Cold Cows

The cows don't venture far from their feeding area anymore. With the cold temps, they pretty much huddle around waiting for the next feeding. I am giving them quite a bit more hay than usual and they seem to be keeping good weight on. The insulation they carry is amazing. They always have a thick layer of frost and snow on their backs, a strong indication of just how efficient they are at staying warm.

Brrrrrrrr...

It is definitely winter around here. The weather is unusually cold for this time of year. While November almost always acts like winter, the temperatures are usually just under freezing for a daytime high. Right now though, and for the past week, the daily high temps. have been below minus 20! There have already been a few nights with close to minus 30 temps. At these temperatures, the equipment is impossible to start without being plugged in and the animals need extra feed. On top of these cold nights, the snow has been falling relentlessly. We have more than a foot out in our pastures now. Still though, the animals cope well. There is no shivering or apparent distress. They eat more and sleep more and that is about it. When the pigs come out of their barn for supper, they soon develop frosty beards of ice from the steaming porridge. This is Bubbles, he is growing fast into a big ole pig. He still has the funny personality that he always did, although his growing size makes him more and more docile.

The piglets are doing fine too. They are still living in the hut that they were farrowed in. Mom is gone from the pen now, so they greet me every day with excited squeals knowing that I am the food animal. Inside their hut is an infrared heater that hangs from the ceiling. They make themselves a nest of straw near the light and happily sleep. The only way you know that they are there is when you see the straw heave up and down with their breathing. The girl's name is Pumpkin Pie and the little boar is nameless. We will keep him for awhile to see how he turns out and then he will be sold as a breeding boar.

Duals on an Allis?

I am thinking of adding dual wheels to my Allis Chalmers WD45. It looks pretty cool, but actually serves a purpose too! In our area, we have some hills along with some sandy loam soil. This makes traction a problem at times when working hard at something like plowing or chisel plowing. By simply adding two more rear wheels, you can add to the weight of the rear end and add more gripping power to the ground. The fact that it looks so cool is just a benefit! This is a picture that a fellow Allis man sent me. Leon's Allis CA looks like it is ready for business. In my mind, having grown up around International Tractors like the 1086, all tractors should have duals!

Allis in the snow...

I am almost finished with the Allis for this year. I have the loader back working and the shifter has been fixed. Although, I noticed that I still cannot get it into 4th gear! This will have to be remedied before spring work starts. For now, the loader will be a great help around the farm. Moving snow and loading and unloading acquired equipment from the trailer is something that had to be man-handled until now. I still need to re-work our truck mounted snow plow to be able to attach it to the front end loader. We used the plow on our Ford Expedition, but Cindy traded that in on a Honda a couple years ago. Good timing with the current price of gas! Anyways, we always held on to the plow just in case. A set of mounting brackets for my Ford diesel is more than $200. I can easily save most of that money by fabricating a way to mount it on the loader and use it with the tractor.

Loading Facility

I am almost finished with our new loading facility. This series of pens and a chute will make the process of loading livestock for transport much easier than it has ever been. Instead of chasing animals and trying to force them into a trailer where they quite clearly do not want to be, we can simply guide them into the "V" shaped corrals that leads to two sorting pens. The second pen has another "V" guide that takes the animal to the chute. I still have to install the various gates, but I used the system this weekend to load our Highlands/Galloway cross cow "Henny". She is off now to visit her boyfriend for awhile. The pens are just the right size for our farm. Any bigger, and I feel that I would need help to get the animals sorted and loaded. Henny is quite wild and I had her loaded in about a minute and a half! Excellent! I am a little proud of the design and the ease of use although it is nothing new and plans on-line showed me how to design the catch pens and gave me dimensions for the chute. The next thing to do besides installing hardware and gates is to design and build a slide-in chute within the chute that will make the chute usable for our smaller animals like the pigs and sheep. With a chute that is cattle-sized, the sheep and pigs will easily be able to spin around and make life difficult for us.

Another View of the All-Crop/Roto-Baler

Just thought I would publish more photos of both pieces.

