
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- Location
- Idaho panhandle 48th parallel
So where's the pics of your new baby girl? You now have broken equipment so lots of time to post pictures! 
Bruce
Herd Master
Might just be brittle old metal like Jan suggested. Can you move the bar back and forth by hand to see what is happening in that area?
That is just too dang true!!!!!!
Speaking of which, I picked up a new chain for my big saw today
- Thread starter
- #824
mystang89
Herd Master
.... Another day... Done. Still living. Tomorrow is almost here. Must prepare beforehand 
Bruce
Herd Master
That sounds a bit ominous!
- Thread starter
- #826
mystang89
Herd Master
Today was "bale the hay" day. It something could go wrong, it did. I only have 4 (four) acres to hay. I got maybe a third done and put in the hay loft.
After, this well I'll probably try to do a dump of info.
Bruce
Herd Master
Sounds about right. We would think the world had ended if we went out to do a project and nothing went wrong.
CntryBoy777
Herd Master
Another way to look at it is....ya faced "adversity", overcame it, and persevered to completion.....and that most certainly should spur the feeling of accomplishment.... 
....yeh, it will wear ya out, but it allows ya to appreciate the "uneventful" days soo much Better....
....yeh, it will wear ya out, but it allows ya to appreciate the "uneventful" days soo much Better....- Thread starter
- #829
mystang89
Herd Master
Ok, so the last few weeks have been a blur but I'll try to recap what I remember if them. Also, excuse the more than usual typos, my children busted the screen on my phone so it's a bit....touchy, for lack of a better word.
As you know we have a new child in the house.
Beautiful little girl. Nice head of hair. First one we've had that actually had hair when she came out. Hasn't shut up since she's been here
If she's not attached to mom she's screaming. She was much quieter in the womb. Tempted to see about a refund from the mid wife. This one seems defective.
It was a relatively quick birth. Wife said she was having contractions, 3 hours later she was laying in bed with her baby.
Fairly large for us too. 9.8lbs. Only a day late.
On to date things. Hmm. First up - children's bathtub had a clog. The way it was installed was that the clean out was placed at a 90° angle from the drain so my snake couldn't make the turn. That meant I had to go in the crawl space. Here the crawl space is supposed to be 18" deep. That's luxury space. I had about 12" in the largest part. Found the spot I needed and tried to get the pipe wrench in. Nope. Adjustable wrench. Nope.... Hand? Nope. K
I finally finegled the wrench in somehow only for the pipe to come out of the pipe it draied into. That pipe happened to be in an area I couldn't access. Btw, code has it that ALL areas of crawlspace are to be accessible. Must have gotten glossed over.
See that hole? That's what I was expected to for through. Now listen. I'm not a big guy. I'm only 148lbs, 5' 11", and I can normally shimmy my way through some small spots but this was a no go. I had to get my 9yo daughter to crawl where this pipe was, slather the pipe with PVC primer, then the inside and outside of the male and female end of the PVC pipes, then for them together, telling her to hold them for at least 30 sec. Sight unseen. Just saying, "here ya go. Have at it."
She did a remarkable job though. I went back to my spot under the tub after about an hour and started to tighten things up there which I had loosened. While down there I decided to make sure there weren't any leaks I could find so I had the children start taking showers. Turns out, because of the lack of wiggle room, there was a leak. I try to fit the screw back on the threads and the jarring of the pipe caused the same area to come out of its drainage pipe again. Many things were said in that time. Things I'm not so proud of. Things I regret. I then asked my 9 year old to crawl back in there and redo the job she had previously finished. Without a word of complaint, probably because it was safer in the spot I couldn't fit in than any spot I could, she resealed the pipe. I got everything on my end working well and there are no leaks or clogs to speak of now. And if there are, DON'T TELL ME ABOUT THEM! On the flip side, my daughter is already on her way to becoming a great plumber. Not I just need an electrician.
Up next, gardening.
