Field Preparation

Here is a video of what we did this May:

I cleared 3 acres over the summer of 2012 and finished cleaning it up this year to be tilled this spring.  After discing it, we seeded it with oats and grass.

The next few posts will show us harvesting the hay.

Well, the last bale of hay was taken off the field last weekend, officially ending summer for us!

Haying this year was quite easy for us, as we decided to buy the proper machinery for the job. We got a New Holland 469 "haybine" (mower-conditioner) to cut the hay, a NH 1010 Balestacker to collect it, and a 60-horsepower Massey Ferguson 180 to work beside our 202.

But perhaps the best addition to our hay equipment (Perhaps a bit late) was a John Deere 348 baler. I have NEVER seen bales come out of that Ford baler as nice as what the John Deere can do! I ran a bale over with the 180, and the bale didn't even notice! also, not having to stop every time the knotters trip to cut the twine is a plus too.

After we were done, we got 650 bales off the field. That's a far cry from the 75 we got last year.

We were originally using the quad's seed spreader to fertilize the fields, but since we got a fertilizer spreader for the tractor, it has become way easier. I don't think the fields would have produced as much without the fertilizer.

At the end of June, a massive windstorm blew through. me and my parents were heading to a tractor show in Alberta, but my brother said it was comparable to what you would see in a hurricane. Quite a few trees were blown over, including a massive Douglas fir that was four feet wide at the trunk (It's heartwood was rotten, so it was an easy push).

We were without power for five days. Not that we entirely noticed, as we had two generators, kerosene lamps and the gravity fed water, so we were managing quite well. We didn't have much in the line of firewood, as we burnt it all up in two winters. So, this mean we have a lot of premium firewood now, ready for the chopping!

To store this firewood, we cleared the lot were the woodpile sat so we can build a woodshed. We got our D8 going, and pulled out a couple of stumps, including several trees that (Thanks to the windstorm) we no longer want by the house. One large pine we pulled out was on a rock pile, and had a surprisingly small rootball, so it was a good thing we decided to clear them out.

September means school, so it's back to the grindstone for me! I'm taking English at the collage, with math and socials at the distance education. I have to say, I'm finding it's pretty easy so far!

Well, the fields are seeded. Now I need to fertilize all 20 acres of it!

I disced over the course of two weeks, first on one part of the west field with the Massey 202 and it's little Ferguson disc, and since the D7 needed repairs, we used our '51 D8 attached to the 14' CaseIH Plow to disc the east field.

In the middle of it all, Mom and Dad invested in some 800 trees to rebuild our forests, so I had to help plant those, ranging from Blue spruces to Grand Firs.

After all of that discing, We seeded. And seeded. and seeded. and then used the Massey disc to cover the seed.

Okay, now the seed's in. We finally got a soil test kit, and found the solid was devoid of just about everything except phosphorus. As much as we expected it, it still came as a surprise! So off to the garden store to buy them out of fertilizer.

after some passes of fertilizer with the quad, the fields sprang to life. Now the grass is getting so tall, the clover at the near end of the east field, normally not a hay crop, is just about ready to be baled!

Now we are irrigating the crap out of the fields, so we should get a good start with the grass.

What I have been doing in the last week is cutting parts off the D8 blade. The blade was not original, it was a blade probably meant for a older RD-8 with a overhead pulley, back when they were still perfecting the first blade design. It was cobbled onto our D8 before we bought it. I hated it for not bulldozing a flat line, and it's short travel span, from mounting it on top of the Overhead pulley frame, made it rather hard to work with, and not very popular as a result.

So after I busted the blade pins off from trying to ram a stump out, me and Dad decided to replace the blade mounts with something from a later generation bulldozer.

Borrowing a 300-amp welder, I air-arced the central pivot off another blade, the angle mounts from a C-frame, and all the old-blade crap off the D8 C-frame. Now all I need to do is grind the stuff flat, and it's time to break out the welding rods!

So spring is here, weather the last few days was BEAUTIFUL, and the farm work is going into full swing!

in January to February, we focused mainly in the shop, setting up for getting started again on some major mechanical projects (And mainly to get set up). We did some rearranging, set up some new shelving and lined a little over one-thousand feet of wire just to get it properly lit (8 Main-lights, 4 workbench lights, 4 plugs on each long wall, and the lights were block-wired!)

