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!

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!

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...

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!