Getting Together

These are our rams that we are inspecting prior to putting them with the ewes so that lambs will start coming out in early September.   

Jackie walks horse Clu and the sire rams up to the inspection area. 

The ewes and rams are getting reacquainted. 

This is their pasture for the next few days.  As they finish an area we rotate them onto a fresh pasture; trying to do this once a week.  It takes a week for the parasites to hatch out and become infective.  Then without a host within a month the parasites die off.  We are trying to minimize the parasite loading by pasture rotation as well as by selection for resistant sheep by Famacha eyelid inspections and fecal egg counts.

Terra Force YJR062 Tiller for Sale

 

Terra Force YJR062 Tiller is for sale.  Price is $2500.

Reason for sale:  I want to get a wider tiller that better matches the width of my tractor.

Contact Robert Lorens at 601-590-1190.  Initial contact preferred via text to avoid spam/robot filter on calls, or call and leave voice message for return call.

There are several photos, way below, showing the unit working.  Immediately below are photos of the cleaned up unit after washing all the dirt off.

Rear view is above.

Right side with closeup of serial number sticker:

Left side:

Top view showing PTO shaft, followed by a close up of the maintenance schedule sticker.

The tiller tines are all there, none broken.  Left and right hand views of underneath:

The unit has been and is stored in a barn.  It is on a pallet that I can lift and load into the back of a pickup truck with my tractor.

The following pictures were taken on March 12, 2023 when I tilled up the front meadow area.

This is a 15-second video from the tractor seat showing the tiller working.

Ewe Lambs for Sale - SOLD OUT - reserve for next year

 

Katahdin ewe lambs, born late September 2022, are available for sale.  Picture above taken on March 14, 2023.

Price:

• $250 per each for 1 to 4 lambs,
• $225 per each for 5 to 9 lambs,
• $200 per each for 10 or more lambs.

Contact Robert Lorens at 601-590-1190.  Initial contact preferred via text to avoid spam/robot filter on calls, or call and leave voice message for return call.

Video on March 13, 2023:

Photo on March 13, 2023:

Winter Chill

Considering the problems that much of the rest of the country faced from the Christmas 2022 winter storm, I suppose I shouldn't complain much about our experience here in south Mississippi. However,  going from nightly temperatures in the 40's and 50's to temperatures in the high teens and low twenties is particularly hard on the plants and animals.  One day temperatures did not get above the freezing mark.  And then, within the week, night temperatures were in the fifties and low sixties again.  Low temperature January 3 was 70 degrees.  We experience temperature swings like this two or three times a winter when the jet stream dips down and brings arctic weather into the country.  This was a particularly bad one.

This is the front field after the freeze.  Planted here is a mixture of spring oats, vetch and radish.  The yellow is mostly oats, not sure if it will come back.  Before the freeze it looked something like this:

Jeffrey and Jackie weaned the lambs just after Christmas;  the 30 - 40 pound lambs are in the foreground.  The 40 - 70 pound lambs are in the background.   Since the fresh forage is now unavailable, they are getting feed twice a day and free choice hay.

The moms are on hay to dry down their udders.  Odin in the foreground. 

Swamp Road, the Worst Stuck Yet

The above photo shows the worst of it, but let's start at the beginning of the project, which was not to extract the Fiat from deep in the mud.  

This is what we call the Swamp Road,

and this road/path is the only access means we have to the northwest area of the original 100 acres.  So, since it hadn't rained in weeks and the low lying areas are dry, this was a good opportunity to mow down brush that with natural succession eventually turns into small trees and impenetrable tall brush.  And then, large trees.  Chinese privet and oaks are the worst offenders. 

So after working in the front northeast corner of the property, I planned to work on the other side of the Swamp Rd, which I thought would be easy to traverse since it has been so dry.  The swamp drains from the right side of the road to the left through two culverts that we installed years ago when we setup the road.  Unfortunately,  beavers plugged up those culverts and created a pond on the right side of the road.   When driving over the road I got too close to the right edge and the front wheel sank into the dirt softened by the nearby water.

I tried backing out and the rear wheel sank.

So, I called Jeffrey and he brought the International with the dual rear wheels.

He backed down the road, attached a chain to the back of the Fiat and pulled.   However, instead of pulling the Fiat out, the Fiat's rear tire rolled along the edge of the dry solid part of the road without coming up on it and actually started sinking deeper into the mud.  We were afraid it was going to flip over so we quit pulling from the back.  But, with swamp on both sides of the road, there was not enough room to get the dual-wheeled International around the Fiat to pull from the front. 

However, there was just barely enough room to get the 4-wheel drive John Deere 6120E around the left side of the Fiat so we could pull from the front.

With a chain now between the 120 and the Fiat we tried pulling from the front.  Again,  the Fiat wheels just road along the steep dry edge of the road without coming up on it.  And again, the Fiat was sinking more and tilting into the swamp.

Now it was time to go back to the arch barn and get the swamp boards.  These are heavy oak planks, a foot wide and 2 to 3 inches thick cut from our trees with the sawmill.  With shovel digging, much pushing and shoving, and sloshing around in 1 foot deep swamp water, Jeffrey got the boards in position under the leading edge of the tires (the farm owes Jeffrey a new pair of boots).  We were ready to try again.  And by this time it was dark, we were working by the tractor lights.

After several times of pulling the Fiat and repositioning the boards, we were finally able to drag the Fiat out onto the far side of the Swamp Road.  Then very carefully, Jeffrey drove back across the Swamp Road and back to the arch barn.   I brought the 120 back.  Mowing the northwest corner area will have to wait until the swamp drains and I get the Swamp Road rebuilt.

A couple of days layer I took a 20 foot pole and cleaned out the obstructions in the culverts, getting the water flowing again.  Next I need to use the backhoe and bring in much more dirt. 

Rhino Maintenance

Yesterday we replaced the blades on the Rhino SR-15M sidewing rotary cutter.  The wing blades are swapped with the wings up.  The center blades are accessible with the deck elevated.  In each case there is a hole in the deck for access.

We use a compressed air impact wrench that quite readily removes the blade bolts.

The center blades wear out a lot faster than the side wing blades.  These blades were replaced last year, but they show substantial thinning and distortion.  Below are new and used blades for comparison. 

In contrast, this is the second year for the side wing blades and they are not near as worn as the center wing blades.

Here is the new set of blades on the left wing with Jeffrey. 

Out To Pasture

Each morning I take the ewe flock out to pasture, here we are in the lone pine field with cowpeas in the foreground and pasture transitioning back to bahiagrass in the background.   Odin, on the right, is permanently with the ewes.  Hero came out with us to help check the area out, but will come back with me.  He is a vicinity patroller at night.