This morning Retta saw a wolf spider taking a dip in the swimming pool, and Retta,  true to form, scooped up the spider with a skimmer net in order to save it from a possible drowning death.

Upon further examination, Retta discovered that this wolf spider was a momma.  Indeed, you can see from the photograph above that momma spider has a host of babies perched, papoose style, on her back.  I don’t think that I have ever seen this occurance before, or if I have, I did not know what I was witnessing at the time.

We have six well-established Eastern Bluebird nesting boxes spaced around our house, and it is a pleasure to be able to watch these wonderful birds go about their business.  Since the six boxes around the house have been well used, I thought it might be a fine idea to establish a trail of bluebird nesting boxes along some of the paths we hike along throughout our property.  I figure we might ultimately put up over 100 nesting boxes over time,  so I decided to build a few prototypes first, to work out the kinks and help select a decent design that was reasonably inexpensive and easy to build.

We currently have two types of established nesting boxes.  The nesting box shown above is designed so that the front panel opens for cleaning, while the type shown below has a hinged roof, to allow access from the top.

But which style to use for my little project? 

Above are three prototypes that I built to help decide on a final nesting box design.  Two are front-opening,  while one is top-opening.

The top-opening nesting box (shown above) uses a section of piano hinge at the back of the lid, and is secured shut by a locking gate hook.   It was easy to cut and assemble, and it is reasonably decent looking (for a bird house in the woods).  The disadvantage of a top-opening nesting box becomes clear when it becomes time to clean it out.  Look at the following design to see why.

This is a front-opening nesting box.  Rather than having the roof swing up for cleaning, the front panel pivots at the top, and is secured at the bottom.

When the front panel is unlatched and swung open, as shown above, it is quite easy to simply “sweep” the nest debris out of the box.  With a top-hinged design, cleaning requires you to lift the mess out of the box for disposal, which isn’t the most pleasant of tasks.

The way that the front panel pivots is very simple.  It merely consists of a large wood screw on either side of the nesting box.

You can see the locking gate hook that secures the front panel shut in this underside view of the nesting box.  Also, notice the drainage/ventilation gaps at the four corners of the floor.

The length of the front panel is cut short enough to leave a ventilation gap at the top of the nesting box, as you can see here.

Because of the ease with which the front-opening box can be cleaned, and because it is quicker, cheaper, and easier to build than the top-hinged style, I have decided to go with the front-opening prototype.

I’m still debating about the type of wood, however.  Treated lumber is out of the question for this application, so cedar would probably be the most durable, as it is resistant to rotting.  The stumbling block is the cost.  I can buy pine for 1/3 the cost of cedar, so I am inclined to use it, as I have for these prototypes.  If I were just building a few nest boxes, then I wouldn’t hesitate, but for the number I want to build, the cost differential between pine and cedar is significant.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

 

Stephen Colbert’s cast was removed from his (now healed) broken wrist on August 23, live on his Comedy Central television show.  The cast, which has been signed by Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York; CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric; Bill O’Reilly, host of FOX’s The O’Reilly Factor; Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of U.S. House of Representatives; Tim Russert, host of NBC’s Meet The Press; Tony Snow, White House Press Secretary,  and NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, has been submitted for auction on e-Bay. 

The auction on e-Bay can be accessed here.  As of this posting, the bidding was up to $16,900.00, which would be ridiculous were it not for the fact that the proceeds are going to a fine charitable cause, The Yellow Ribbon Fund.

If you would also like to sign Stephen Colbert’s cast (as I have in the photograph above), you may easily do so by following the directions at this link.

Remember a previous post on this blog (It’s Time for Another Try) wherein I lamented a mere .500 success rate in getting our hay fields cut and baled over six growing seasons?  Well, the average has just been upped to .571 (four full cuttings over the past seven seasons).  Our neighbor Bill, along with his sons Craig and Matt, have been out here over the past several days cutting, raking and baling several of our hay fields, and will probably be continuing their activities here for the next few days.  I thought I would take this opportunity to briefly show how the process occurs here in the Ozarks, for those of you who may have never seen grass being converted to bales of hay.

The first step in the baling process is to cut the grass near it’s base.  There are several choices the farmer has in a mower.  Some use a sickle-bar mower, which resembles a giant hedge trimmer adapted to cutting grass.  Others use a hay mower/conditioner, which not only cuts, but also crimps the crop for faster drying, while still other farmers use a  forage macerator  to complete the cutting.

Craig and Matt are using an implement called a disk mower to cut the grass in preparation for baling.  It consists of a series of small rotary disks, each with two pivoting cutting blades attached to the disk via a shoulder bolt.