We've been wanting to get a green house for a while now and went ahead with it. This is just a harbor freight one but it should suit the job. Of course it's all put together now but this was the only pic I had. Hopefully we'll get some seeds started on there before next summer.
Next up, fishing. Indiana had a free go fishing day so we decided to take advantage of that. We went to a near by state park and stopped at a lake. My wife was still pregnant at the time.
Sometimes it's fun to be me.....an. I think the home up this hill is what helped make the delivery so quick lol.
I can't remember if I mentioned it away but we did purchase that van with 50k miles on it. Runs well. Few problems, most things I should be able to fix. We still haven't been able to get new tags or plates or transfer things into our name because of this.....virus thing. All the BMV places are either shut down, only taking by appt and those appt dates are completely filled up for the next few months literally. We'll get it done when things stop being stupid.
Today we went to pick up a sickle bar from a place an hour and a half away. Bar costs $400. A part that's for a piece of equipment older than myself. Ok. I had talked to the guy on the phone and he was saying depending on how we paid for it we'd get so much percentage off. Ok. It seems the policy changed in a days time, cause nothing like that happened. At least it was time well spent with the family. Not money well spent, but time.
And for the grand finale, it's haying season!
I have been at for about a week now. My poor wife is at her wit's end but I had to get the hay done before rain. I really only had about 11acres to do. That's not much. If everything went well it would have taken maybe a day to cut, a day to flip and then a day to bale. Things don't go well though.
Sometime last year a kindly older gentleman asked me if is like to come bale his alfalfa and clover this year and split the difference with him. I said sure. So The time comes and I make sure he's the first one I do so he doesn't take a chance on losing anything due to unforeseen rain.
I've never cut alfalfa or clover before. Just regular ol prairie grass. So I come through with my haybine low to the ground expecting to skim right through it. It was like the haybine hit a wall. The rake wheel stopped turning. I didn't know what the problem was and didn't really want to look any dumber than I already was so I took another stab at it. To me three tries to realize this wasn't my normal grass. I finally raised my blade and after careful monitoring I was able to make it through.
Well, after his was done I decided to go over to my neighbors field and cut his. Same reason as before, finish others before starting on your own. Here's the thing though. Last year my neighbor had really let his field go... Until I went over there in the fall and bush hogged it, then finish mowed it. He said I could hay it this year if I wanted and take all the hay for myself. Sure thing buddy! This year rolls around and I go to cut it. Lots of very thick stalks. I thought it would cut like my field since it was the same grass type. Oh boy was I wrong. I raised the bar up on the one too. It felt like ibush hogged it with my haybine. If the field was kept maintained then it would have the same grass as mine. I'll need to take a bit of care for this field if I expect a good haying next year.
Ok, finally get to my pasture. Maintained, simple grass. I cut through my large front pasture with no problem. Ahhh, this is more like it. Relaxing and easy. I go to my smaller side pasture. After a single pass I look behind me to see half of the pass not cut. Why. Why me lol. That's when I found the sickle bar broke. I went through and looked at the pass today and I guess it may have it the ground because it seems where the grass began not to be cut was in a dip in the ground. So that area never got cut. I'll go through with the bush hog then finish mow it and probably continue to finish mow it till the end of the year.
Now comes baling. Ok, no problem. I've got it down now. I know what I'm doing. Everything is OK! That was what I was thinking until I went back to the gentleman with the closer and alfalfa. First row and the bales aren't tying. I have no clue what the problem is. He starts to look at it (I'm trying to look at it with him but mainly just trying to learn from him) and he finally gets it working. GREAT! On to the baling now. Continue on with that and pass until a shear pin breaks. I honestly don't remember why it broke. I remember we came back to my place, picked up a shear pin, drove back to his, put it in, fiddle with it for a bit, and it worked. Now... on to baling??? Everything went off without a hitch, thanks be to God. We ended up getting 14 bales total I think and he only took 4, telling me to take the rest. He really is a nice guy, for reasons other than because he have me the hay. He's just one of those country people who stop what they're doing to help. Glad I met him.
