TODAYS SEAT TIME

[sixdogs]

Todays "seat time" was more rotavating...

I was hired by the Amish to till 18 acres of pumpkins, the thing is, the rows were 7 feet apart, and he wanted me to go down them with a 6 foot tiller! Have you ever tried to do that?? It's not easy, IF you want to still have pumpkin plants when you are done! lol (AND NO, there rows were not perfectly straight)

Anyway, I had to be VERY carful and go slooooow, 1.02 MPH to be exact,

He had some Mexicans clean out around the plants on the side of the field I was on, so they were easier to see, and I managed to get a little over half of it done today.

We will see if he get's the Mexicans back out there, and then calls me back... IF those plants "crawl" much between now and then, I'm NOT going back!

SR

I tilled pumpkins for years and lots of acres and it works great if you set it up right. Plant with a planter in rows 7' apart. Plant a seed every 18" and when they just start to canopy take the side shoe off the tiler to get closer to the plant and go slow., staying maybe 4" away from the plant.

You can't spray much herbicide on weeds because of plant damage risk but you can use Poast for grass control. Read the instructions. You need a narrow enough tractor and planter to go up the row one way, turn around and come back in the same row. That's the only way to get close enough to the plant on both sides without much damage. Works great. Hand spray weeds in the rows between plants.

Pumpkins are much easier with a tiler and a small tractor

 

[Sawyer Rob]

No doubt there's several different ways this could have been handled, and I do have a smaller tiller I could have showed up with.

Thing is, I've dealt with the Amish before, they want to MOST for the LEAST, and a smaller tiller cost the same per hour to run and would have taken twice as long to get the job done.

I give several "suggestions" on how "I" would handle a job, then let the customer decide how they want it handled, that way, the end game is on them...

SR

 

[cat fever]

It's easy to sell big rounds, so why go through all the expense and work of small squares?

I use to do small bales years ago, but there's just no longer the need to work so hard for my money anymore...

I'd rather let my tractor do all the work!

Even hobby farmers here, buy big rounds...

SR

Last year I put up about 1200 small bales. This year I did NONE! Didn't hurt my feeling a bit.:laughing:

 

[Tennsawdust]

Years ago one of my crew hit a waterline that was 3 feet from where it should have been. He hit it with a track loader catching the bell with a tooth. It was a 10 inch main and 3 feet too shallow. Top of the pipe was an inch below the curb.
Cleanest I ever saw that loader the undercarriage was spotless.

A couple of years ago we were having some work done at our facility in Nashville. The contractor had called 811 and had everything marked. They had identified a 4" gas main near the road, as well as water and sewer lines and he had plans to work gingerly around those. When the excavator started scraping the sod off he hit and punctured an 8" gas line. Not only was the line 14' from anything marked, it was also barely under the ground and was not on any drawings the city had. It took them 3 hours to figure out where to shut it off! There was some thought among the city engineers that it might have been part of a main system that was abandoned in the 1960's. It apparently fed nothing, but just ran across the industrial park and dead headed at a highway cut. They could have only missed it by inches when they built the road into the industrial park.

A few months earlier we also "discovered" a 16" sewer line that the city had no record of. I don't know if they ever figured out where it came from or where it went. It took us months to get them to approve running our storm sewer around it so we could tie into the city storm sewer line that ran a few feet below the mystery line.

 

[Oldpath05]

I see that up here, also. The drawback is that crows like to land on them, putting holes in the plastic and causing a lot of spoilage. One deterrent is to run string along both sides of the row high enough so that their wings would hit it.

I want small bales when I'm mulching ditches and culverts... 1200 lbs of hay is a bit of overkill. I suppose that it would be easy though, all I would need to do is unroll them.

Who would ever think about crows landing on them white bales and there's a lot of crows down this way to, if I was a farmer and the crows did that to my hay, I'd be very upset, spoiled hay is no good for feed, guess it's still used on blueberry fields. Is that string trick a sure fire deterrent?

 

[Alan W.]