In march, the heat turned up so suddenly we had a "Mega-melt", were there were big rivers of meltwater everywhere! There was a great big lake in a low spot, and there was a overflow crossing our driveway! Interestingly enough, all the rivers were gone in a couple of days...

Since it has now dried out for a few weeks, I started up our MF202 and got the disc going. We want to fix up, improve and expand the field we got the most hay out of, so that means churning the soil a little, picking up any rocks that appear (2 backhoe loader buckets (6.7 Cu.Yards each) Already!) and clearing a little land.

Coming up this summer is a photo tour of the farm!

Well, 2007 is upon us, and it gave me time to reflect.

The last thing done in December (and 2006) was moving a old homemade stove into our shop. Dad made this stove when we were living up in Lillooet (And when I was still a "little pup") And from what I see, it is like the nuclear reactor in our basement.

Thinking about it, 2006 was a very good year for us. We were able to clean up the place, get our very first (At least for me!) hay crop off, and get a very good start at rebuilding the farm. In fact, comparing it to when we first moved in, in June 2005, when we were practically camping here, the quality of living has improved a lot.

2007 could be, however, the last year Mad Cat will run. I was thinking about all the trouble we were having with the blade up at the intake, and the trouble we are having at repairing the blade. The cat is worn out, and a hand crank is not really desirable. So what me and dad agreed on is Hornet, who is undergoing restoration, will get a new, designed-to-fit, built-to-spec blade on it, with electric start and a geared-down transmission (Gear machining, here we come!), and Mad Cat will be either parked or turned into a ag-cat until we get the time to restore it as well.

Planning the future of this farm has really got me eager to start, but have to wait for the snow to melt! A "Monster Shop" is planned for construction this year, I'm gonna build a tractor shed for all of our running equipment, and we will expand our fields! I am looking forward to this!

We are done with the Intake for this year.

Everything from the creek on is sealed in, and insulated as best as we can. Because of Mad Cat's blade, with work getting in the way of fixing it, we could not cover anything down the hill.

The snow started falling at the start of November. How many of you have that initial panic to cover up everything and move it so it can be found once everything has been buried? It was a little fun to rush around.

As a little disappointment, the next few days after, it rained and generally thawed out the snow. With everything sealed up as best as we can. I hoped for lots of snow. Then, just yesterday, a massive snowstorm moved in, and we now have close to six inches of snow. It's still coming down, so I guess it's time to start plowing snow.

We have a new (to us) piece of equipment! Thanks to eBay, we got our hands on a late 80's Grove AMZ-66 manlift. (the newest piece of heavy equipment we have!) When we were using a 40-foot manlift for renovating our house and pruning the trees, we were amazed at just how useful a manlift was just around the house! The long reach could transport building materials up to the upper floor of our house, and is way safer to use than a ladder!

We got the manlift on the condition that it was barely functional. It spent most of it's life as a maintenance platform (Only 3000 hours on it!) in a chemical plant, so the sheet metal on the unit is corroded. The unit starts up and moves around, but two functions do not work. Otherwise, it is in way better shape than we had feared it would be.

Well, the frost is starting to build up. Looks like it's time to "Batten down the Hatches" for winter!

Work on the water intake went smoothly the first few day of work. We got the water system fixed up, and the pipe going down the hill mostly covered. the only reason we are being held back is the homemade blade on our cat.

Now, Caterpillar's crawler tractors of the 1930's were meant mainly for agricultural use, and no premeasures were taken for attachments on the tractor, like blades. This is true even today with front-end loaders on wheel tractors. So at some point in their lives, these cats usually got a blade assembled on it, usually using crude engineering and fabricating skills. "Mad Cat", our cat at the intake job, is no exception.

I was bulldozing a pile of dirt down the pipeline (by "Windrowing" the dirt into the ditch) when I notice one of the hydraulic cylinders flopping around. Down to the house we go, to weld up a broken cylinder mount. While we were looking the cylinder support, we notice that just about every weld on the support was cracking. After throwing on a few welding rods, we fly back up there, only to work ten minutes to find the whole C-frame tilting around! A welded "Hook" on one pivot decided it did not like the c-frame and left. Back down we go. On the way down, the return line on the hydraulics decides to blow, resulting in me having to hold it on while driving home.