From this view, you can see how complete the baler is. The belts are far less than perfect and will need replacement. Belts on the combine seem fine, but who knows when it actually starts working. Bearings will need TLC. The back of the combine shows how perfect this machine is. There is next to zero rust. Paint is still ok too. Will need canvass (which seem to be rolled up inside!). It is also missing the cutting bar and teeth. That shouldn't be too bad to replace. Otherwise, I have my fingers crossed that there is very little to do.

Border Collies of the North...

We have always owned Collies, but at one point we had the best Labrador in the world. He passed away several years ago and I still miss him greatly. He was a tremendous duck dog. My wife acquired a couple sled dog harnesses from somewhere and she always used the dogs to mush to the mailbox about a mile away. She always got weird looks with her full-size dogsled and team of Border Collie and Lab! The Border Collie was always smart and she quickly figured out that if she just kept the rope tight, she could appear to be pulling but it was always obvious that Brant was maintaining all forward momentum! He would sure pull. Now our old collie is 13 and her only duty is to try not to get herself killed around the equipment. She is deaf as a post and I now have to be very aware of where she is when I am moving equipment or vehicles around the yard. Our new Collie "Tag" is almost 2 now and Cindy decided to try him out in the harness yesterday. It was amazing how quickly he learned to pull. Obviously, he can't pull any amount of weight, but it is still fun for Mrs. Schneider to go to the mail.

A Sheep Auction

As I drove to St. Paul on Friday with my load of chickens, I noticed a sign at the auction mart that stated there was a sheep auction that day. Instead of waiting around inside the truck for 5 hours for the birds to be processed, I decided to attend the auction. Cindy and I have been spending a good amount of time researching sheep and are planning on acquiring a few sometime soon. The lamb meat market is good now, and with a booth at a farmers market next year, we should be able to do well with our pork, chicken, beef and lamb sales. There was not a strong turnout of sheep at the sale. The roads were not good and I think that turned off a lot of people from attending. I missed out on bidding on a couple nice ewes, but thats ok. We will keep looking and find what we want in time. The thing we like about sheep is that they are a little more gentle on the fences and safer for the kids. It should be noted that the prices at the auction were fairly steady. Ewes of any age were going at $1.20 - $1.40 per pound and Rams, nice or otherwise were around $.60 a pound. There were a couple of buyers that bought most of the stock. I assume that they were feedlot operators. Most of the groups were in numbers that were too large for me to consider. It would of been nice to be able to pick out a few nice ewes instead of buying an entire "flock".

The Last Chicken Day!

Thankfully, this is the last shipment of pastured chickens to the processing plant. As usual, the night before, I loaded up the trailer in the field with the old Ford 2N tractor. As you can see, we have a good amount of snow now. This was the latest we have ever kept our chickens in the field. We had them on Fall Rye and had to feed alfalfa hay the last week or so as the birds couldn't scratch through the snow enough to feed properly. The birds had put on a good layer of fat, but not too much and with all the fresh greens they had to eat, they turned out beautiful. We had a chicken dinner on Sunday night and man was that a treat. There is such a difference between store bought chicken and pastured that you would never believe me. You simply have to try it for yourself.

Old Tractor...

This is the Minneapolis Moline U tractor that is in the same farmyard as the Roto-Baler. I think that the fenders are not original, but the rest seems great.

More Allis Finds!

Here is a fairly good condition Roto Baler that we found. It is sitting in an abandoned farmyard and the owner has passed away. The nephew has indicated that we can have everything in the yard as long as we take it all. There are discs, plows, seeders and numerous other pieces of equipment in varying states of decay. The roto-baler looks pretty good though. It appears to be complete and while it needs new belts and bearings etc., it shouldn't be that hard to restore to working condition. There is also an old Minneapolis U tractor that is very complete and would probably start with some fresh gas, plugs and a battery. It will be a long hard project to get the yard cleaned and hauled, but it will be worth it.