A couple of years ago we were having some work done at our facility in Nashville. The contractor had called 811 and had everything marked. They had identified a 4" gas main near the road, as well as water and sewer lines and he had plans to work gingerly around those. When the excavator started scraping the sod off he hit and punctured an 8" gas line. Not only was the line 14' from anything marked, it was also barely under the ground and was not on any drawings the city had. It took them 3 hours to figure out where to shut it off! There was some thought among the city engineers that it might have been part of a main system that was abandoned in the 1960's. It apparently fed nothing, but just ran across the industrial park and dead headed at a highway cut. They could have only missed it by inches when they built the road into the industrial park.

A few months earlier we also "discovered" a 16" sewer line that the city had no record of. I don't know if they ever figured out where it came from or where it went. It took us months to get them to approve running our storm sewer around it so we could tie into the city storm sewer line that ran a few feet below the mystery line.

Did my BUD call on a job in Versailles before we mobilized. Everybody faxed me an all clear no lines or pipes in the area. Sent a crew in to push the organics into piles. It was a mix of small trees and overgrown fencerows.
My dozer operator called me and said he found something. That something was a buried gas line sign.
Called the gas company and asked what the heck and they told me they really didnt know where my location was when they got the BUD notification but they sent me an all clear anyway. They just assumed it would be ok.
Turns out it was a high pressure line feeding the industrial park next door.
Gas company had to relocate the line due to their negligence. They had also signed off on the engineering.
Whole job was shut down until that was completed.

 

[Jstpssng]

Who would ever think about crows landing on them white bales and there's a lot of crows down this way to, if I was a farmer and the crows did that to my hay, I'd be very upset, spoiled hay is no good for feed, guess it's still used on blueberry fields. Is that string trick a sure fire deterrent?

That's what a farmer told me who puts up a lot of hay.
Blueberry growers want straw, not hay; the latter has seeds and will add more weeds to their fields.

 

[jcbGM]

That wrap is used quite often around here.

It’s more likely baleage. I’m interjecting, assuming many in the group don’t know the difference. We wrap rounds as baleage. Keep dry hay in the barn.

Baleage is simply wet wrapped hay. We can easily be as high as 55% moisture and still wrap. At times we can cut in the morning, bale in the afternoon and wrap that same evening. Takes out a lot of the weather challenges.

The bales are air tight (26 rotations on our wrapper) which limits aerobic decomposition. There’s a short fermentation period until all of the oxygen in the bale is consumed. It’s much higher in protien and other nutrients than dry hay. Our cows love it.

We stack 3 high using a bale grab on a skidsteer. Obviously, it’s critical not to puncture the wrap or the bale will rot.

We keep a separate “recyclables” dumpster for the trash wrap when we feed. There is a lot of expense when the cost of the wrap and wrapper is considered, but we get much higher yields and don’t fight the weather near as much.

 

[hunt4570]

It’s more likely baleage. I’m interjecting, assuming many in the group don’t know the difference. We wrap rounds as baleage. Keep dry hay in the barn.

Baleage is simply wet wrapped hay. We can easily be as high as 55% moisture and still wrap. At times we can cut in the morning, bale in the afternoon and wrap that same evening. Takes out a lot of the weather challenges.

The bales are air tight (26 rotations on our wrapper) which limits aerobic decomposition. There’s a short fermentation period until all of the oxygen in the bale is consumed. It’s much higher in protien and other nutrients than dry hay. Our cows love it.

We stack 3 high using a bale grab on a skidsteer. Obviously, it’s critical not to puncture the wrap or the bale will rot.

We keep a separate “recyclables” dumpster for the trash wrap when we feed. There is a lot of expense when the cost of the wrap and wrapper is considered, but we get much higher yields and don’t fight the weather near as much.

Thanks for the explanation, always wondered about those and how they don't mold wrapped up like that

 

[wheelbuilder]

I spent about 4 hours today retrieving logs the power company left along the right of way behind my land. I think I found the limit on what the Bolens/Iseki can pull. I skidded a 20 inch by 12 foot log back closer to the shed to get it into pieces that fit on the carry all I built. Took a little finesse with the brakes and diff lock (turf tires on this tractor) but I didn't make much of a mess. The carry all worked great, especially with the thinner logs, I could get several on the carry all and run them up the right of way near my wood shed. Tired and happy now. I do need to fix the pull start on the saw, broke the rope off just before the last of the logs was done.