January 2012

We've modified the old sheep pen into farrowing and sorting pens in the barn. This will give us more space for piglets since three of our sows are due in mid-January.

Its been really warm out the last couple days, the pigs enjoy sun bathing.

Another sunbather.

Recent arrivals, these piglets were born a couple weeks ago.

Jake and my dad working on our grainary.

We purchased a feed truck a couple weeks ago.

One of its uses will be for filling up our creep feeders.

I used 5 gallon pails to do this in the past and it would take about an hour, or longer depending on where the feeders were located.

Now we can transfer a large amount of feed in a few minutes.

We'll also use it to put grain in the storage bin above our grainry.

We're renting heated workshop space from a neighbor to work on our combines and other machinery.

In this combine the weld on an auger broke so I had to replace it.

October 2011

The second annual harvest trail dinner held at Freehands Farm in Ashland was a success. The dinner featured local foods prepared by different restaurants.

There was also a silent auction auction with items from farms participating in the harvest trail.

Feremented food from Spirit Creek Farm.

Mead from White Winter Winery.

Goat cheese from Sassy Nanny.

Some of the husking wheels on our corn picker lost fingers.

Removing the broken parts.

Back together and ready to go!

Its bad when bearing come out of a gear box looking like this. We had to replace one of the gear boxes on our corn picker since the bearings and gears where shot.

Our resident forester Adam cutting down dying white pine near our grainery. We'll save the wood and have it milled into lumber.

September 2011

September Farmers market, sales were still down this year due to the economy.

The tomatoes on the right are a heirloom variety called 'Orange Russian.'

Our pork chorizo is being incorporated into delicious breakfast burritos prepared and sold by Deep Roots Farm.

August 15-21

I'm heating up the drum speed adjustment crank on our model 72 combine. The drum is the first step in the threshing process (removing the grain from the plant). The drum speed can be adjusted depending on the crop being harvested.

Success! The crank turns.

I also noticed that the rattles, the part the bring the grain up into the combine had jumped off their cog and bent the mounting bracket.

That meant I had to take out the part and replace it.

Finally got the old part out.

Luckily we have a parts combine. The damaged part is in back.


Getting things put back together.

Combining spring wheat.

Ben and Jake putting the roof on the grainery.

August 8-14

Grainery construction.

The plan is to store grain upstairs and grind flour below.

Using a moisture meter to test the moisture content of rye.

Our Allis Chlamers Model 66 combine we purchased recently.

An unusual feature on this combine is an extra axle so four tires can be mounted.

The manual says to use four tires if the ground is to soft. I'm not sure for what crops though, if the ground is to soft to support the combine then its probably to wet to harvest.

Winter rye ready to harvest.

The First Week of August

Two week old piglets on pasture.

We lost a disk blade on our Oliver disk.

Pigs taking their afternoon nap.

Jake and Adam building a portable pig shelter.


Footings for the grainery building.

Pouring the slab for our grainery.

Smoothing out the slab.

Carrots before weeding (right) after (left).

Disking

July 18-24

Piglets that are approximately 1 month old out on pasture. They're starting to eat solid food now.

The gardens are about a week behind this year, normally we'd just start picking summer squash about now.

We should have green beans in about a week.

Putting a new deck on a set of new holland running gear, the original deck wasn't made out of treated lumber and rotted away. We'll use this wagon for hauling round bales.