'Real Farming' with a CUT

[Greyfields]

Unfortunately, grants for agricultural activities are few and far between. Unless you producing thousands of acres of cereal grains, forget about it. Simply put, most Yanks have their heads up their arse regarding open space preservation, historical preservation and supporting smallholdings. England wouldn't be the beautiful place it is, bringing in millions of pounds in tourism 'dollars', if the land use wasn't as controlled as it is. Over here, unless you are in a very rare place (historical preservation districts, which are urban not rural), there are no "planning permissions". It's still the Wild West. Because that, all our farm lands get swallowed up by sprawling, dense residential subdivisions. It's just too easy for farmers to cash-out big once a developer comes along. Just imagine if it were the same way in England... your country would not be able to feed itself because all the open space would have long ago been swallowed up. But, I'm off topic now, aren't I. My point?

Amazon.co.uk: New Complete Self-sufficiency: The Classic Guide for Realists and Dreamers: Books: John Seymour,Will Sutherland,E.F. Schumacher

Read it, do it, believe it and be more alive than you ever have been before. Especially us Yanks over here, which don't have very good examples of smallholdings to see around us.

 

[slowzuki]

Its funny because we are still working to get rid of hedgerows. Our fields are all so small there are lots of hedgerows growing into the fields at an amazing rate! Cutting brush every year and still I get the mirrors knocked off the tractor every year! Here a 5 acre field in one piece is a decent sized field.

I know what you mean with odd shaped bales, and the bale wrapper really hates odd shaped bales. I didn't notice our contractor going from side to side but his machine is probably very different to yours. Next year we hope to get a round baler and we will be able to find out for ourselves.

I'm sure you will be glad you brought new when something breaks and you have a warranty to fall back on. Theres nothing worse than a broken baler with a field of hay to bale and the weather about to break.

It is nice that you are putting in hedgerows and I'm sure the birds and other animals will thankyou for it. You might have seen how many hedges we have in the first thread I started. Can you get grants to do the hedges where you live? Maybe it is an excuse to buy a hedgecutter for your tractor?!

 

[Egon]

You would be happy in other parts of Canada were a field may 320 acres or so.

 

[Z-Michigan]

We're haying one field of 4.5 acres and hoping to have a second of 5 acres producing next year. Local farmer doing the hay work seems perfectly happy with that size, but some other property owners near us seem to think "it can't be done!". After seeing some various posts about people using walking tractors and getting useful production on 1/2 acre or less (not necessarily hay, though hay can be done with a walking tractor) I think this is yet another area where the average american thinks he's smarter than he is. The more I see of farming, both on TBN and lots of other places, the more I'm inclined to avoid ever saying "it can't be done."

OTOH, I would be extremely happy to have 320+ acres...

 

[Greyfields]

Check this out:

Hedgelaying and hedges - a definitive guide

The point of a hedgerow is to be "laid" forming an impenetrable barrier for your livestock. Eventually all your fences come out, except for the gates where you need them. If your hedges are way out of control, you'll have to do some serious rehab... including driving maybe t-posts to contain the stalks.

Advantages of hedgerows:

1) Create weather micro-climates. Lessen wind chill on animals and crops.
2) Create wildlife habitat.
3) Create habitat for wild edibles... such as currant, sloes, even top fruit. I've seen people graft cherries and plums onto hawthorns to have an edible hedgerow.
4) Hedges aren't reliant on electricity or need to have roundup sprayed on them as you do electric fences.

We're using a lot of willow initially, since it's easy to take cuttings and in-fill. Once the biggest stems are up to 2" diameter, we'll drive bamboo stakes and start laying them. That'll be a project for the forum I bet... check back in a couple years.

 

[slowzuki]

Well, we have plenty of hawthorn, it grows naturally in the rock piles!

Hooked up a 4x5 round baler and did some rounds last night, my first time. The round baler with a full bale is a struggle on some of the hills but not as much as the misindicating bale dial. At the 3.5 ft mark the bale is actually ready for ejection and jams the machine if allowed to go to the 4 foot mark on the dial.

 

[Greyfields]

I had to adjust my dial as well. It was pretty simple. I had a knowledgeable person come down. With the aid of a small crescent wrench and a tape measure, we got it dialed in.

 

[slowzuki]

We finally got things going well with the baler and my opinions of round baling are mixed. I think I can bale more pounds per hour with my JD 336 square baler, of course cleaning up the equivalent of 800 bales in 4 hours by myself is incomparable with our hand picking up square baler setup.

I think I will put my money into fixing my thrower, or getting an accumulator.