BACK IN THE SWING OF THINGS

This week’s farming update from Ben

The soybeans are turning yellow and dropping their leaves. Another week will make a huge difference.

We spent a week outside of Charleston SC visiting my niece and her husband and their two cute little girls, age five and two. Boy, that two year old: She never stops moving! Better them than us. And a wonderful dog, Maggie. A female Doberman. I’ve not had anything to do with Dobermans before, but she was a sweetheart.

These people love their hot weather. I was hot for the whole week we were there. They made a fire one night in their fire pit. IT WAS 80 DEGREES! I kept moving my chair back. But, it was a lovely night and It was a great, much needed vacation.

Our first night and I got to take the five year old to bed. I was pooped out.

While we were gone, our house sitters, G & E, did a fabulous job keeping our dogs occupied. They left the house cleaner than it was when we left. E does a lot of cooking, which was evident by the washed cookie sheets and bread loaf pan on the counter. We need to get them to leave some left overs. And G works at a local nursery and we always come home to fresh cut flowers and even some new plants on the front step. Great people. We’re not sure the dogs were glad to have us come back or not.

Plus our other neighbor, B, collecting eggs and taking care of the chickens. She said she loved her the dogs protected her from the raccoons.

The tree branch that fell down on the deck just before we left got cut up and hauled away. We are so lucky it missed the gutters and missed the lights hanging off the gutters. It broke a leg off one plastic deck chair, and bent one tiki torch. Driving around the farm, there are trees down all over. Lots of trees in fields, which will make harvest difficult. It’s hard to clean them up without damaging more crops. Our neighbors took their cattle out as there was so many trees down on the fence it was easier to take them out than to fix the fences. At least for now. They’ll be fixed before next spring.

And we’ve had a bunch of weird electronic issues since the power was out with that storm. Course the router needed to be rebooted a few times, and the extenders, and the security cameras… got most of them back, but it’s been a process.

The Soil and Water (SWCD) people, and contractor Clint built the new structure to stop erosion.

The back side. The tile drains down in the tree’s to the left.

Clint also built a ‘low water crossing’ at one of our waterways. It tends to be wet in the spring, (that’s why it’s a ‘water way’). He excavated down, placed geo-textile fabric, large rock placed underneath, smaller rock on top, and that way the water can still pass through but the equipment has a place to cross without creating ruts in the soft spring soil.

I am very proud of the work we’ve done the last few year making the farm a better place for the future.

Including pouring concrete.

Last week Kelly and I were compacting gravel for this pad. This concrete is in the main part of the shed, right inside the main door, and is where just about everything gets parked. I’m as excited about this concrete as I have been about all the rest.

Wrap the wire around the rebar, hook the loops, and spin it five times to make it tight. Six twists will break the wire.

Rebar wired together and propped up with rocks, tin cans, empty bottles; Anything I found in the garbage that I thought would be useful. You can buy 2” plastic rebar chairs, but why would I wanna do that?

We had some good help leveling out the concrete. Our son came down with a couple of his buddies. I spent a little more money and ordered a conveyor truck to get the concrete in the shed, that way I could be in there helping and not in the tractor hauling concrete 1/2 a yard at a time in the loader bucket. I am supposedly, the ‘Brains’ of the outfit. I use the term loosely. Jokes on them!

I ordered 5000 psi concrete “garage mix” with fiber and air entrainment. See, sounds like I know what I’m talking about.

You want a bunch of help getting the cement truck dumped out and the concrete spread out. Then there’s a little more time to get it level and time for it to begin to harden before the finishing work begins. And that can be a one person job on a pad this small. It just takes several good people right at the start.

On top of the compacted gravel we get the rebar laid out and tied together using a homemade wire twister. I use fiberglass rebar. I buy wire ties with a loop on each end, then use a paint roller I’ve modified to twist them.

By the time we finished I was pooped out. Man, I am not 30 years old anymore.