Unfortunately, besides hay, we also grow rocks prolifically here in the Ozarks, as you may remember from an old post (Dang Rocks).  In the photograph above, you can see Craig applying a little “persuasion” to a bent cutting blade, the result of an encounter with a rock that probably wasn’t there last year!

When the hay is cut, it is allowed to dry in the field prior to being put up into bales.  The drying time is affected by many variables, including the type of forage crop, humidity and temperature levels, and procedures used in the baling process.  If a mower/conditioner or forage macerator has been used to cut the crop, drying time will be shortened.  Alternatively, a hay tedder can be used to turn the hay over in the field and fluff it up, thus allowing the hay to dry quickly.

When the hay is sufficiently dry,  a side-rake such as the one seen above is used to sweep the cut crop into wind rows, in preparation for the actual baling.

In the photograph above you can see Bill pulling the side rake through the field.  First traveling in one direction, and then turning around and repeating the process from the other side produces a nice wind row of grass.

This is what the wind row looks like after two passes of the side rake.  It is now ready to be swept up by the baling machine.

In this photograph you see Craig operating a tractor pulling a large round baler over the previously wind-rowed forage.  The baler gathers the hay and rolls it into a tight, uniformly sized dense round bale, and when the bale capacity is reached, the baler wraps the round bale with a continuous spiral of baling twine.

After securing the integrity of the bale with twine, the baler opens up to eject the finished bale from the rear of the machine, then closes back up again in order to repeat the process once again.

I included this photograph to illustrate the size of the bales that are being produced by this particular round baler.  This is a 5′ X 5′ bale.  Depending upon the crop the weight of each bale can range from about 1200-1600 pounds.  As you can imagine, it take special equipment to be able to handle these large round bales.

The next step in the process is to gather the bales of hay to transport them to their final destination, which, along with a final tally of this year’s hay production will be the subject of a future post.

Example #1 – Foiling the Rats

Perhaps you recall from a previous post (entitled In This Corner…) that over the past several years I have been engaged in an on-going battle of wits with a rat in my equipment barn.   This rat had found a good nesting spot in the engine compartment or behind the dash of our tractor,  and in the course of his day to day activities, took to chewing up the wiring harnesses that are located in these spots.

This became more than an annoyance, as the tractor would have to be trucked over to the local New Holland dealer for repairs, which became very expensive, very quickly.  I ultimately decided to try and discourage the rat from nesting in my tractor by placing rubber snakes at various points in the barn and on the tractor.

After using the tractor, I store it in the barn with the engine hood opened up, and I place this rubber snake in plain sight to deter any pesky varmint from finding a warm, protected nesting spot within the confines of the diesel engine.

This is a rubber snake that I place on the floor of the cab when I am finished using the tractor.  The purpose of putting the snake here is to deter any pests from climbing up into the dashboard of the tractor, where a massive tangle of electrical wires is located.

I purchased these rubber snakes in September of 2005.  Since that time, which has been nearly two years now, I have not had any repeats of the incidents like those referred to in the post entitled In This Corner… 

If you are interested in purchasing rubber snakes, there is a large selection available from the Nature Pavilion on-line store at reasonable prices.  This trick has worked for me for two years now, and maybe it can work for you too.

Example #2 – Foiling the Locust Thorns

If you have locust trees on your property,  you will undoubtedly recognize this thorn as being the weapon of choice for these wicked trees.  And if you drive any kind of vehicle around where these trees are situated, you will most certainly have experienced the woe of having a perfectly good tire run flat due to a puncture from a locust thorn.

I battled frequent flat tires on my tractor due to these thorns for a few years before finding a solution to the problem.  My local tractor dealer was no help.  They insisted that I should be running my tractor with fluid filled tires that utilized inner-tubes.  The purpose of filling the tires partially with fluid is to provide increased traction and a lower center of gravity for the tractor.  To prevent the fluid (water) from freezing in the winter, a solution is formed by adding either alcohol, ethylene glycol, or calcium chloride to the water.

So my tractor had great traction, and was less likely to roll over due to the lower center of gravity caused by the fluid filled tires, but was a major headache when the inevitable encounter with a locust thorn occurred.  To repair such a tire, it was necessary to call for a mobile tire truck to visit the farm, where the technician would pump the fluid out of the tire, dismount the tire, patch the tire and put in a new inner tube.  The tire would then be remounted, and the inner tube refilled with the fluid solution that was previously pumped out.  About $100 later, the tractor tire would be good as new, but with flat tires coming about frequently, this became rather expensive.

As a possible solution, I investigated the use of foam-filled tires.  These are tires that have been filled with a poly foam filling and cured,  creating a puncture-proof tire.  This is a technique that is often used on military vehicles, where tire performance is critical.

