Finished up hay for the season.

Finally got the baler back from the Deere dealer.  Put 11 bales through it. Seems to work.




Not doing the over the edge wrap. But whatever. Might be because of how wet the hay is.

I’m checking out that seat looks way more comfortable than what I have now

@Foxtrot08 how do you like the Kuhn rake now that you've used it a bit more?

I like it a lot.  

Being able to pick it up at the ends of the field is super nice.

Yeah does it hair pin the hay when you combine two heavy windrows?

I got some bush hogging done after a few months of letting it grow as it pleased. I bought this bush hog a couple of years ago with a pretty significant wobble and vibration. They’re impossible to find here used, so I jumped on this one in Arkansas, hooked up the trailer and went and brought it home. The gentleman was asking $800, but sold it to me for $500. I got it back home, painted it and pretty much left it alone. I continued to use the five foot bush hog that’s sized for the other tractor, but that one is rusted through and just isn’t safely usable anymore, so it was time to get this one going. I got the vibration sorted out quickly, gave it another coat of paint, adjusted the slip clutch, filled the gearbox, and put on new side decals (not correct, but I like them). The previous owner had the rear “bumper” made, put on a new tail wheel shaft, a bigger tail wheel swivel bracket, and had the gearbox replaced with the newest revision because these had issues with broken output shafts. I’m pleased for the $900 I have invested in it. The tractor and bush hog are my dream setup.

Haven’t had heavy wind rows with it yet. We did all of first cut with the bar rake.  Second cut was pretty thin. So when I combined them they looked decent.

Hair pinning in heavy wet silage has been the only complaint other than novice rack hands not getting a good windrow. They get two little separate thin windrows and the bale falls into two pieces. Right now with beef prices I just can’t make myself buy one.

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Rented a Harley rake to fix my yard that was very uneven and had holes that old stumps had settled.  6 ft rake was all my little JD 790 wanted to handle but it did a good job.  My neck is sore from looking backwards most of the morning

Enriching Messicks...  again!  

I can't complain - I've tortured that LandPride RCR1860 for nearly 10 years with the original blades and eaten a lot of rocks and worse with them!  New set in route.

Messicks is awesome. I’m lucky enough to have one of their stores 30 mins from my place.

I finally got around to making a dolly for my BH77 backhoe.  I used to dread hooking up my B2650 to it, now I can do it in a minute or less.  It’s awesome.  

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Be careful rolling that thing around.  It looks like one small stone and it could easily tip over.

It has 8 wheels mounted to it.  You can see the outboard ones in the picture and then there are inboard ones on the inner 6x4s.  

My drive way is in bad shape and needs to be repaved but the dolly rolls across it with no problem.

Well I'm really feeling like a true farmer now, not just a landowner with cows.... Got me some hay equipment!
Got a disc mower, tedder, rake and baler as a pkg deal.

My first time rolling my own grass...wait that didn't sound right.

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Sorry no elk this far west. They're an hour or two east.

Looking good! It's probably a good thing we don't have elk. They're Hell on fences and vehicles. Can you imagine the carnage between Fort Smith and Fayetteville if we had elk the way them people drive?

Too true. They can barely manage to maintain their lane, let alone dodge elk. Heaven forbid they have to slow a little for turns!

Well, my brother and I set aside today to finish two projects. We had a neighbor bring a mini-ex, and planned on spending a day.

We needed a way to retain some water in a spot where we pump out to the handline.
I bought a welded flashboard riser from Osceola Machine. Shipping was almost as much as the riser.
With this in, we can retain water in this hole at a level we can pump out of all summer.
It's so dry this year, usually this spot would be 2' deep.
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Luckily, my neighbor is quite good with the excavator. We got it level, and the 20' pipe in at a grade.

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The berm is big enough to drive across. We needed to retain the fill around the riser, so we used some broken up concrete that we needed to clear out anyway.
This was about halfway with the concrete.
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DONE!!

Second project-
I built this pit blind last summer during COVID "slow downs". 11/16's plywood, pressure treated 2x6's, and three layers of fiberglass mat. I now know enough about fiberglass to know I never want to do that again.
We trailered it out to the flat, West side of the property and unloaded it with the FEL.