GAHH! I'm not having much luck with this guy!

So that's were we are with the cat. I'm busy reworking the c-frame mounts (But would rather scrap the whole thing!) The backhoe's doing fine, probably the best worker of the job, only blowing a hydraulic hose and a front tire (Tire was 20 years old anyway). I'm wondering since we got so many breakdowns if you could call this intake job a durability test for the machinery!

In other news, we finally got windows up in the house! The manlift that we borrowed for working the roof was being reclaimed, so we used it for one last job that it was need for. The house looks a lot better with windows, and we can keep the upstairs open now without the wind sucking out all the heat! Lovely!

Well, we had a lot of fun playing in the dirt!

Since we don't want a repeat of last winter of the water intake, and our Uncle, a expert machine operator, was visiting, we began the assault up to the creek with our D7 bulldozer and backhoe.

By the time my Uncle left, we got a brand new dirt road pioneered in, so it is now a little surprising that we can drive right up the road, which was before barely accessible by quad, right to the box with our trucks!

The D7 did pay a bit of a price for all that work: one of the Idler frame shafts broke, and both brakes started begging for adjustment. I limped it back home to the shop, and brought up our almost equally as worn out 1937 Cat Twenty two (Whom I call Mad Cat), about 15,000 pounds lighter than the D7.

Despite the change in size, Mad Cat is perfect for burying the exposed pipe leading down the hill. We got the first 200 feet of pipe covered, and we will work our way back down the mountain until it is all covered.

Perhaps the biggest change to come would be to the intake system itself. The dam-to-overflow box was barley adequate for irrigating our fields so dad is going to have a excavator come in, rip out the system, and set up a infiltration system; a series of intake pipes under a layer of drain rock, all under a large pool, in the middle of the creek.

Heh. I'll like being able to "pressure wash" in the shower while the field is being irrigated!

Project Hornet (1936 Twenty two) has slowed down a lot with the re-introduction of school. The governer is reassembled, but that's it. I am currently polishing up the Magneto for Installation. Once that's done, I'll work on the rest of the engine.

I know I'm not a kid, but how do you say "One week from DOOM!! DOOM I SAY!"?

I go back to college on the start of September, so it's back to the routine of getting up at six, traveling one hour to Cranbrook, then spending the rest of the day learning my brains out.

but it also means another thing. Winter is coming. We were almost completely unprepared last winter, and as you can read in the past posts, that was quite fun. The only saving grace for us was the fact that we stuffed a new chimney and our big stove into the basement, and kept it running 24/7.

We are currently stocking up on firewood (Due to lack of insulation, we went through half of our wood supply (which is fairly large) in one winter, where in Cranbrook, we would go through a quarter), preparing the machinery (Backhoe and our Cat) and in cleaning up the place in general.

I was expecting to have rebuilt my cat twenty two engine by now, but replacing the bearings on the crank have eluded that dream. It used poured Babbitt bearings, but dad is looking at replacing those with modern bearing shells. Should last a while when we get it together.

Well, last Saturday, we got the first crop of hay off of our field!

It took a baler with out of adjustment knotters, a old Massey Ferguson tractor, a overheating truck and a quad to get 65-70 bales of hay. Pretty good for a first try on a first field!

We mowed the field down with a rotary mower, and raked the swaths into windrows. We then revived a baler that was on the property to bale the hay. Since it was the first year on the field, the area kicked up a lot of dust.

Funny thing though, is this hay did not come from the field that we had seeded. It was one that we had disced, but did not seed. The some that did get seeded had weeds move in, specifically Corn Spurry and Horse Tail. Oh well, we think we can battle them with clover next year.

Almost right after I had posted last time about getting lots of rain, it starts to heat up. really heat up. about mid-July, it got close to 35 degrees Celsius. That slowed down our work while trying to keep cool...

Summer's here, but It's the wettest one I remember.

