jelly

Is Deere a popular choice for forestry mulchers in your AO?  I've never seen one in MO.  Mostly Cat 299's and Kubota 95's here.  One guy that worked for me rented a Tachehoochi (I ain't Googlin' the spelling), but the operator said even after the rental company "turned up the pump", it was still underpowered for the mulcher head.

That’s no shit! Or even more storage space on my shed’s…

Yeah it’s definitely got boom arm rubbing. None of the handles are bent. I think I bent mine the first 250hrs.

It came from TN.


Almost all CAT around me, because the Deere (Yellow iron) dealer sucks and unless you want to trade the machine in every 1200 hours, Kubota's don't last.  One of my best friends owns a large dirt moving company, he typically has 7-10 Kubota SLV75's and SLV95/97's -  Instead of dealing with DPF/Emissions issues, he just trades them all in every year and gets all new ones.  He may keep 2-3 of the low hour ones over the winter for emergency jobs and such.   Tak is starting to get popular around here, but CAT and Bobcat is so intrenched.  The Bobcat dealer here has a cult like following for some reason, I never understood is because they're extremely expensive. Literally more than CAT on their rental rates, let alone new equipment rates.

To give you the scale. And it’s still too small with addition. We also have a 40x40 parts room, then a 40x40 office.

Whenever I build a new facility for this division of the company, the truck shop will be getting probably 10,000 to 12,000sq feet.

Bobcats are still fairly popular in my area for a lot of general dirt and material moving, but no presence at all on the forestry side.  At my job (not doing forestry work) we have a love/hate relationship with Bobcat.  It's all we've ever used.  We're not that happy with the local service shop.  But the crews still like them enough not to get anything else.  This last go-round they got bids from Deere, Kubota and Bobcat.  We were leaning towards Deere, which was cheaper than the Bobcat and better on paper in several departments, but in the end it was like 600 pounds heavier, which would have went from us being really close to max in our 1 tons to definitely over max, necessitating that it only be pulled by an empty 1 ton (not loaded with tools and material), or a 4500/5500.  That was the deal killer, so like a battered wife, we went back to Bobcat.

Got a little more done today. I need to get the pole saw out and trim some trees.

Firewood season for 2021/2022 is done!

The Gozintoo's.

Huge White Oak near my gate; largest tree on the property.   It had been under severe stress and was mostly hollow inside; finally came down in a wind storm.  Note the Stihl MS-362CM with it's 25" bar.



Top of the a big Maple that came down in the same storm, it's right near the above White Oak.



The bottom of the Maple, still standing.  The large White Oak is just to the left of the Shagbark Hickory on the left.



What's the tractor got to do with it?  Shouldn't be hard to figure out:



Some future firewood I gave away to a fellow TNDeer member:



Cutting up the White Oak:



And the work has just started:






The stump of a big Maple that had been standing dead for a year or more.  I was really hoping it would come back, but it didn't.    That's my 23.5" Gerbers/Fiskars axe I keep on my tractor.



Bucking up a Sweet (or Black) Gum.  Note the MS-362CM buried behind the grapple.  This is the way to buck up logs. No bending over, no trying to roll +1000 lb logs, no digging your chain in the dirt/gravel.  Far easier, just watch your toes!



This is a long of that Maple I could lift with my tractor; it barely go tit high enough to load onto my trailer; the rest of it got turned into firewood/smoking wood.  This will go the sawmill for milled wood.



For the vast majority of that Maple, most of the Sweet Gum and White Oak, I had to load the rounds onto my log splitter with the tractor and grapple; they were simply too large for me to move and wrestle around, even with the log splitter set in the vertical mode.  I bet I loaded about 25 or so rounds this way.



Even though most of this wood had either been standing dead or cut up into logs for close to a year, water was still squeezed out when splitting it.  This is one of the Sweet Gun rounds that had been cut up into a log over a year ago; look at the water being expressed.  Moisture meter had this at 50.1% water!




Next Up:  The Gozoutas!

Thanks for looking!

Next the output of this year's firewood season:  The Gozoutas!

More pics of that large Maple log:





Scenic shot (like you didn't see this coming!):



This is Woodshed #1, Bays #1 and #2.  #1 (closest) is filled with Sweet Gum, #2 is filled with White Oak and Maple.  Each bay holds ~3 cords.  Note the galvanized trash can to the left with splitter slash: it will make great fire starters and kindling in a couple years.  Same with the 55 gallon blue (and white, barely visible) barrels off to the right.



Another shot:



The blue and white barrels:



The Pole Barn is pretty full with pre-existing firewood and milled wood.  This is mostly hardwood, Hickory and Maple with a little Pine (GASP!!!!!) for fire starting.  This has been in here for at least 3 years, with the three racks of Hickory to the right being over 5 years old.  Sharp eyes will note the Mk II concrete shooting table form.  The milled wood is off to the right.



