[near horse]

Hi,

I have a question going back to Jen’s picture (nice) – but about training Peanut. You mentioned he had a habit or started to develop one, of stepping back when he stops.

he has a tendency to want to take a step back when he stops, sometimes stepping on the singletree or chain)

When you ground drove him before hitching, did you just start and stop until he started to just stop w/o stepping back? Or when he stepped back did you then switch to having him back up until you said whoa again?

My team is starting to do that as well – except sometimes more than just one step and not a good thing when you’re hitched to an implement. Just trying to see how to correctly correct it! BTW – don’t see it (or maybe notice) when ground driving – then I imagine it could be an operator issue. Darn.

[near horse]

Carl,

I thought about buying one of the DR mowers like you have (partly due to your post) but in looking into DR products, there seem to be a lot of folks that have had a “bad experience” with them. Lots of breakdowns, expensive repairs etc. Plus, I found them to be very expensive to purchase – I do like the idea of being able to mow like that (behind a forecart) – am I missing something or misreading the product?

[near horse]

Hi Jean,

While I’m just a greenhorn teamster who can offer no technical assistance, I can offer you some words of support. While a concussion, broken collar bone and rib would not be considered minor injuries, it is good that your friend was not permanently injured or worse. Ditto for your horse. I understand replaying the scenario over and over to perhaps keep it from reoccurring and maybe learn something from the incident but don’t beat yourself up. It happened and that can’t change so it’s time to clear your head (as you’ve said) and continue on your path with another experience in your bag but NO LESS DETERMINED in what you do.

I may have said this before but it makes me feel a little better after a bad happening. [Note: it came right after I busted the axle in a fully loaded grain truck hurrying out of a field during harvest.] One of the farmers I was working for at the time said “It’ll be alright. Nothin’ ever happens to folks who don’t do nothin” Ain’t it the truth. I think down deep we all know that what we’re doing with horses/mules/oxen carries an element of risk that we work hard to minimize but still exists. Why? Because we/you are folks doing something!

Take care and keep at it.

Geoff

[near horse]

Not a horse farming book but great for ideas in setting up your place to be independent, sustainable etc – a real sustainable “systems” type philosophy

1) Introduction to Permaculture

2) Gaia’s Garden

Very cool ideas regarding water conservation, collection …. well, you’ll see!

[near horse]

Hey Biovol,

I wouldn’t worry about “stealing” an idea.

Something close to what you mention regarding pipes underground to moderate temps are available commercially – I think that’s how heat pumps work – pipes under the yard pick up heat or dump it and then return to house – allows the heating cooling system to not have to warm or cool air starting at lower/higher temps.

The concern w/ using the underground tubes (like road culvert size) to passively cool seems to be the tube walls – the corrugated walls of culvert add strength but wreak havoc on developing passive air flow – so I’ve heard.

There’s a lot of good info out there regarding ways to build housing that is easy to heat/cool, uses renewable materials etc Just have to look – not at Home Depot.

[near horse]

For horses we use Tri-Tec from Farnum – I think it’s a pyrethrin product and it works well. Just sweats off too easy I think. Our horses hate horse and deer flys so much that if one buzzes them while grazing, they run back to their loafing shed and “hide”.

Nice one w/ the hornets, Carl! Your oxen must be pretty mellow to take it in stride like that. Yellowjackets and hornets are the worst here when working in the woods in August/Sept. They get really aggressive and like to sting ya while you’re limbing or bumping knots.

[near horse]

Sorry to hear Old Kat – the only thing worse than too much rain is no rain. A severe drought can set you back a long way. Do you think guys will start bringing in hay from other areas of the country? I hear that hay prices are off quite a bit – much due to dairies switching from alfalfa hay to silage of any type as much as possible in response to last years outrageous hay prices. Maybe the lower priced hay could help. I think that was from Hay and Forage newsletter. What do you hear?

Also, for all you hayers, there is a website called haytalk – mostly standard commercial hay stuff but lots of interesting stuff just the same.

Take care Old Kat – I see all of TX is still wicked hot. Drink a cold one (or more) for me and we’ll hope you get some relief.

[near horse]

Hey Wes,

I got the bearing off and the new Macknair one is on and ready to roll (or cut hay at least)! I ended up using a gear puller and one of those Dewalt 18v impact drivers on the end of the puller and off it came. It probably would have come off using a ratchet as well but I thought I’d try out the impact.

That said, the bearing “housing” on my mower was held together w/ 4 bolts and I took these off as well as the 3/4″ nut on the end of the wrist pin. That let me remove the front portion of the bearing housing. I think some mowers might still have the bearing housing riveted together – I have a parts machine that looks like that.

To get a good straight pull w/ the puller I had to undo the nut and drop the end of the “adjusting rod” thing that sits directly in front of the flywheel – no big deal. Then zip, zip and it was off. No heat needed.

E-mail me if you need more info or I’m unclear.

Good luck.

[near horse]

First, Jason, I hope this wasn’t directed at me because it is then most certainly misdirected.

It always aggravates me when so many new comers to the “sustainable” community of interest are ignorant of the proven practices of the past that were more sustainable that most the hoopla of the current thinking about human presence on this living earth.

It flat out pisses me off when they dismiss what animal powered people are doing as “anachronistic” or old fashioned, backwards or stuck in the past. It really is an expression of the ignorance of history that many modern people have

What I now have is about 250 bales of hay that are drying out in the field from a heavy duty T-storm.