It's been raining off and on quite steady for the last few weeks. It is disrupting my painting of the cat project, and is limiting our projects to indoor ones. Funny though - I'm the only one complaining. The plants love it. Our newly planted hay field is looking greener by the day, and the grass in areas is waist high.

The roof is receiving it's final touches. The chimneys were installed, the last of the soffit was installed and we are starting to work our way down. Things are looking good!

Discing the fields was a snap once we got another tractor on it. I had tried last year to use a 14-foot disk with our Massey Ferguson. Turned out, the 35hp tractor could barley pull it. So this year, we fired up our old D7 and hitched it up to the disk, and angled it full out. With 103 horsepower on top of those tracks, and looking a little out of the ordinary with a 13 foot blade and logging winch, that yellow monster barely even noticed it was pulling something! Two full days with both the D7 and the Massey got the back forty ready to seed.

First on June we got chicks. So, that meant a chicken coop has to be built. The framework is just about done, and my brother is working on it every day.

Right next to our chicken coop, we set up our new potato garden. Mom asked if I could disk it and try out some implements. I hooked up a ditcher from the far end of our field onto out tractor, and dug 6 trenches 40 feet long. After throwing in seven boxes of seed potato's (And still 1 1/4 rows left!) we then hooked up a "Hiller" we got from an auction last fall.

In fifteen minutes, we did a job that would have taken us close to a full day if we did it by hand. I think I like mechanization!

Now that everything is dried out it's time to start some field work!

Last fall, I plowed up and disced part of a field with our '59 Massey Ferguson 202 tractor and single-bottom plow. We left it for the winter, so now I'm using our disk harrow to break up the grass that sprung up. when I am done, we are going to plant some grass for hay.

I still have to clean up a bit of the plowing left from last fall and long-forgotten furrows from the previous owners, but one things for sure- I am NOT going near the far end of the field, at least for now. the mountains are still giving off thaw water, and that water is running all the way down to that corner of the field. That is turning the area into a mud bog that is barely transversable by foot, much less machinery...

I had been working on one of our non-running cats, a 1936 Caterpillar Twenty Two. It had not been running for a while (Even before we got it) so the engine was a little stiff. I was getting some pops out of it before I set the project aside for Final exams.

After finals, I hooked our running twenty-two up to it and towed it over to our shop. I had made a attachment for a large drill to crank it over, but that was shelved once I found out the engine was stuck. I pulled the cylinder head, and had Dad whack a piston with a block of wood and a sledgehammer while I stood on the hand crank. We finally persuaded the engine to move again after five minutes of whacking the pistons. I soaked the pistons and cylinders in oil, and proceeded to throw the engine back together.

after reassembling the motor, I gave it a whirl. It hit off and ran like a clock!

I'm going to have to change the oil and fix up the radiator (It leaks like a sieve) But we should have another cat in the family by the summer!

Had some fun while waiting for spring!

The first few weeks during the thaw (Which came a little late; the start of April) The whole area became a sea of mud. Dilbert's "Elbonia" would come to mind as the entire area became too unstable for vehicles to tranverse, even the driveway!

Finally fed up from wading to the truck, and having to fourwheel out of our own driveway, we took our backhoe and dug a hole in the middle of our driveway. The gound consists of 3 feet of straight clay, with large rocks coming into the mix for an additional 3 feet. Finally, at six feet, we hit gravel.

Once we hit gravel, we could almost hear toilet flushing sounds. Water kept going in, and we never once had a puddle down there. All the water on the driveway went into that hole, and it finally started to dry up!

We kept from operating the heavy machinery (Except the backhoe) during that time, as getting equipment mired does not help anything. Last week, the ground was really soft. We were carrying a power trowel over to a shed, and it got stuck on the route around the shop twice. I finally thought I would go around the orchard, where I thought it was firmer.

Apparently not.

I got the backhoe stuck all the way up to the axels. I couldent even pull it with the backhoe arm, which is how I freed it the first two times.

So, we left it for a week, and managed to unstick it on friday. :)

Arrg. What a hetic week.

Mom and Dad finally got someone to buy the house in Cranbrook (No turnin' around, no going back, we are finally stuck in Yahk!) So, we have to clear out in Cranbrook.