Another view of the Pole Barn.  Note Molly guarding a small pile of Sweet Gum, Black Walnut and Cedar milled wood.  ETA:  I just noticed Toast doing her Rats and Mice Patrol.  Good for her!



Woodshed #2; this woodshed was completed Sept. 2016, so it was completely filled by March/April 2017.  Bay #1 (far right) is filled with Poplar; Bay #2 (partially hidden) is a mixture of other hardwoods (Ash, Hackberry etc.) and #3 (left) is mostly Red Oak with a bit of White Oak.  The leftover boards upper left were from my trailer re-deck project and are White Oak.  Like Woodshed #1, each bay is ~3 cords.



Another view of Woodshed #2:



My 10x12' shed; this is all pre-existing firewood, all Hickory or Black Cherry.  This wood is reserved strictly for smoking meats.  This wood has been in here for at least two years.



Current milled wood on my pallet racking, less what's in the Pole Barn and what's at the Sawmill as we speak, plus the large Maple still to go.  Large Black Walnut Upper left, under the container.  If you look closely you can see the saw line where he ran into a hidden nail and ruined a saw blade, costing me $40.  The rest of the wood on the left is Black Walnut and Sweet Gum; the far right has a load of Black Cherry.



Thanks for looking!

That’s a lot of work. It never seizes to amaze me how much water wood can keep.

Got a little more done on the fence line now I just need to thin out the timber. I think I’m going to leave about 75 feet of cover between the road.

Boulder moving day.

I rebuilt the starter on my track loader. Saved abound $500.

Didn’t get a single picture but this weekend I was pretty much running one or both tractors all weekend.  Chipped about four yards of pig bedding chips. Relocated several water IBC totes so they were easier to fill over fences with the new water pump. Hauled just over 1,500 gallons of water. Repaired the driveway that got washed out in the last storm. Hilled the potatoes.

Glad it’s Monday so I can go to work and get a break!

Rough week last week.
Friday I was driving to a job and BOOM!!! Rear window just exploded on the 3500....
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Get to the job site, grease the machine up, check fluids and start mulching... 15 minutes into the job I notice my water temp starting to go up, then the high temp alarm sounds. Shut the machine down and go investigate. 3 inch branch made it through the brush guard, shredded the fan blade, hydraulic motor and hydraulic line.... Luckily, the radiator made it through intact and no leaks.
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Loaded everything up and took to the shop, got home, poured me a a drink that rhymes with bum and called it a day.... Some days you should just stay in bed....

That’s no fun.

Better make that a double.

If you don't get out of bed you'll never figure out which days you should have just stayed in bed...

A few years back dad smoked two $25,000 hydraulic motors (right side and left side) about 10 days apart. That was a rough few weeks. Such is life, and the cost of doing business. And the reason the costs of having work done aren't as cheap as some believe they should be.

Oscar's....

Truth right there...

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Less today, more last night. Spraying for broadleaf. Wind has been such a fight I've taken to just running overnight when the air is better.

I’m waiting for the honey locust to leaf out and give them some Remedy. But yeah the wind has been up.

What part of TN are you in @merlin?

We've got mostly butter cup and a few other easy to kill weeds luckily. I've heard remedy is good stuff, I've been using grazon and it works well enough to not bother with redoing the math for something else

Are you using the Grazon next or P+D? The local store was out of P+D so I bought a jug of Next. I got some land that had black berries that I brush hogged really low. I figured I would hit them with Remedy then spot spray the Grazon next at high rate.

The next. I haven't used p+d

Unloaded some made in USA twine.
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I spread a little dirt and gravel around the hacienda today:

Mulch time…

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Took the 3038e back out to the acreage for the mowing season(s), hooked up the cutter & greased things  up.

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Leaned stuff against it……

Brought work to the tools…
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Ok so I just bought this tractor in January to replace a much older one (similar size just long in the tooth)  that I sold to a young friend who is helping me make hay. Many firsts for me in that this is my first brand new tractor, my most powerful one, first with full cab, ac and heat, first with 4WD,  and I love love it!  

Today's job was turning horse manure into compost.  As you've probably heard, fertilizer is really expensive these days but the alternatives not so much and so I make my horses earn their keep. Plus it is completely organic but you still have to turn it into compost and that means turning it periodically.

Now don't judge me too much on this because I've only got about 10-15 hours on it so far doing stuff like this (and snow removal) and it hasn't even seen the hayfields yet (coming up soon).  And today I made a slight miscalculation with it and wasn't super clean.  I felt a little sloppy (but that was me)

I went to turn the manure and forgot about how much rain we had this month and how wet and heavy it might be.  The tractor had no problem picking it up but I didn't have ballast on the back and so I had to struggle a bit with the backend.  It all worked out and I am still just feeling what it is capable of. But yeah ballast is important.