Now on to my neighbors field. Yes, I did bale his even though it's really only good for bedding. One, because I needed experience. Two, because of number one. Yeah, I think I went through 3?ish shear pin when I started out on his. I finally got it down though. The speed. How much it could handle etc. Three shear pin isn't bad right? Lol
By this point I'm over it. I just want to be done but I still have my pasture. I start baling. Pop! Shear pin breaks. Oh come on. By this point just laugh with me. It's either laugh or cry and tears are a waste of water. I hadn't a clue why it popped it. Put another in. Same thing. Ok. Why. This is just regular ol grass. Nothing stuck in the shoot. As I'm looking at this machine if mine that same country gentleman comes driving by, stops and gets out just to see if he can help. He wasn't able to figure out the problem but if he hadn't stopped by, he wouldn't have told me about someone I could call who could help me. So I'm grateful he stopped. The guy I called talks me through it and said for me to take all the hay out of the baler. I do this and as I do the country gentleman looks at it and says, "this is wet." Wet? How? It's regular flipping grass that's been sitting out for 3 days with no rain. We still don't know why it was wet but I did take the hay take to it again, wait for that to dry and came back later on. Worked a charm. Not another shared pin.
As I'm baling I've got my hay wagon coming along behind me with my daughters on it pulling up the hay. They scoot it to the back and come back to the front for more. The hay comes out the shoot, they take it and start scooting it to the back only to find that the bales they placed there are now in the field lol. I never built a back stop gate on the trailer because I never knew what the reason for them was. I do now hahaha. One of them stayed in the back to keep the bales from jumping ship and the other would put them where they belonged. On top of this, the sting would fail to tie ever so often so we would have to let it fall to the ground and run it back over. Many bales failed to tie. Others would be to loose. Having to go from baling thick grasses or clover or alfalfa to baling thin grass really takes knowing where you need to have things set up at. We finally got all the settings correct and established a routine. I think we baled around 50 or so from my pasture (I forgot to count) and 60ish from my neighbors. (My daughter counted, I forgot. Are you seeing a trend here?)
Yesterday we put all our bales from our pasture in the barn. No reason chance and everything went fairly well. The day before things didn't go fairly well. Things happened. I believe I've blocked then from my memory because all I remember was saying some words that my mother would be quite ashamed of again.
We had left the bales from my neighbors in his pasture overnight and came back for them today. Learned something new! Bales that have been in the pasture overnight need to be turned before picking them up because the bottom is now wet. Yey for new things learned! ....sigh. so my 11yo drove the tractor with the trailer attached around the pasture while I turned all the bales so they could dry. After that we, (by we I mean "I") picked up the bales and placed them in the trailer. Again, she drive the tractor around so I could simply pick them up and place them on the trailer. She was a tremendous help. I'm truly blessed to have them all as my children. Here's a pic of her driving our load home.
That was her after she conquered the hay trailer. Also, no one ever said I was a pro at stacking hay bales lol.
So last year when we placed the bales in the loft I had to be in that bucket you see with about 3 bales stuffed in there with me, my wife lift me up almost to the hay loft and then I had to pick them up and toss them into the loft. That wasn't fun. That wasn't fun at all. This year I bought a hay hook or it's known as a hay claw too. It was completely rusted through. The person I bought it from thought I was going to be using it as an ornament or something. When I told him what I was really using it for he simply said, "Good luck". I fixed it up and it works perfectly, thankfully.
The hay claw is what we used this year. After learning much we were successful. This first video, we were not LOL.
The rope came out of the trolley which then ended with the hay claw tumbling down after the hay. I thought the rope had snapped. Thankfully, it didn't. Also, glad no one was under that as that claw is about 60lbs of pure iron.
