[Tim Harrigan]

@J-L 33886 wrote:

How effective is it in establishing good grasses?

I have a hay meadow that just doesn’t seem to grow anything but this grass my neighbor calls Johnson grass which we think crept in off the highway. I have been trying to figure out what to do with it.

In Michigan, it is usually more effective with clovers because of the small seed size. It is important to have the right weather, several days of warm, wet weather are good germinate and get it emerged, or frost seeding to get it worked into the ground. Grasses are not as reliable, although Timothy has a seed similar to clover seeds. Most grasses have a light, fluffy seed that is harder to get into contact with the soil and prevent drying out. If the weather cooperates it can work though.

Johnson grass is similar to the quack grass we have, very aggressive, extensive root system, tough to kill with tillage. A lot of frequent tillage, or herbicide if you are OK with that.

[Tim Harrigan]

I’m seeding for cattle so I like red clover, orchard grass and smooth brome. White clover volunteers pretty well, and birdsfoot trefoil has been expanding every year since I started managed intensive grazing about 12 years ago. Multi-flora rose is expanding as well, and I will probably start spot spraying that today if the sky clears up. Clipping it only encourages it.

[Tim Harrigan]

Seeding red clover?

[Tim Harrigan]

No one ever shorted your pay check, did they Mink. 😮

[Tim Harrigan]

@Countymouse 33872 wrote:

This leads to another sets of questions… If turns should always be sidesteps (rather than speeding one ox up and slowing the other ox down) than signalling a turn by tapping at the rear of one ox and the front of the other ox is just wrong??? You don’t want either one to go faster and you don’t want either one to go slower, you want a sidestep and a pivot… Oh jeesh, have I been doing this wrong the whole time? Maybe the commands i know work for wheeled things or for wider turns and there is another set of commands for tight turns? I am kinda getting mixes messages here. There seems to be one school that says rubbing on the chain happens from time to time and here’s something you can do to make rubbing less damaging. There seems to be another school of thought that says rubbing should never happen and if the team touches the chain there is a fundament problem that needs fixed immediately before work can continue. Thoughts?

I think there is some middle ground. If you are not moving a load and do not have to be concerned about the chain or pole, and you want to make a tight turn, a good way to do it is to signal the ox on the inside of the turn to slow down and the one on the outside to speed up and come around. So for a haw turn I would typically touch Will on the knee, Abe on the butt and then on the off side shoulder to bring him to me. Under a load the chain or pole can be an obstacle for the team. If the turn is gradual you can use the slow down speed up technique, but only to the extent that the chain does not come into your team. If you want to make tighter turns and keep the chain or pole off the legs of your oxen, one good way to do it is to swing the team in the direction of the turn, take a step forward to start to swing the load, then being attentive to the lateral swing of the chain, repeat the process before the chain hits the leg. I don’t necessarily ask to make a perfect arc, I will have the nigh ox step sideways and back a bit, then set out to give a little more clearance where the chain is going to swing. I will ask the off ox to step up, to me and set in to square them up. The off ox can be close to the chain because when they pull the chain will move away from the off ox and toward the nigh ox.

Like I said earlier, some loads, like a front loaded boat might pivot on an 18 inch radius in front but a 7 ft radius in back. In that case you can almost turn it 1 80 degrees in one motion. If it is back loaded it might swing on the 7 ft radius and take 3 or 4 or 5 tugs to swing the load around and square up. It just depends on the situation and the load. You just have to be aware of the chain or pole and keep them off the team. So I guess the chain will touch the team from time to time, but yes it is a fundamental error and your goal should be to never let it happen. Particularly with a heavy load.

Andy, you enjoy statics. Do the calculations for a chain under 200 to 300 lbs tension (500 to 700 lb stoneboat load), maybe a 10 ft chain with a 5 degree or 10 degree angle break in chain at the leg, maybe 3 ft or so from the load. What kind of lateral loads do you see on the leg?

[Tim Harrigan]

I have never had a problem with this, probably because from the start when they were young I used a pole and taught them to hold the load and sidestep to square the load up and then pull. I would do it in increments with a tight turn when pulling a log or stoneboat…. swing, pull until the chain started to crowd the leg, hold the load and swing, etc. Of course, with a wagon you can just pivot right around that way. A pole helps emphasize the need to swing when they are young, and it helps the teamster because it is more visible and it does not bend so it is easier to see when they are being crowded by it. So typically with a chain I either make wider, gradual turns or I will stop and swing as needed. Losing a little hair is one thing, but if one ox starts walking into the turn and the chain angles around the leg of the other on a heavy load, you are going to put tremendous lateral loads on the leg and joints. Bad deal. Good discussion, this is a huge oversight and bad practice for anyone allowing this to happen. Put this at the top of your list of things to correct, right now! A training video might be needed here.