Donn, I know you spent time here in the NW and maybe you recall that at least in E.WA and N ID there’s only enough precip to get 1 cutting of hay – so once it’s cut, it’s over. I still like the idea of “taking small bites” of the hay crop rather than trying to “wolf down” the whole thing at once. (Does that even make sense?). Unfortunately, by the time I wrote the original post, I was already committed to the latter – hence the bales in the field.

And I was sooo close to getting by except my hay hauling crew decided to no show (and one was my own son). That left me hauling in by myself and I came up short.

Oh, well. Thanks for the input. Joel – we used to question what was worse over ripe hay or rained on hay? The local forage guy said “If you choose to let it get over ripe, then you guarantee a loss in quality while if you try and harvest and risk rained on hay, you at least have a chance of getting quality hay in the barn.” Makes sense – although less so when you’re out there grumbling and turning wet windrows 😮

[near horse]

I’m in the same boat as Wes – I want to replace the bearing on the wrist pin/flywheel w/ one of Norm’s. My bearing “housing” is held together w/ 4 bolts (older ones seem to be riveted) and the front portion comes right off. How about using a gear puller to pull the rest of the bearing off the wrist pin? I just can’t believe (or don’t want to) that I need to pull the flywheel off just to replace this bearing – but I’m usually wrong. Dang.

[near horse]

I applaud W. Berry’s strength of character – maybe we should all refuse to participate – nation wide!

Unfortunately, when it looked as though the NAIS program was on the verge of complete failure, the “international market” – specifically South Korea entered the debate and gave the NAIS supporters new life. Essentially, if international markets require traceability on imported meat then we must implement our NAIS protocol or be shut out of these markets. Let those who choose to ship abroad be required to be a part of NAIS – why everyone?

FROM BEEF magazine:

South Korea Reinvigorates NAIS Discussion

Just when it looked like traceability was dead, the marketplace steps forward to reinvigorate it. South Korea has instituted a traceback system on domestically raised beef, and indicated it would require traceback on imported product by 2010. If this comes to pass, then all of the debate regarding the Naional Animal Identification System may be mute. As expected, traceback is moving toward being a requirement for international trade. (See “South Korea Mandates Full Beef Tracing System” in this newsletter).

Korea has fallen to fourth in terms of size of beef market, but it was up 128% in 2008 compared to 2007, and accomplished that after having been open only less than half of the year. Many experts predict Korea could be a billion-dollar market for U.S. beef if we can regain market share and the confidence of the Korean consumer. Those kinds of incentives are the sort that quickly can drive change.
— Troy Marshall

[near horse]

For you guys in the east (that’s pretty much anyone east of the Mississippi), while I know this has been a year of incredible precip, you all still get decent amounts of rain through out the summer. How do “arrange” or organize your haying? I suspect that you put down smaller amoutns and then tedd, bale haul – before the next rain. Is that correct?

The reason I ask is because in my area a lot of guys will swath huge amounts of ground (usually everything in a field say 100 ac or more) and mob ve to the next field and do the same. Then turn it w/ inverter and bale all of it – before the dreaded T-storm hits. My point is this – that what you guys do makes more sense (if indeed that is what you do). You then can end up with at least some good hay. In our system it’s the gamble – all your hay is likely to be similar – good or bad.

[near horse]

I thought that the weakness of the #6 had to do with the external drive gear – I broke one before:o BUT “mow w/ the flow” (mow w/ what ya got!).

[near horse]

Well, we had a nice window of opportunity (say about 8 days w/o rain predicted) to get some hay in. I had the horses out on the #9 mower until I broke the pitman and noticed the bearing was shot. So, in the interest of getting some hay in I resorted to using the swather and dropped about 8 acres of pretty decent hay. Soon thereafter, the forecast changed from moderate temps to highs in the 90’s – a sure sign we’re getting thunderstorms pretty quick. So the anxiety sets in …. It also seemed as though every piece of equipment I used needed something fixed within the first hour or two of operation – EX the wobble box on the swather blew oil alll over the the knife belt drive so it no cutty. Next my windrow inverter had some personal issues but the killer was when the knotter on my baler continued to miss knots – and I fiddled and fidgeted until my neighbor stopped in w/ his visiting “brother AND BALER MECHANIC extraordinaire” – yes! After 20 minutes of adjusting, I was good to go and rain was imminent that afternoon (Sunday 7/5). I jumped on and cranked the tractor over and clangity clang – my water pump pulley had become a little loose and the fan hit the radiator. I hadn’t moved one inch and was done for awhile:mad: Then the rain started as pulled the radiator out of the tractor…

So now I’m following Donn’s comment about “baling bedding” – that’s about what I’ve got out there now.

But ya know, I have yet to see a horse whose fan goes through his radiator. One of these days I’ll learn. Dang.

[near horse]

@mstacy 9760 wrote:

Geoff,

Do you have contact information for Norm MacNair? Or any other sources of parts for McCormick mowers?

-Matt

HI MAtt,

I do have Norm’s contact info – do you need it? Another source for MD mower parts is Balster’s equipment – I think both are listed in the “equipment section” of DAP.

Are you looking for something in particular or just helping me out?

Thanks.

[Author]

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