The second video is more of what was supposed to happen. For anyone who would like to see how hay used to be hauled into this hayloft 100 years ago, this is how it was done. Well, substitute the tractor with a horse... and people who have no clue what the are doing with people who did this for a living. You get the point though.
There was a chance of rain today so we were watching the black clouds start rolling in. We had about 6 more bales to go and I started making mistakes, not parting attention to what I was doing etc because of fear of that rain. Then this showed up.
It was almost like He said, "calm down and remember who's in control here. I'll take care of you son." So I did. Everything went smoothly from that point. Not a drop off rain fell until all the hay was put up and the hay loft door shut. Then He let it come down. I've a kind Father.
Also found the end of the rainbow but never saw the pot of gold.
Just had to be in the OTHER field, didn't it.
As you know we have a new child in the house.
Beautiful little girl. Nice head of hair. First one we've had that actually had hair when she came out. Hasn't shut up since she's been here
If she's not attached to mom she's screaming. She was much quieter in the womb. Tempted to see about a refund from the mid wife. This one seems defective.It was a relatively quick birth. Wife said she was having contractions, 3 hours later she was laying in bed with her baby.
Fairly large for us too. 9.8lbs. Only a day late.
On to date things. Hmm. First up - children's bathtub had a clog. The way it was installed was that the clean out was placed at a 90° angle from the drain so my snake couldn't make the turn. That meant I had to go in the crawl space. Here the crawl space is supposed to be 18" deep. That's luxury space. I had about 12" in the largest part. Found the spot I needed and tried to get the pipe wrench in. Nope. Adjustable wrench. Nope.... Hand? Nope. K
I finally finegled the wrench in somehow only for the pipe to come out of the pipe it draied into. That pipe happened to be in an area I couldn't access. Btw, code has it that ALL areas of crawlspace are to be accessible. Must have gotten glossed over.
See that hole? That's what I was expected to for through. Now listen. I'm not a big guy. I'm only 148lbs, 5' 11", and I can normally shimmy my way through some small spots but this was a no go. I had to get my 9yo daughter to crawl where this pipe was, slather the pipe with PVC primer, then the inside and outside of the male and female end of the PVC pipes, then for them together, telling her to hold them for at least 30 sec. Sight unseen. Just saying, "here ya go. Have at it."
She did a remarkable job though. I went back to my spot under the tub after about an hour and started to tighten things up there which I had loosened. While down there I decided to make sure there weren't any leaks I could find so I had the children start taking showers. Turns out, because of the lack of wiggle room, there was a leak. I try to fit the screw back on the threads and the jarring of the pipe caused the same area to come out of its drainage pipe again. Many things were said in that time. Things I'm not so proud of. Things I regret. I then asked my 9 year old to crawl back in there and redo the job she had previously finished. Without a word of complaint, probably because it was safer in the spot I couldn't fit in than any spot I could, she resealed the pipe. I got everything on my end working well and there are no leaks or clogs to speak of now. And if there are, DON'T TELL ME ABOUT THEM! On the flip side, my daughter is already on her way to becoming a great plumber. Not I just need an electrician.
Up next, gardening.
We've been wanting to get a green house for a while now and went ahead with it. This is just a harbor freight one but it should suit the job. Of course it's all put together now but this was the only pic I had. Hopefully we'll get some seeds started on there before next summer.
Next up, fishing. Indiana had a free go fishing day so we decided to take advantage of that. We went to a near by state park and stopped at a lake. My wife was still pregnant at the time.
Sometimes it's fun to be me.....an.
I think the home up this hill is what helped make the delivery so quick lol.I can't remember if I mentioned it away but we did purchase that van with 50k miles on it. Runs well. Few problems, most things I should be able to fix. We still haven't been able to get new tags or plates or transfer things into our name because of this.....virus thing. All the BMV places are either shut down, only taking by appt and those appt dates are completely filled up for the next few months literally. We'll get it done when things stop being stupid.
