The thing about living on a farm, is that all the normal stuff related to home ownership is still there. But so is the stuff related to a farm. You still have to mop the kitchen, but you also have to keep sheep in a clean pen. You still have leaky faucets, broken doors, and car repairs, but you also have tractors, pens, and equipment. Anybody who knows me will tell you that; it’s probably a good thing I’m kept busy. These things sure keep us busy.
The sheep are continuously growing, and almost fully situated. Kris has finished the paddock and coop. The sheep have shelter overnight, and a large space to graze over the day. They are certainly showing their pleasure, three gained as much as ten pounds in a week! This week we are going from giving milk replacer twice a day, to once a day. They are starting to eat mostly grass, sweet feed, and a mineral supplement. We’re planting about 2 acres of a warm season grass mix on the parts of the field I’m not using this year, that we can feed the sheep over winter.
They’re bigger, but still cute.
The chickens have become a non-entity in daily planning again. No more chicks, no special attention. Make sure they have food, and feed them our table scraps.
And find something to do with the eggs!
With the Advent of full on summer temperatures the corn in the field is starting to shoot up. But it has been, dry, dry, dry. Last year I developed a process for irrigation. A bunch of drip tape, and valves for zoning. The well we had put in a few years ago is only capable of about 10gpm. Which is not a lot at all for an irrigation system. The drip tape has emitters spaced at 12″, and each only puts out 0.17 gallons an hour. The 20 rows of corn are about into 3 zones, and each zone runs 45 minutes a day.
While the drip tape system works fantastic, set up and tear down can really be a pain. I thought I had a good system with a wire winder, rolling up the tape at the end of the year. However, I was only able to roll up a few rows, the rest was left straight and piled next to the field. The rolls ended up being the worst to lay back out, they didn’t unroll well, and the straight hose was a cinch to get lined back up.
Now the corn is getting water and growing fast, and we are READY for some sweet corn!
Now on to the less fun stuff. As I alluded to in the beginning, farm stuff breaks, too. This swather was bought last year to help make haying a faster process. It’s almost older than my dad, but it still runs great. So does my dad, mostly. However, the bat boards broke in the middle of running, not difficult to fix, but it will be time consuming! The gas 190XT, with the snap coupler hitch, that I loved so much leaked out its oil, and threw a bearing. The disc I used to rip up the field for the forage mix broke apart in the last pass, right at a weld the previous owner had already made.
Every hose we laid for watering/irrigation leaked somewhere. My truck developed a misfire, in-addition to an exhaust leak so common on these hemis!
In recap, some things broke, most things got better, and everything is keeping us busy and making the farm life that much more interesting.
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