[Y 4 Ranch]

J-L
Thanks, as soon as I get my Daughter home from college I’ll attempt it again. I have only 6 Belgians and they’ll be all together this spring, the rest of my 21 hd of horse power is connected to the saddles, ranch and pack.
Too bad we don’t live closer to you, we’d enjoy the company. Unfortunately, my wife thinks that the closer I get to Dad in Miles City the more trouble she’ll have, Ha Ha ! she might be right. I can’t get her out of Cass County MN, I about as far west as I’ll be allowed on any permanent basis.
Mike

[Y 4 Ranch]

Sorry Jennifer,
I hold 4 lines, wheel and lead outsides. Doug had a set of lines made up with an additional cross check, works great.
Mike

[Y 4 Ranch]

I’m not new to this, just till this past year hadn’t really monkeyed with anything larger than 3. This past spring I hosted a workshop at our farm and our focus was on larger hitches. Randy Denton came over from Barnum, MN and along with Doug Ohrlein we put on an interesting program. We plowed, disced and planted ( with a 16 ft drill ), with every combination up to the 12. Doug brought over 8 and I had 4, along about Sunday mid-day I suggested we hook up the big drill. Doug commented he didn’t think his 8 could do her very long, I stated “Who said anything about 8.”
We discussed the situation and Doug said he didn’t have a 6 abreast, I smiled and said ” OooH! But I do.” Long story short, we did it, not once but several times now and we’ve had several drivers to include my then 16, now 17 year old son, Matt. We’ve been invited to other events and we go, I think it’s only because I have the evener.
I wish I could get the pictures uploaded, I tease Doug all the time about the need of having the Blondes to make sure the work gets done. This picture that’s up shows 5 of mine and 7 of his. This spring we’ll have 6 & 6 and have another workshop the first weekend of May, maybe focus on something else. Our last workshop had 9 teamsters and over 30 horses.
Mike

[Y 4 Ranch]

I, very much, dislike computers. It didn’t upload the other picture, sorry.

[Y 4 Ranch]

I’ll add one more since this works.
This is a 16 ft JD press drill pulled by 12 again with a power cart. My son is behind me getting ready to start his turn

[Y 4 Ranch]

@CharlyBonifaz 11332 wrote:

1. ask Duke
2. my opinion? its ok
elke

I agree with Elke and the Saddlery, I don’t see a problem with the blinders just adjust them correctly.
Mike

[Y 4 Ranch]

I had a Majaco M140 on a Majaco trailer, I was real impressed with it, I have picked up a 24 in butt cut by 10 foot log with it. I made the 9 hp Honda grunt some but she picked it. I liked to use it for feeding round bales and loose hay. The continuous rotaion on the grapple made it a cinch. The only problem was the hand operated brakes, seems someone forgot my hands were needed somewhere else.
I sold it when I was deployed over seas. I would like another one if the price was right. Mike

[Y 4 Ranch]

We’ve used a 1800 pound team of Belgians and pulled a 5 wheel Farm Hand with fore cart for most of the day. It did an OK job, no problems, just be sure your rake is properly set. I since have switched to a Vermeer V, WR22, 5 per side w/ a center wheel, pulled by a fore cart and 4 belgians about 1800 pounds.
Mike

[Y 4 Ranch]

Good Morning to all: I can see both sides here, but the problem that still lingers is how this legislation is interpreted by enforcement officials. There have been a lot of laws with good intent, some knee jerk, that have unintended consequences or enforcement had another point of view. Jen’s comments about the myths and facts is accurate, however, this proposed legislation can still have appendixes placed on the back or worded in such a fashion that is not so clear that enforcement will difficulty defining the actual violation.
I heard a reference of being south of Mason- Dixon Line, well, I’m a tad bit further north but I’ll damned sure fight for the same freedoms as you. Count me in! My suggestions now would be to contact your legislators and make certain they understand your point of view. Enough people contact them and they get the drift ( side joke for my area, 10″ of snow this past week).
Mike

[Y 4 Ranch]

I gotcha now! Thanks, I think we’re on the same page.

[Y 4 Ranch]

I understand now, I’m new so haven’t had much interaction on the politcal side. I don’t believe that everyone needs a hug and a pat on the back I also believe in a hand up (help out when in a tough situation), not a hand out; regardless of color or creed. I definately don’t think we’re on the right track right now, regardless of who’s in power.

[Y 4 Ranch]

Bret, I’m not sure what your thoughts are on the last post, I don’t understand.

[Y 4 Ranch]

I’ve been in their shop, pretty interesting place, been in the same spot for I think 3 generations. I have 2 sets of harness made by them, at least that was what I was told when I bought them, that are about 10 years old and they show the normal wear and tear but other than that they’re real good shape. Stitching has held without any problem.
Mike

[Y 4 Ranch]

Jason, I have admired your work from afar and can tell you that I feel priveledged that you’d reply. I have fed my family many times through the winter by the use of my hands and horses in the woods. I grew up around the old teamsters working in the woods in their younger years and they taught me a thing or two, I miss them as they forgot more than they could pass on to me in the short time we had together.

Joel, I have hired a couple of former state employees that are retired now to assist us in this next seasons production, one will bring his team and the other will drive one set of mine during haying. That should help out some, we’ve invited some of the draft club to have some fun too, some of them don’t have regular work for their horses.

[Y 4 Ranch]

I’m truly impressed with the amount of information that’s flowing here. The goal of the operation at this point is to get it profitable and keep it profitable, I’ve set the time table for this year. We diversified into three profit centers for a couple of reasons. The biggest reason for the lack of profitablity is that we chose to pay higher on our debt load for a shorter amount of time, the thing to me is to have everything out of debt by the time I retire,( from any outside pay checks) and I am planning to do that at 55, so working backwards that leaves me not much time to square this away. If I’m out of debt I can retire to the ranch and it’ll make my living.

Beef has been in my family since the dawn of time as I know it and I know that I should look at it as a business but there is an attachment that I really can’t explain. One major part of it is that beef can be profitable and has been, some good years, some bad, usually a seven year cycle but the last cycle was an issue. My son has great interest in the beef operation, at 16 he has a nice herd of BWF/ Black cows in addition to mine and he has the hope of running all of them sometime in the future. He’s worked hard and has earned the right to have that option, besides it keeps him working toward a goal and hopefully it’ll help pay for some of his college.

The sheep cycle is much the same as the beef but at the opposite, beef up, sheep down,sheep up, beef down. I don’t have enough of them to balance out the cattle end of it but I think in the long run we’ll be there. The original idea was to run as many as we could for our land and settings to offset my wifes pay check. The second part of my goals was to get her home from work a.s.a.p., she loves the farm but working 40 miles from home 4 days a week is a necessity at this time but I think we could make her transition to home within the next year or two providing I get a handle on this. The other reasons have to do with rotational grazing with the cattle.

The small grain is something new, being organic really did improve the farms bottom line this year, i.e. 2 gravity boxes brought in over $3000.00 on rye; from seed we kept back. Even with the high fuel prices this year our labor incuded we came out pretty good. That is the reason for the first thread, if I can lower my inputs even more by the use of the horses more could I handle the work load? I think that I’ll keep teaching, great benefit package in addition to a pay check for only a couple days a week with summer and winters usually off.

I do subscribe to the Stockman Grass Farmer, but this month ended up in the recycling and disposed before I got to even see the second page. Mom had help cleaning and it got pitched, I usually save every one and Mom knows it but sometimes the help doesn’t, so this month I missed. I will agree with you it is a great paper, I particularly pay attention to Steve Kenyon’s articles about winter grazing.

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