This is how to supervise work. Notice the shovel lean. That's high level supervising.
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It has 3/8"x6" eye bolts in the corners, glassed in. Once the excavator had a hole (we didn't hit too much water), we lowered it in with the FEL. The eyebolts were there to attach cables to a "dead man" anchor. In our case, two rebars in 80# bags of concrete. With out something, the pit would be spit out of the ground like a floating cork.
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And then the backfilling.
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Getting close.
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So, the pit is in. The berm holds 4-8" of water when we turn the water into the swale that runs out there.
I think it will work.

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Well... if your pond don't hold water, that glassed box probably will!  

Yeah, it's hard to explain how flat it is out on that side. It would take biblical flooding of the GSL to cover that area in anything more than sheet water.
We made the pond in July, with a leveler/scraper, just scraped a low spot.
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The water goes in there on the left and out the same way.
It's more like an aneurysm or backwater. The top of the blind is a good 12-15" above the water level

We also have a couple good pumps if it leaks.

I hope y'all have a ball with the duck puddle. Now watch the ducks hit the damed up ditch

Got both blades replaced this morning.  Breaking the 1 and 11/16th nuts was easy enough... With a 4' 3/4" breaker bar and 6' of cheater pipe!

Driving the bolts out took a bit more effort, one was particularly stubborn.

Not as much as a PITA as I'd read.

Milwaukee M-18 #2767 1/2" impact wrench.  I bought it specifically for removing/replacing my Bushhog blades.  Worked like a charm.  

Loaded up some firewood-to-be for a friend of mine with my grapple:

A couple Hackberry logs from a tree that came down a couple weeks ago:



Loading two logs from a Black Walnut that came down in the same storm:



Black Walnut on the left; Hackberrys on the right; Sweet Gum (dark logs) in the middle.



And the obligatory scenic shot:



Thanks for looking!

You can't hide money!  

A little grapple work after felling a few trees
Tried once to see if it would push over since it wasn’t that healthy and a leaner. Leaning in wrong direction of course. No joy on that.
The Chainsaw a few wedges and the Jeep’s winch saved the day.
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@mc556

What size tractor is that ? Purchased a 3301 yesterday and need to know fairly soon if I should have the dealer install a third valve for a grapple.  I would be using it mostly for large rocks and cedars.   Debating on if it's worth the money or not for me.

I did some road work the last couple weeks.

This is the hill between Mud Hole #1 and MH #2; I widened and regraded it to give the water more room to run down the side instead of in the road.

These are the Before Rock pics (I don't have pics of the hill before the regrade job ):




All those rocks on the right hand side of the road?  They were put there by me - by hand.  My aching back!!!!



And these are the After pics:








Thanks for looking!

And this is Mud Hole #3.  Some of you may recall the neighbor drama-lama from last year when I did some regrading and reconfiguring the road (to help drain water of course) and then the rain interfered and one neighbor (known as Mr. and Mrs. Petty) went ballistic; granted the road was a mess until I could finish it, but still they're getting free road work.  Anyway, it was time to add some more rock, so #67 to the rescue:

Before pics:




In this pic, you can see the fence posts Mr. Petty added after last year's regrading work because he complained I was trying to "expand the road onto his property".  Note the hill off to the right.  




And the After pics.  Here my rock contractor is coming back from my other neighbor where I had him drop off about 25% of 16 tons of rock for their driveway.  MH #3 is to the left side of this pic.



Steve does an excellent job of dropping rock IMO.





Thanks for looking!

@akjeff

   It’s a Kioti DK55 ( 55hp)
I use the grapple more than any other attachment it’s been invaluable.  I wish I would have added a extra function for my rear grader blade.  That’s more a lazy deal.  It sucks having to re adjust the blade when trying keeping a crown on my trails

I concur on this.  Heck, I've been known to grab (and use) the bucket with the grapple rather than take the grapple off!    On smaller tractors, getting a stout but light weight grapple (and proper counter balance) is key.

Looking Good Merlin..

I have an EA grapple that I use with my B2650. I'm very happy I went for it. It does some things great, and some things not so great.