A Good Allis Weekend

On Saturday, my friend Vince and I spent a good part of the day driving the countryside looking at various pieces of equipment that he had scouted. He knew I was looking for an All-Crop combine along with a Roto-Baler and some other stuff. It ended up being a good day! We stopped by a neighbors' place who had this old All-Crop sitting in the hedgerow. We talked with him briefly and the farmer was happy to see it go somewhere with the intention of being used again. I got it for free. I didn't stop long enough to look at the serial number or anything, but I think that it is an All-Crop 72 and it doesn't look all that old. We stopped at a couple other All-Crops and they were absolutely decrepit in comparison. It is a straight cut type of combine and that is quite rare up here in Canada as our growing season is short enough to make swathing a necessity in most cases. Nowadays with improved crop genetics there are more and more straight cut varieties of grains, but back when this combine was new, there would have been many years where the crops simply wouldn't get combined. Perhaps this combine was used to harvest clover or alfalfa seed? I don't think that I will risk trying to take this combine home right now. The roads are covered in salt and Vince indicated that it might do damage to the machine down the road. We will wait until the roads are dry or spring...whatever comes first. An addendum...I have heard from several Allis Chalmers experts that this is indeed NOT a 72 model. It seems that the 72 has an auger at the head as opposed to canvass. It is either a 60 or 66. I will get the serial number and find out more details.

Still working the Allis...

Still busy around the farm. We have had a bunch of snow over the past weekend. Last night was Haloween and I spent the evening re-building the shifter on my Allis Chalmers tractor. I have been spending a lot of time on this piece of machinery. I am trying to get it up and running in time for winter chores like snow removal and unloading big round hay bales. The website Unofficial Allis is a tremendous website with a great forum full of people that are extremely knowledgable and helpful. I have spent a good deal of time there asking opinions on how to fix up my old tractor. I am getting fairly close now. The hydraulic system has been re-plumbed and with new hoses and rams for the front end loader, that system is working very well. All I have left to do there is weld the control arm back on to the control valve. That will be a little tricky as it is in a tight spot and I cannot let the shaft get too hot and melt any o-rings inside the pump. A little spurt or two with the 110 volt mig should suffice to hold the arm without getting too hot. Once I get the transmission shift tower back together and re-installed I will be able to perform a good tune-up on the tractor and I might be finished! It was running rough and I noticed liquid coming from one of the exhaust ports...suspecting something wrong, I pulled the spark plug and it had been collapsed on itself somehow. There was definitely no spark there! I have new plugs now and will re-build the distributer later. These two pictures show the shifter before and after. The before picture is at the bottom actually. As you can see, it was quite worn. I built it back up with the welder and a belt sander to get it back to shape.

The Piglets Are Fine

Well it was extremely disappointing to only have a litter of 2 piglets this time around. That is extremely rare and I am attributing it to the fact that I had a boar that was quite old at the time. I have since replaced him and will breed Penny to the new boar in the next month or so. If she doesn't have a good litter, then I will know that it is time to replace her. She is a nice pig to have around the farm so I hope that this was the boars' fault. The two piglets, a boar and a gilt, are doing very well. They are growing quickly and spend a good amount of time exploring the pens now. It is interesting to watch them learn from mom about rooting and eating foods other than milk. They spend a lot of time with their noses in the dirt and this is what gives them the vitamins and minerals that they require to grow strong and healthy. In a barn setting, these pigs would have to be given injections of synthetic vitamins, minerals and other goodies that I am not even sure about. Anti-biotics and other drugs are necessary just to keep the majority of them alive in those horrible conditions. I feel very good about seeing my pigs out doing what pigs are supposed to do! The plan now is to keep the gilt to add to the herd and to sell the boar. It is too bad that there weren't other littermates to choose from for both breeding and meat production, but the next litter from Prudence will be better.

Building A Corral

We need a way to better handle our animals when we are transporting. It is always a mission to try to coerce an animal into a trailer when it is clear that they do not want to be in there! I took some ideas from some plans on-line and fitted them to our needs. I spent a good amount of time this past weekend building this fence and working on the loading chute. With some strategically placed gates we will now be able to lure the cows or pigs or whatever into the corral and then hustle them up the chute into the trailer. The first to test the facilities will be our cow "Henny" and her calf "T-Bone". Henny is set to go visit her new boyfriend sometime soon and since T-Bone isn't weaned yet, he will have to go along for the ride. We are contemplating sheep for next year, the market is strong and sheep have always interested us. As you can see in the picture, it has hardly stopped raining for the past month and the corral is a mess. For the most part animals will not be in this area except to graze from time to time. I will seed this in grass next spring and we will try to keep it looking nice.