The problem with this solution is that the foam-filled tire is not very forgiving to the vehicle operator when traveling over rough terrain.  As you can clearly see from the photograph above, my tractor (and most every other tractor in existence) does not have any kind of sprung suspension between the wheels and the chassis.  In effect, the only shock absorbers are the tires themselves, and of course, the adjustable suspension seat found in the cab of the tractor.  If the tires are foam-filled, then the ride of the tractor would quickly take it’s toll on the operator’s back.

My local tire dealers all told me that this is just the way it is in the Ozarks – you live with frequent flat tires due to locust thorns and briers, and just have to get used to it!  I believed them too, that is, until I got to listening to two gray-haired, coverall clad old farmers talking to one another.  Without knowing it, they had divulged the secret to flat-free farm equipment in the Ozarks.

The trick was simple enough – ignore the tractor dealers, and ignore the tire dealers.  Instead of using fluid-filled tubed tires, as they suggested, switch to a tubeless agricultural tire and put a sufficient quantity of tire sealant into the tire.

Since making the change, as the old experienced farmers had talked about, I have not experienced one flat tire on the tractor as a result of a puncture.

So if this works so well, why am I removing the front tires from my tractor, as seen above?

Even though the tires have not been affected by punctures, the sidewall will still tend to crack over time, as you can see here.

Eventually, the cracks will progress to the point that the sealant will no longer perform its intended task, as it begins to leak out of the sidewall cracks.  When this happens, the tire will no longer hold pressure, and it is time to replace the tire.  But at least the tire has provided service for a decent amount of time, without the expense and hassle of constant thorn-induced flats.

My thanks to the anonymous old farmers who inadvertently let me in on the secret to tire longevity here in the Ozarks.

My workshop is now complete,  so there is no longer any excuse for putting off all the little maintenance chores that accumulate around here.  The past few weeks have found me busy setting up shop, which has become the center of activity for detailing each and every piece of equipment that we use on our grounds.  I am beginning to catch up on deferred maintenance chores, so my blog posting frequency will probably pick up now.

I am very good at performing necessary maintenance on our equipment according to the manufacturers’ schedules for things such as oil changes, lubrication, and critical adjustments.  But there are some tasks that are non-critical that I have been putting off, simply for a lack of a decent place to do the work.  That has now changed with the establishment of a workshop.

One job that needed to be done was to fix the sun canopy on the tractor.  In my never-ending quest to achieve grounds keeping perfection, I have several designated areas that I have been trying to keep “park-like” for recreational purposes.  In order to accomplish this, I find myself having to bush hog around numerous trees.  Tractor-hating trees, if you will.

You can clearly see what damage these trees have wrought upon my tractor’s sun canopy in the photograph above.  I swear, I am a good judge of the height of tree limbs.  I am certain that many of the trees around here have it “in” for me and my tractor.  Just as I pass underneath their shade-producing limbs, the branch will suddenly (and without warning) drop down a few feet, intent on snagging the tractor canopy, if not my head!  The result is a crumpled-up canopy, as you can see above.

Here is a closer look at the damage to the front of the canopy.  The rear, although not visible in this photograph, has about as much damage as the canopy’s front.  In addition to the bent metal on the canopy itself, the iron frame portion of the canopy has also been bent out of shape.  It’s off to the workshop, where a heavy sledge hammer, a three-foot long pry bar, and a pair of 4″x 4″ pieces of oak (used as dolly blocks) and a lot of sweat coerced the twisted metal back into a rough semblance of its former shape.

Now that the canopy was fairly straight,  as seen above, all that remained was the finish hammering, which after much tedious work, made the canopy look almost as good as new.  But the most challenging task was getting the canopy installed back on the tractor.  Between the sheet metal, the iron frame, and the 1″ thick insulation material (which prevents the canopy from acting like a giant solar oven, ideal for baking brains), the assembly weighs in at about 150 pounds.  Getting it back up on top of the tractor could be a little tricky for someone such as myself, who had no help available (now I see why farm families are usually large – they need all the help they can get).

On the theory that “brains can overcome brawn,”  I examined the task ahead of me, and devised a plan of action.  The first step was to maneuver the canopy up onto the support rails of the bush hog.

The next step required folding the ROPS (roll-over protection system) down to a level where I could reach the support brackets.  Using a couple of C-clamps to help align the canopy with the ROPS, I was able to install the front retaining bolts of the assembly.  Once this was accomplished, the rest of the installation job was a piece of cake.  Using a come-along style winch attached to the front-end loader, I was easily able to pull the canopy and ROPS back up into their proper position.

After a few minutes of adjusting, squaring and bolt tightening, the job was finished, and the tractor looked as good as new.  And now I won’t have to drive around looking like a dork on a tractor with a crumpled-up canopy anymore!