Today we went to pick up a sickle bar from a place an hour and a half away. Bar costs $400. A part that's for a piece of equipment older than myself. Ok. I had talked to the guy on the phone and he was saying depending on how we paid for it we'd get so much percentage off. Ok. It seems the policy changed in a days time, cause nothing like that happened. At least it was time well spent with the family. Not money well spent, but time.
And for the grand finale, it's haying season!
I have been at for about a week now. My poor wife is at her wit's end but I had to get the hay done before rain. I really only had about 11acres to do. That's not much. If everything went well it would have taken maybe a day to cut, a day to flip and then a day to bale. Things don't go well though.Sometime last year a kindly older gentleman asked me if is like to come bale his alfalfa and clover this year and split the difference with him. I said sure. So The time comes and I make sure he's the first one I do so he doesn't take a chance on losing anything due to unforeseen rain.
I've never cut alfalfa or clover before. Just regular ol prairie grass. So I come through with my haybine low to the ground expecting to skim right through it. It was like the haybine hit a wall. The rake wheel stopped turning. I didn't know what the problem was and didn't really want to look any dumber than I already was so I took another stab at it. To me three tries to realize this wasn't my normal grass. I finally raised my blade and after careful monitoring I was able to make it through.
Well, after his was done I decided to go over to my neighbors field and cut his. Same reason as before, finish others before starting on your own. Here's the thing though. Last year my neighbor had really let his field go... Until I went over there in the fall and bush hogged it, then finish mowed it. He said I could hay it this year if I wanted and take all the hay for myself. Sure thing buddy! This year rolls around and I go to cut it. Lots of very thick stalks. I thought it would cut like my field since it was the same grass type. Oh boy was I wrong. I raised the bar up on the one too. It felt like ibush hogged it with my haybine. If the field was kept maintained then it would have the same grass as mine. I'll need to take a bit of care for this field if I expect a good haying next year.
Ok, finally get to my pasture. Maintained, simple grass. I cut through my large front pasture with no problem. Ahhh, this is more like it. Relaxing and easy. I go to my smaller side pasture. After a single pass I look behind me to see half of the pass not cut. Why. Why me lol. That's when I found the sickle bar broke. I went through and looked at the pass today and I guess it may have it the ground because it seems where the grass began not to be cut was in a dip in the ground. So that area never got cut. I'll go through with the bush hog then finish mow it and probably continue to finish mow it till the end of the year.
Now comes baling. Ok, no problem. I've got it down now. I know what I'm doing. Everything is OK! That was what I was thinking until I went back to the gentleman with the closer and alfalfa. First row and the bales aren't tying. I have no clue what the problem is. He starts to look at it (I'm trying to look at it with him but mainly just trying to learn from him) and he finally gets it working. GREAT! On to the baling now. Continue on with that and pass until a shear pin breaks. I honestly don't remember why it broke. I remember we came back to my place, picked up a shear pin, drove back to his, put it in, fiddle with it for a bit, and it worked. Now... on to baling??? Everything went off without a hitch, thanks be to God. We ended up getting 14 bales total I think and he only took 4, telling me to take the rest. He really is a nice guy, for reasons other than because he have me the hay. He's just one of those country people who stop what they're doing to help. Glad I met him.
Now on to my neighbors field. Yes, I did bale his even though it's really only good for bedding. One, because I needed experience. Two, because of number one. Yeah, I think I went through 3?ish shear pin when I started out on his. I finally got it down though. The speed. How much it could handle etc. Three shear pin isn't bad right? Lol
By this point I'm over it. I just want to be done but I still have my pasture. I start baling. Pop! Shear pin breaks. Oh come on. By this point just laugh with me. It's either laugh or cry and tears are a waste of water. I hadn't a clue why it popped it. Put another in. Same thing. Ok. Why. This is just regular ol grass. Nothing stuck in the shoot. As I'm looking at this machine if mine that same country gentleman comes driving by, stops and gets out just to see if he can help. He wasn't able to figure out the problem but if he hadn't stopped by, he wouldn't have told me about someone I could call who could help me. So I'm grateful he stopped. The guy I called talks me through it and said for me to take all the hay out of the baler. I do this and as I do the country gentleman looks at it and says, "this is wet." Wet? How? It's regular flipping grass that's been sitting out for 3 days with no rain. We still don't know why it was wet but I did take the hay take to it again, wait for that to dry and came back later on. Worked a charm. Not another shared pin.