On Monday, it was a lovely start of spring break: Pouring a cement floor in the barn that is our soon-to-be shop. We were leveling the ground with gravel the week before, and this is just to move the shop in town.

The very next day, we headed out and started cleaning out the house. Everything into boxes, then out to the trucks. Then head out, dump them off, and head back out for another trip.

The funny thing about moving seems to be the loads get heavier each trip. We hauled machine tools, tools, lumber, and random junk. AND THERE IS STILL LOTS MORE!

At least thanks to the help of a friend, we got the shop all packaged up. All that's left is the junk in the bushes, where metal still is popping up from the snow.

All week and weekend long, We just hauled. Now it's back to college, and I am too tired to even think.

if you need me, i'll be sleeping (until the picker truck arrives)

Hope you enjoyed Christmas. We got a Christmas present early this year: Running water!

It had been thawing out for a week, so, Mom and Dad went up to take a look at the intake. I went up to check on them, and found them tapping the exposed pipe running from the overflow box.

What they did was drilled a small hole in the pipe, and tapped until the hole squirted water. After about two hours, they had worked the pipe to the end of the exposed pipe. They were tapping the pipe when there was the sound of ice moving, and the holes stopped squirting water as water was replaced by a vacuum.

When we came back to the house, the outside faucet was pouring water! We got a hose set up to prevent the pipes from freezing, and got our water system set back up.

This thaw also proved the area is a flood plain. There are puddles everywhere, and the whole area is muddy. I guess that's good for the farming.

Arrg. Too late for the water.

After we fixed the water pipes, the water never flowed right. The water was just a trickle, and by the next day, there was no water flow at all. The water was flowing through the box okay, but there must be a ice plug somewhere in the pipe going to the house.

Where would it be? Bets are at the start of the pipe, at the box. But, it could be anywhere, and any length. The entire pipe is covered in about 4 feet of dirt, not even enougth for protection from the frost line (Dad says the best depth for water pipe is as deep as you can go). We were told the old farmer had a group of idle gas-line excavators dig the trench, so why didn't he have them go all the way with the pipes?

This water system is really mickey mouse. I would think a farm that was in a family for close to 100 years would have a decent water system...

Oh well. Onto plan B: Call the well drillers

The well drillers know the place (They did our nieghbor a couple of years ago, and know all about our problem... Oooookay.) But cannot get to our place till the first of January.

So, looks like Plan C: Hauling water.

No problem. We just borrowed a fire water tank from the mill (Nice when dad has a job there), so we can suck water out of the creek and pump it into our house.

What a lovely job. We have to take the tank in a middle of a chinook, when everything is covered in ice. Heh, you gotta do what you gotta do. I'm starting to smell. :-)

On Sunday, the water intake pipes froze, the third time this winter. It is kind of frustrating when they keep freezing, no matter how much insulation you throw on them.

The temperature right now is about -10, but it feels more like -20, especially when combined with a wind. When we work up there, if there is a film of water anywhere, it freezes. Pronto.

The intake is in really rough territory. There is a rough outline of a road up there, made by the old farmer's International TD-18 bulldozer (It's clutch gave out during this and the "Road" was never completed) before he died. This area is accessible with a quad, but a 4x4 truck will have a little trouble going up it.

The intake is fairly straight-forward. A dam collects water which flows from a pipe to a "Overflow" box. The box keeps water moving while a pipe at the bottom of the box takes the water to the house and irrigation system.

We had some problems with it before, as in the fall, a irrigation valve broke, and drained the system. This caused the old tarp liner in the box to come loose, so when the valve was fixed, and the tank started filling, the tarp covered the intake pipe, preventing any water from entering the system. We had to change the liner out, and it's not a pretty job when the temperature's dropping and you are soaking wet.

The first time the pipes froze, the pipes going to the box were 3-inch plastic sewer pipes (which is strange. I guess they were cheap) so, we chopped them out and replaced it with a length of aluminum irrigation pipe. That only lasted one day, as the next morning, the pipes where yet again frozen solid.

So, we grabbed all the 7-foot sections of 4-inch water pipe we had, and replaced the entire length of pipe to the box. We grabbed a bunch of tarps and wrapped it around the pipe as a form of insulation.