My favorite tasks for it are dealing with brush and limbs. Just last week the wife unit and I were trimming hemlock limbs with a pole saw along an old driveway that leads to our future homesite. Once upon a time not long ago we'd have been tossing the limbs by hand onto a truck, then tossing them off again by hand into a pile somewhere. This would have also meant cutting the bigger limbs into smaller pieces to make them easier to handle. But we didn't do any of that. Dragged them into piles, and when we were done I came through with the grapple and just grabbed a pile or two at a time and drove them off to a burn pile.

It's even nicer with brush and jaggers, since that stuff I'd normally be handling with a pitchfork.

Thank you all for the replies.  Sounds like I will definitely be getting the grapple.  

Thanks!

Something to keep in mind for all FEL attachments:  The heavier the attachment, the less you can lift and safely move.  Your L3301 comes with the LA525 loader.  Which means you have about ~1200 lbs to play with.    https://www.tractordata.com/farm-tractors/008/0/8/8086-kubota-l3301-attachments.html  

Looking EA Wicked Grapples, I get the following sizes and weights:

EA 55" 200 lbs

EA 60" 400 lbs

EA 66" 660 lbs

EA Extreme Root 72"  460 lbs

EA 48"  184 lbs (doesn't fit the SSQA, pin-on only)

Obviously there are other manufactures and suppliers out there, but the above makes the point:  The heavier the implement, the less leftover lifting capability you have.  Light bulky stuff like brush etc, no biggie.  Heavy dense items like logs:  Big Biggie.

When I bought my grapple, I was looking for a 60" single lid design.  My local supplier (Skid Steer Quick Attachment Depot, Huntsville), were out of 60"s and all they had were 48" and 72" or larger.  I didn't want the 72" so I decided to buy the 48".  In retrospect for the vast majority of what I do:  It was an excellent decision.  I have never regretted the 48" at any time I've used it the last 5 years and I surely would have regretted the 60" due to not being able to pick up what I can now.

And please do not forget that what's on your 3ph will determine what you can pick up safely; so when your making your grapple decision, don't forget your rear end ballast.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about:



This is a big Shagbark Hickory I moved several years ago.  I did the math on who much it weighed but forget the number and I'm too lazy to find the spreadsheet - it's irrelevant to the point anyway.

What I do remember is the weight on the rear end of my tractor that made lifting and moving this log - safely - possible:

- 47 gallons of water each rear tire = 376 lbs x 2 = 752 lbs
- 2 concrete/lead/steel wheel weights at 250 lbs each = 500 lbs
- LMC HD box blade = 675 lbs
- 1' of 145 lb rail = 145 lbs ~50 lbs
- Concrete, lead and steel weight block on the back of the BB = 410 lbs
- Ratchet Rake attached to weight block = 110 lbs

Total weight on or past the rear end of the tractor:  2,492 lbs with 1,340 lbs on the 3ph.  For a standard sized Kubota L4330 of ~3500 lbs, that is 72% of the tractor's weight added to rear end to safely move that log.  And it was right on the hairy edge:  The left rear tire was barely skipping over the surface of the road as I took the log about 100' to dispose of it.

Having enough weight on the rear end of a tractor to safely lift and move FEL loads simply cannot be overstated.

Good luck!



ETA:  Fixed the RR weight.

The older you get the more uses you will find.

Unscrewing the drainage on the land I leveled a few months ago before I drop seed and straw. Should be good now.

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@InternationalM

Built a new tree stand.  

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I’m getting ready to put my woods RD60 on to the back of my 1955 Ford 640 and cut my 3 acres.

Front view

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I making a chicken coop and used my 2025R to move stuff around.  Tomorrow I’ll move the pallet I built over to the build site for assembly.

I went down the same road and ended up spending over $1500 on my coop. Good luck!

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DT and ARF sucks lately with photos not uploading…

It’s at about $1,000-1,200 right now if I don’t include my new circular saw.  I originally budgeted for $1,500 earlier this year.

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My main tractor has been down for the count for a few months. My Google fu is weak and I still am not sure what tractor I own

So in the meantime I borrowed a friends old trusty Ford to do some bushogging for deer season