If you are attentive to this you will begin to see how tight you can turn with specific loads. For instance, if you have a stoneboat that is front loaded, and you want to turn tight, it tends to pivot around on it’s nose in a tight circle and the chain does not move laterally very much. With a back-loaded stoneboat or something like a log with a center of gravity set back from hitch point, the load will want to pivot around the center of gravity or maybe the center of resistance and there will be a lot of lateral movement and tendency to swing the chain into the legs. It will take multiple swing/pull increments to get the load straightened out so it does not lay into the leg when starting out.

[A few hours later…] Droverone and I posted at about the same time so look at the next post, I think he describes the same process for turning that I am describing, but I am unfamiliar with hemmick chains. I think the Canadian head yokes will differ from American neck yokes here in that the head yoke will tend to keep the cattle together, both front to back and side-to-side, at least their fronts. Neck yoke cattle are held together at the front as well, but one can get out in front of the other in a turn so it takes some effort to keep them where they should be. For instance, if the off ox gets too far ahead on a haw turn it puts the nigh ox at a disadvantage for staying off the chain because it pushes the chain to him and he has to almost walk sideways to stay off it. That is very hard to do when pulling a load. Not only that, it shortens the lever arm of the nigh ox so it increases his load while simultaneously forcing him to pull in a very awkward position.

I believe this differs also from a horse hitch because horses are pretty well bucked into the harness and square to the evener as they turn. So they are always pulling square to the evener. The dynamics are quite a bit different with a neck yoke and single chain. If you can not picture this process or figure out how to implement it, we need to continue this discussion. This is an animal comfort and health issue.

[Tim Harrigan]

@Jen Judkins 32369 wrote:

…I’ll let you know when we hit 4000.

That is great, but we probably have way more than that in reality. I just checked, 57 on-line, 8 members, 49 ‘guests’, and that seems pretty typical. So we typically have 6 or 7 guests cruising the site for every member. So is 3,000 really 18,000 silently following the discussions?

[Tim Harrigan]

I agree, cattle are pretty rugged. And the wound looks like it is behind where the bow will sit. Give him some time, it will likely be OK. I would watch for signs of infection and take his temperature daily for a while just to be on the safe side.

[Tim Harrigan]

fence posts, yokes, sled runners, fire wook, wagon tongues, fire wood, axe handles, wedges.

[Tim Harrigan]

Good story, Andy, that is great. Good idea to put them away before they got really tired, mix it up a little and try to keep it up beat for them. Sounds like you are going to build a nice team. Congratulations, not always easy to do with an older team that you do not know much about.

[Tim Harrigan]

@Countymouse 33687 wrote:

….I wonder if in a culture/environment where constructive criticism is allowed, asked for, and often needed, some might be hesitant to post. Certainly posting is easiler in a culture/environment where a “post” of “thumbs up” is considered the norm and there is no expectation that posts say anything thought provoking….

I am sure you are correct. We do have a tendency to get right to the point and that can be interpreted as criticism, although I can’t remember many comments that I think were made with that intention. I think most of us who engage in the more intense discussions understand the purpose and intent, but in some recent cases I am sure it seemed like a ton of bricks.

[Tim Harrigan]

I rarely look at Facebook but I have some coarse divisions in my mind based on what I have seen. Facebook is for folks who like to say ‘hi’. I see much more serious and detailed discussion on this site.

[Tim Harrigan]

You have to realize that at any one time less than 10% of the folks on DAPNet actually logged on with a DAPNet ID, and probably 90% of the discussion is carried by 10% of the active members. As the weather improves we will be at our computer less and less. So I guess the folks who contribute to the discussion determine how active the discussion is.

[Tim Harrigan]

I thought it was getting busier. I just checked, 16 active threads today, not sure how many posts. Seems like everytime I check there are 50-70 logged in. We have more than 3000 members, 570+ are considered active. I don’t understand Facebook.

[Tim Harrigan]

I did not know we have a facebook page.

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