The Allis Is Apart

It turned out that I needed to re-core the tractor radiator. I broke the solder on the fittings while I was changing the hoses. I took the radiator into the shop and he said that the whole thing needed replacing or fixing. After all it is a 50 year old radiator. While I have the tractor apart, I decided to clean, sand and paint as much of it as I could. It is starting to look really good. I also changed the engine oil, replaced the hydraulic fluid and tightened some bolts and stopped some fluid leaks. I need some fittings replaced on the hyrdaulic pump before I can thoroughly test its power. I am thinking that it will likely need to be rebuilt, but have my fingers crossed. Tonight, I can pick up the new radiator and start putting the tractor back together. Over the winter, I will continue to fix the tractor up in my spare time. By spring, I will have a fully functioning WD45 for all my farm work.

Pastured Chickens

It occurred to me that I have not taken any pictures of the chicken pens. There are about 100 chickens left in our fields in three separate pens. Next year the plan is to make the pens much much larger and try to cut down on the work load of looking after so many pens. Feeding and watering takes a long time as it is and the more pens there are the harder it is. We would like to produce up to 1000 broilers next season. We will have to see how the construction of the pens goes this winter...that will determine to a large extent how many birds we order. Right now, the remaining birds are penned in a small field of Fall Rye. I planted the Rye in August and it is still extremely green even though we have had several hard frosts so far this fall. On a daily basis I drag the pens to new patches of grass and make sure the water is clean and full along with the food troughs. These birds are scheduled for processing on November 3rd. This was our longest broiler season so far...we started brooding chicks in early April!

The New Tractor

Over the weekend I picked up the newest addition to the "fleet" of Gold Forest Farm implements and vehicles. It is a 1954 Allis Chalmers WD45. It came with the original Freeman front end loader, a snap couple 3 bottom plow, a snap couple tiller and a rear blade. It was only $1000 and I grabbed it quickly before someone else did. I thought it was a good deal and certainly worth more than what I paid. It looks to be in half decent condition although right now it is fairly ugly with bad paint and quite a few oil leaks here and there. I need to do a tune up on the engine and I will replace some of the leaking seals and gaskets over time. This is the tractor that I will regularly use for farm work so even though it is killing me to have it look so terrible, I will probably wait for quite some time before I paint it. I would also like to use it for before I spend a whole lot of time and money fixing it up. If it is a lemon, I would like to know that now and focus energy elsewhere. The most pressing thing to do with it now is to hook up the missing alternator and fan belt and then trouble-shoot the slow/weak loader. I will need the loader this winter for handling snow. From there, I will give the engine a tune up and re-build the carb or whatever is causing it to 'pop' and backfire.

I am excited about this tractor. My Grandfather owned several Allis Chalmers tractors and the WD45 is the tractor that I first learned to drive. I can remember sitting between my Dads legs and steering while we plowed. I was probably 8 or 9 years old. From time to time he would yell over the engine noise to "keep it straight"!

For its size, the WD45 is a poweful tractor and easily handles a 3 bottom plow. I will use it for most of the field work since the Ford N is less than half the horsepower. Almost all of my existing implements are 3pt. hitch; so, I will need to fabricate some sort of 3pt. hitch for the Allis as it is equipped with a "snap couple" type of implement hook up system. I have an idea in my head to use the existing snap-couple hook up and some manufactured lift arms to connect to the original lift arms of the Allis. We'll see how far I get with that idea in the coming months of winter. The shop will be busy this winter!

My Friends' Combine

This is a friend who lives along the coast of BC. He operates a small diversified farm and uses this old Massey 35 combine each year to harvest small fields of oats and other grains. It looks like the old combine works really well although I can feel the "itch" just looking at the picture! I get itchy with grain dust while I am inside the cab of my 503 let alone the open station of the 35 being so close to the table. It is a neat old combine and the perfect size for a small, diversified farm.