As I'm baling I've got my hay wagon coming along behind me with my daughters on it pulling up the hay. They scoot it to the back and come back to the front for more. The hay comes out the shoot, they take it and start scooting it to the back only to find that the bales they placed there are now in the field lol. I never built a back stop gate on the trailer because I never knew what the reason for them was. I do now hahaha. One of them stayed in the back to keep the bales from jumping ship and the other would put them where they belonged. On top of this, the sting would fail to tie ever so often so we would have to let it fall to the ground and run it back over. Many bales failed to tie. Others would be to loose. Having to go from baling thick grasses or clover or alfalfa to baling thin grass really takes knowing where you need to have things set up at. We finally got all the settings correct and established a routine. I think we baled around 50 or so from my pasture (I forgot to count) and 60ish from my neighbors. (My daughter counted, I forgot. Are you seeing a trend here?)
Yesterday we put all our bales from our pasture in the barn. No reason chance and everything went fairly well. The day before things didn't go fairly well. Things happened. I believe I've blocked then from my memory because all I remember was saying some words that my mother would be quite ashamed of again.
We had left the bales from my neighbors in his pasture overnight and came back for them today. Learned something new! Bales that have been in the pasture overnight need to be turned before picking them up because the bottom is now wet. Yey for new things learned! ....sigh. so my 11yo drove the tractor with the trailer attached around the pasture while I turned all the bales so they could dry. After that we, (by we I mean "I") picked up the bales and placed them in the trailer. Again, she drive the tractor around so I could simply pick them up and place them on the trailer. She was a tremendous help. I'm truly blessed to have them all as my children. Here's a pic of her driving our load home.
That was her after she conquered the hay trailer. Also, no one ever said I was a pro at stacking hay bales lol.
So last year when we placed the bales in the loft I had to be in that bucket you see with about 3 bales stuffed in there with me, my wife lift me up almost to the hay loft and then I had to pick them up and toss them into the loft. That wasn't fun. That wasn't fun at all. This year I bought a hay hook or it's known as a hay claw too. It was completely rusted through. The person I bought it from thought I was going to be using it as an ornament or something. When I told him what I was really using it for he simply said, "Good luck". I fixed it up and it works perfectly, thankfully.
The hay claw is what we used this year. After learning much we were successful. This first video, we were not LOL.
The second video is more of what was supposed to happen. For anyone who would like to see how hay used to be hauled into this hayloft 100 years ago, this is how it was done. Well, substitute the tractor with a horse... and people who have no clue what the are doing with people who did this for a living. You get the point though.
There was a chance of rain today so we were watching the black clouds start rolling in. We had about 6 more bales to go and I started making mistakes, not parting attention to what I was doing etc because of fear of that rain. Then this showed up.
It was almost like He said, "calm down and remember who's in control here. I'll take care of you son." So I did. Everything went smoothly from that point. Not a drop off rain fell until all the hay was put up and the hay loft door shut. Then He let it come down. I've a kind Father.
Also found the end of the rainbow but never saw the pot of gold.
Just had to be in the OTHER field, didn't it.
Last edited:
- Thread starter
- #830
mystang89
Herd Master
Here's a shot of the newly built shed with all the hay equipment in or around it, where it'll be staying
I think tomorrow will be bush hugging that side pasture then finish mowing it and the neighbors. That should give me plenty to do.
I think tomorrow will be bush hugging that side pasture then finish mowing it and the neighbors. That should give me plenty to do.