Cabs really do change the whole experience.

What did I do with my tractor today?  Hauled it home from the farm (90 miles) to get the brakes worked on.  Right one is locking up.  Luckily this is my little tractor, I have a Case 75A that I use to mow.  (And I don't haul that one with a Nissan Titan)  This tractor came with the farm in 2019, and I didn't have high expectations for it.  But it runs great.  Starts as soon as you hit the key every time, good traction, and easy to operate.  I've really been surprised by this little Mahindra.

Trailer weighs 2K, tractor with wheel weights weighs about 5K.  Truck handled it just fine, and actually got 11.7 mpg on the way home.

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Two words:  Rimguard.  Buy once, Cry once.

They do! I have seasonal allergies so making hay, mowing, or doing ANYTHING during high allergen times makes me miserable for 2-3 days to follow so I sought a cab tractor specifically.

When I was tractor shopping last year I was looking in the 50 hp range and cabbed Kubota's in that size are rare and pricey. Larger size (when cabs get more common) are definitely out of the budget.

I ended up going with a 80 hp mid-90's Massey with cab & FEL. It was cheaper than a non-cab Kubota L-series.

Building a longer shooting lane…

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I help out a neighbor with their manure problem, looks better on my land anyway.

Yep. Next on the list for me.

Photo dump inbound .

Been a while since I have posted anything. I've been busy getting everything put together and ready for spring, and this spring has giving us plenty of time to prepare. There is maybe 1-5% of any fieldwork completed in my area (pretty much all of at least SE IA). It has just been too wet and cold to get anything done, aside from some terracing and tiling work. Chance of rain tomorrow, and if we can miss that it'll be balls to walls.

Some of our projects that have been able to be completed (not by ourselves).
Tiling a new 150 acre farm we picked up at the end of 2020, this will be our first season farming it. (Crapy snapchat screenshot)


Converting some old terraces to newer broad based farmable front and back terraces.



Finished terrace.


Quick update for this:


Ending up being a $14,000 bill . They had to split the tractor, replace the parking brake disk, and replace a bunch of clutches and o-rings. Got it back and hooked up so it can be our strip till workhorse.

I've finished all of our spring equipment updates and projects, including general maintenance. I ended up finishing the strip till bar, our fertilizer tender, added pneumatic closing wheels and a 500 gallon insecticide tank/plumbing/pump, and some small customizations to our fertilizer cart.

Here is how the strip till turned out:

All the row units on and air lines plumbed. First time unfolding it.


Ground drive.

John Blue pump and ground drive installed.


Fertilizer cart. They ran out of 400 gallon tanks for the Yetter All Steer cart, so the place we got it from installed a 500 gallon tank. We decided to have it beefed it up a little as well. Also had to plumb in our 3" lines.




We bought a 2000 gal SS tank from our local co-op. They took it off a floater, and are going to run dry with it. We will use it for our fertilizer tender, combined with a 1300 gal poly tank we had on hand. Using a 13hp 3'" transfer pump and a flatbed we have had for years but don't use all that much.




Installing the frame for our panter liquid tank.


Tank up.


I made a stand and welded it to the tank stand for our red ball flow indicators and got all the liquid lines ran to the row boots.


Lines run down to a boot that puts liquid down in furrow.


Air lines to our closing wheel cylinders.



There is a lot of air, liquid, and hydraulic lines on this planter .



8310r with the strip till and Yetter cart is quite a train.

Say...that's a nice bike John Deere 1050.

Looks like it was retrofitted with SSQA. We just retro'd one of my dad's 850s with SSQA. I'll post pics soon.

Is that your machine or hired out?

My dad and brother have been doing drainage work for almost 3 decades. They have 2 wheel machines (one of them they bought from Iowa) and a new Hydramaxx plow built by Port Industries in MO.

Built a firewood rack and filled it up from the wood pile.


Once the dew burns off hope to bushhog the fields


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Look’s like y’all are running a little late this year? I’ve been staking chicken litter in the barn. I welded a rusted out portion of the house keeper’s floor yesterday. Maybe today I can get the spinner plates back on it.

One of the first things I did besides start tracking down the correct Deere wheel weights.  W.R. Long SSQA has been great.  I've got a 3rd set of weights waiting to get sand blasted, will give me over 660lbs on the rears once installed.  

I'd still like to get power steering and the guard thing for the hood, and ROPs.  About to roll 350 hours, not bad for a 1983 tractor.

planting corn

Taking down the falling-apart garden beds and fence.  Posts pulled right out.  Had to wiggle a couple of the ones that I had gone a little overboard with the concrete, but still made easy work. Attached File