Inside the 8550

The AC 8550 is a fairly easy tractor to drive. The controls are well thought out and handy. I was pulling a relatively small cultivator, but I was breaking pasture/hay land that hadn't been dirt for years. The roots were thick and the ground was compact. The goal for the day was to simply create some 'scratches' in the soil to allow the tiller to come along next and really get things worked up. I would say that overall, I accomplished more than just scratching the surface. There were some spots with thick grass where the shovels would dig in and we just skidded along the surface, but those were isolated spots. This is what I saw each time I looked back.

The Allis Chalmers 8550

Time for Fall field work. I have been busy over the past while cultivating fields in preparation for next years' seeding. First, I was helping with Vince's field work. He acquired a new piece of property and I spent a day going over it with the cultivator. One of Vince's tractors is an early 80's Allis Chalmers 8550. I believe that this was the largest tractor that AC produced. It is big!

Piglets Have Arrived!

Last night 'Penelope' was in her hut and wouldn't come out to eat. This is somewhat unusual for her and when I checked her udder, she had lots of milk! I went back to the house and mentioned to Cindy that I thought she was close. Sure enough, this morning as I was walking past her hut to feed the chickens out in the field, I heard some squeaking from within. I checked quickly and there were two that I could see. I am unsure if she was still in the middle of labour, but I hope she has more than 2! When I get home from work I will check again and see what is up and report more. In the meantime, I had a chance to take a quick picture before I left her for the day.

Another Picture of Digging Potatoes

Here is another shot of the potato digger in action. As I mentioned earlier, the tractor wouldn't go slow enough. In a perfect situation, the slower travel of the digger would result in less soil going up the chain conveyor and allow more soil to fall through...this would leave the potatoes more visible on the surface. As it was, I had the N in first gear and about half throttle...this was still too fast and any less throttle would bog the little tractor down. We had to dig through the dirt a little to find the potatoes, but still, it was a lot better than digging them all by hand! I do have plans to try to find another tractor this winter. I need a 30-50 hp tractor with more gears to choose from. I am planning to farm more land next season and have struck a deal with a neighbor for an additional field of about 5 acres. I know this is a small chunk, but it is a start and I hope this will lead to some networking whereby I can obtain some more fields.

Time for a little hunting...

Garreth and I took a few days off to go Antelope hunting last week. It was fun to be out of the house together and I had been successful in a draw for a trophy Antelope in southern Alberta. I have never hunted with a rifle before, but being a bowhunter, and very familiar with the area we were to hunt, I suspected that our hunt would not last very long. I was correct. We drove for 5 hours to the zone we were allowed to hunt. We then sought the landowner to give us permission to hunt and found him in his truck overlooking a vast prairie landscape with a small herd of Antelope visible in the distance. After a brief conversation, Garreth and I snuck a couple hundred yards to the crest of a hill where we could be at least a little closer. I steadied the rifle and began searching through the scope for the buck. At first I couldn't see him, but soon spotted the tips of his horns bouncing towards us from behind a distant hill. Garreth and I became very still as he approached to within 150 yards and stood perfectly broadside. I whispered if Garreth was ready and he nodded "yes". I have to admit that the crosshairs of the rifle scope were vibrating a little with excitement, but it was nothing compared to the panic of being within 20 yards of your prey with a bow in your hands. I pulled the trigger and the buck went down instantly. Our hunt was over. We spent the rest of the evening, cleaning and cutting Antelope meat and then drove home the following morning. It was a good little trip.

Digging Potatoes

It was finally time to harvest our small field of potatoes. There have been a couple of killing frosts over the past 2 weeks and the tops had died off. I had hoped that the skins of the potatoes had set enough to avoid damage going through the digger. I have an old horse-drawn digger that has been modified by a previous owner to be pulled by a tractor. The N did a pretty good job, although a tractor with more hp and a lower gear would have worked better. We ended up with somewhere around 600 pounds of Russian Blue and Banana Fingerling potatoes. The kids followed behind the digger collecting the potatoes that were left laying on top of the newly dug soil. We put all the potatoes in a wagon and brought them back to the house to be stored in the cold room downstairs.