[416Jonny]

Yeah, I got something similiar to that today.

I was all excited because I’m not online here that much anymore and figuring that it was Easter, somebody was wishing me a happy holiday!

But, instead it was spam.

[416Jonny]

Anytime. But just remember, friends don’t let friends drive red tractors. I think we’ve milked this one far enough.

So, how ’bout that mulch layer? Gonna get to try it out soon?

[416Jonny]

If you were color blind, I could see how they would all seem red.

Three farmers were sitting at the bar in town, the first one said: “my Farmall plowed 10 acres today and it only took one gallon of gas”, the second one said: “my John Deere plowed 10 acres today and it only took one half a gallon of gas”, the third farmer said: “yeah, well I plowed 10 acres today and all I did was soak a corn cob in kerosene and stuck it in the intake on my Allis Chalmers.”

If I had my way, I’d rather use horses as well. But at least I don’t have to ride an Inter-trash-onal. Thirteen letter &*%^ speader, too fast for the field, too slow for the road.

Good job on the mulch layer, by the way.

[416Jonny]

That’s a neat looking rig. Too bad it’s going to immediatly burst into flames the moment you go to use it. Tractors the wrong color. 😉

[416Jonny]

Now, I’m kind of wondering what you mean by “old style” Percheron. My family kept and bred Percherons up untill they got what I believe is a Rumley Oil-Pull tractor in the early teens. I’ll try to find the photo, but one of the earliest photos taken on the farm, a rather distant relative of mine is holding onto a team of Percherons that I swear couldn’t be any bigger than a tall Morgan. I know that draft horses have grown quite a bit in pretty recent history, (if the most modern Percheron breeding for the show circuit is any indication) but how far back are we talking?

[416Jonny]

You know, any side delivery rake with a tongue truck works out great if there is room up top for a few boards and a seat. With you sitting on top of the thing, if you’re sucking in dust, you might want to raise the tines up. You’re raking, not weeding. Having the bars under you instead of behind helps your neck out quite a bit, or I suppose you could just sit sideways on the forecart.

[416Jonny]

Hey George, check your messages on this site when you get the chance. 🙂

Jonny

[416Jonny]

Well, if we’re gonna take it to this level…..

A Rabbi walks into a bar with a frog on his shoulder.

Bartender says: “where’d you find him?”

Frog says: “Brooklyn, there’s hundreds of them!”

Jonny

[416Jonny]

George,

I would say more of a concern in choosing bar length than the land being hilly is how smooth it is. Few things are more frustrating in mowing than finding every bump and ant hill along the way. It’s pretty unsettling when doing first cut with the horses and having that bar catch a bump and find yourself suddenly moving not so much forward as turning sideways.

I’d bet your horses are more than capable to pull a 6 foot bar. Just keep ‘er sharp. Grandpa used to carry a can of used engine oil around to drip on the knife bar while he was working. You could use straight veggie oil for a more friendly lube if you wanted.

How you set up your field to cut can have a lot to do with how well it can be cut. Marking out your fields to minimize having to go back over a sliver of uncut grass is a big help. Giving the horses a nice straight line to follow really lets them lean into their work.

Let me know when you’ll be planning on cutting hay, I’ll be wanting to help out. There isn’t anyother activity for horses that puts as big of a smile on my face as mowing.

Jonny

[416Jonny]

I saw this today and figured I’d share it with everyone.

http://adblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/01/27/1763315.aspx

I wish they would just stick to animal cruelty. I mean, really. Come on PETA……

[416Jonny]

I’ve got a website for y’all that is some what equally sensational as most of the older PETA campaigns used to be (before they began funding domestic terrorists):

http://www.PETAkillsanimals.com

Studying PETA’s history will show an organization that started going some honest good work and then went completely off the wall. The current president has every intention of getting rid of every single pet and livestock animal in the world. Aparently we’re all going to end up eating dirt, mean while we’ll be the animal kindoms servants, fluffing the pillows for all the hippos on the Nile.

Reality and logic plays no part in there agenda.

I wish they’d stick to screwing over huge slaughter houses.

[416Jonny]

Hey Erik, next time I’m home I’d like to discuss the drainage issue with you if I can get the go ahead to start doing stuff over at the Meigs place. It might do us some good to coordinate a plan of attack on that property.

As far as the Meigs place goes, there are a few grandfathered pond sights that could be dug up, and there’s always the vernal (?) pool that Uncle Steve was talking about. A shallow, roughly a foot deep, pond that would be pretty long and a few feet wide. Something that could help take some of the surface water away but not so deep as to take away the water during the summer. Just some thoughts?

I do like the willow idea. Future shade areas would be nice too.

Jonny B.

[416Jonny]

Whoa. That was crazy. I mean, just nuts.

Great video!

The white horses in the video most certainly earned their keep. I’m stunned by how hard they pulled!

I’m also amazed by how the pack horses just sort of moved their hooves out of the way of the bundles dropping of their sides. They didn’t even panic, just sort of picked themselves up like nothing happened.

Absolute lunacy. I hope they keep working and you keep posting!

Jonny B.

[416Jonny]

Geoff, the grasses will try their damnedest to over take the legumes, but I noticed a process that might help keep those legumes going full steam. Just an additional management technique.

If you have a field that’s clipped before winter, in the spring the grasses will shoot up (at least reed canary grass will, it loves the water). Clip or graze the grass down early, well before haying time. The legumes will get a head start for the next growth spurt. Let part of the pasture then go well past seed and clip again. Let the field reseed itself from the legumes. Run this through the whole area in rotation. I think you’ll be pleasently surprised.

My grandfather once took the advice of the USDA and planted the “magic” combination of reed canary grass and bird foot’s trefoil. Of course the canary grass if not keep very short will take over like it’s going out of style. It spread, too. All over the place. But even now, 43 years later, if you clip the canary grass down with a vengance the reasonably well drained field will spring up in a blaze of unbelievable color. I wished I took a picture of the fields I help hay off over the summer. It was unreal. Fields that had smothered by the grass are now COVERED in trefoil, vetch, red clover and even a little ancient timothy. It makes me smile, it even makes me a little warm and fuzzy. Makes me wish I was milking cows so I could take real advantage of all that super protieny goodness.

But you’re right, it’s really nice to think about bright multicolored pastures in winter. Even if all I have here in suburban hell is an inch of snow, three inches of slush, rain and an upcoming hard freeze.

[416Jonny]

“He was a very inferior farmer when he first began, but a prolonged and unflinching assault upon his agricultural difficulties has had its effect at last and he is now fast rising from affluence to poverty.”
– “Rev. Henry Ward Beecher’s Farm, ” Mark Twain, A Curious Dream, 1872 ed

“Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood”
– H.L. Menken

“There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.”
– Bertrand Russel

While I enjoy a good qoute battle as much as the next gentleman (I can imagine it now, sleepy little town some where in the southwest at dawn, two cloaked figures slowly emerging from different saloons to face off in the square, Colt’s and works of authors in hand), my feelings can be summed up by one of my favorite qoutes of all time, given by my favorite author:

“I wished it would just die already”
– “I give up for cryin’ out loud”, Jonathan Birkett, Thoughts of Kicking Government Officials, 2009 ed.

Sorry, the opportunity was there.

Jonny B.

[Author]

Posts