The tarps made a small difference, as they lasted for about a week.

this time, the entire pipe was frozen solid. We worked the pipes apart, and towed them back to the house, where we spent a hour thawing the ice out of them (4-inch-wide "Pipecicles", anyone?)

After the pipes were clear, we hauled them back up, reassembled them, and lined the pipes with garbage bags fill with Fiberglas insulation.

Lets hope that's enough for the winter!

Welcome! This is a bit of a journal covering the modernization of a 140-acre farm.

My name is Chris. I am currently 18 years old and live with my parents and brother. I share an interest with my Dad on old tractors. Dad is interested in the Crawlers (bulldozers) while I would like to have a couple of wheel tractors. I recently finished a refurbishing of a Massey Ferguson 202 that had been in our family for close to 40 years.

It all started in March of 2005. We were enjoying the last few hours of a visit from our Aunt and Uncle when Dad got a call from an old work buddy. "I happen to know where a old Cat Thirty is," He said, "Come over to my place in Yahk, and I'll take you over to see it" Dad, who had a hobby of collecting old bulldozers, naturally wanted to take a look at it.

So, on a clear, sunny day (spring came really early; In February) Mom, Dad, Me and my brother Nic, headed on over to Yahk, B.C. for a look at it. A stop at his place and I met Bill, a retired boss of a construction outfit in Cranbrook. We had a nice chat about the Massey Harris in his shed, and then we got into our trucks and went up the highway. We turned up a gravel road we passed on the way to Bill's place. It was about a kilometer long, and we stopped at a turnaround. There was an old farmhouse on top of a small hill, surrounded with trees, and looking very old and somewhat dilapidated. We parked our trucks here and walked over to the near corner of the west field.

Sitting in a nest of small trees, amongst a pile of other junk, was what we later identified as a 1930 Caterpillar Thirty. It had decent tracks, and a nearly worn-out Willamette Winch. While me, Nic and Dad were looking at various points on the tractor, Mom told Bill that, since Dad already had 9 other Cats in our 5-acre lot, and the neighbors were starting to dislike them, if he got another Cat that we should get a bigger chunk of land for them.

"Really?" said Bill, "Well, this farm is for sale."

I guess this is when we lost interest on the Cat, and started to love the farm! We debated quite heavily on the subject of should we move.

I mean, consider this question: Would you move from a cozy house built in 1976 to an old house built in 1932 that would have no insulation for the winter and require heavy repairs? Would this place be a retirement home for Mom and Dad?

Apparently, the answer to those questions was "yes", and we purchased the place in July 2005.

It was a beautiful place. The spot must have been a lake at one time, with two mountains separating you from the other neighbors. The soil is very good, at least for potatoes. We planted a garden a few days before we bought it, and the potatoes literally jumped out of the ground!

First plan of action to fix a farm up: Make the house livable. In September, after a month of planning, we ripped the roof off. The roof had a 45-degree with a ceiling height of 3-feet. For 3 men of 6 feet high, this is a bit cramped. After the roof is off, we would add "Pony walls"- Walls that would raise the roof four extra feet. We would then top off the roof with a tin roof.

One interesting thing about this house: Plywood was not commonly used on houses until the 1950's because it was so expensive to produce. This house used old "Channel lock" lumber siding (an old style of lumber that is not common anymore. It has mating sides that can be fitted together) for everything. Ceilings, walls and floors, it did not matter, and it was all Larch wood. You should have seen some of the bonfires we had when we were burning the stuff. They were quite big.

When winter rolled in, we realized our wood heater was not quite to snuff for a house with no insulation (Any that was added was chewed up by the rats). We were piling on the bedcovers, and I could see my breath at night! We finally installed in the basement a large RSF wood furnace that we brought over from Cranbrook. (We constantly say that it's a thermonuclear reactor compared to the one in the kitchen). This made things way more bearable in the house, especially when we run it full-bore.

That brings us to now. We are almost done putting up the last sheet of tin on the roof, and once the tin roof is done, we are gearing up to attack the walls. We say by the time we're done with the house, only the frame and foundation is going to be left of what was built in 1932!