[dominiquer60]

That should work on both of your plows Anthony.

Any one have any idea what the cheapest way to ship a set of eveners is?

[dominiquer60]

Kevin- I emailed Bekah, our administrator, so hopefully this will get resolved shortly.

[dominiquer60]

“A ” bale babe” No offense please, is the best of efficiency and cooperation. I think the possible best thing would be loose hay, but I can’t say for sure ( my wife hates even the thought of it)”

Bale Babes can work very well until the system is changed and it is not their idea, the mechanics are easy, the emotional maintenance can be tricky, choose your systems wisely 🙂

[dominiquer60]

Great pictures Stephen thanks for posting.

[dominiquer60]

Lanny is seems that a spammer has brought up this old post, sorry for any confusion.

[dominiquer60]

Sorry for the lose of your neighbor. It is often those that are used to an comfortable with the activity that are involved. My big close call was a lime truck driver (former dairy farmer) almost rear-ended me while I was driving a tractor with a transplanter on back, it was probably that huge pair of yellow 80 gallon tanks that got his attention, but it is a known busy farm road and the major artery of the county. Motorcycles and farmers are everywhere, pay attention and look twice.

[dominiquer60]

Now I am really looking forward to knowing how it all works out 🙂

[dominiquer60]

I am looking forward to hearing how this goes, short term and in the long term.

I have no experience sub-soiling, but I have some serious compaction in one field that I have been working the last couple of weeks.

Last year at the Nordell’s Columbus Day Farm Tour I asked Eric about his zone ripper (sorry I don’t remember what he called it) that I have seen pictured in SFJ, I was interested in seeing it and using something like it for the water reason and to loosen the soil for crops like carrots. He had sold it because he no longer used it, because the rows where it was used actually dry out verses no/min till methods that rely on capillary action to keep moisture near the surface, but with a soil or plant mulch to keep water from escaping at a high rate.

I am going to try to address compacted soils with cover crop roots when space and time allow for such species.

I tried a little experiment last week with the opposite idea, drying a field out. Sam wanted to disc it so that it would start to dry, I wanted to leave it so that the natural cracks and fissures dry it without another pass with the tractor. I scratched a tiny patch of this 5 acre field with a rake to break the crust and to create a soil mulch and mostly due to lack of time we waited a few days to work it with the tractor. The field dried out nicely on its own to a very nice workable moisture content (it was like pudding before), and that little patch that I scratched just for kicks certainly held more moisture under the dry layer on top.

What I am starting to realize is that it is important to address compaction, but the deeper you dig the less moisture you retain at the surface. It is all a balancing act. Tim Harrigan recommended to me in another thread to try the sub-soiling in a swath or two to see if it actually helps or not, rather than doing it all and wondering later if it actually helped or not without a control for comparison. We never were able to find a sub-soiler to borrow, but I am leaning toward legume or radish roots to break up compaction these days.

Happy Plowing!

[dominiquer60]

I watched a similar run-a-way with an experienced teamster last year, it can happen to anyone if you are not paying attention.

[dominiquer60]

Horse Chiropractors can be a great thing if you can find one and a good one at that. In some states they are not legally allowed to practice unless they are a vet, but that doesn’t stop many of them thankfully. We have had one come out a couple of times and it has helped, it would help more if we had the time to work and stretch each animal like we should. Any adjustment holds better with muscle work and stretching.

Tail pulls may help her. Assuming she has a full tail, grab her tail and all long hairs and a neat bunch and slowly pull toward you belly button. This is the basic pull you can also slowly change the pull to the right or left and play with angles. She may find it strange at first, but as she relaxes she should want to help by leaning into the pull. This may not solve her problem, but it may help improve her issue or help loosen her up for a chiropractor.

I have used a chiropractor for driving and riding horses and the result have been good, I noticed more improvement with the riding horses, I think because I was more in tune with them and I rode them daily. The draft horses don’t get the attention that I would like to give them, then again I used to have the time when I rode everyday, now I don’t.

[dominiquer60]

I think we are all correct, there are multiple facets that are contributing to this issue. It seems that the biggest problem is always a lack of time by anyone who gets involved, this is a hard problem to solve.

[dominiquer60]

Congrats! Enjoy them, thank goodness your daughter can work them, idol time will spoil even the best teams and teamsters 🙂

[dominiquer60]

“where since the change I find it very quiet”

I am not disagreeing with you, but it is hard to tell how much is quiet from the changes and what quiet is from the normal summer lull in conversation, because many are out working and leaving good conversation for the dark side of the calender.

[dominiquer60]

It is discouraging in NE CT also. I should have pumpkins and sweet corn in by now, but where they are to go still needs to be plowed, but there has been standing water there for two weeks. We cut straw for bedding because we need the ground to plant corn in. Looks like after today we have a few days to plant, till, chop and hay, I hope that we are able to get a good bit done.

[dominiquer60]

I went from using one tractor to 2 this week. We finally rigged up my old Allis Chalmers G so that my Planer Jr. would fit under it. I like using horses and steers, but when they live a good .7 miles from where my garden is, they are not always convenient, plus this G has a creep gear and is much happier going very slow than the animals are. I plan on only using it for seeding crops, but can do some cultivation in a real pinch (cultivator unit not near as nice as the horse draw one). A different transplanter (hopefully animal powered) is in my future and once I have made some of my life savings back maybe even a EZ Trail plastic mulch layer, black plastic or biotello really paid off this year on the crops that had the luxury of being planted in it. Otherwise the only thing that I use the big tractor for is wet dibbling with the Rain Flo transplanter and some occasional heavy discing. Sam can use all 6 on the bigger disc, but I can’t yet and he has enough other things to do, so heavy disc and tractor it is for now. In the end it is nice to have choices and to be able to pick the best tool for the job.

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