Oh My!

The haybine repairs are working out pretty good, the pieces parts are all holding up excellent. I did get a bit of a surprise tho. The bearing cap split on me today and let the newly welded bar and wheel bearing pop out of track. I got stopped real quick and my heart about jumped out of my chest! No biggie tho, it should have been replaced but it wasn't covered by the repair moneys. Hubby wouldn't answer the phone so I had to walk some 8 miles over to a friends place and she gave me a lift home. The cap was too broke up to weld so the boy and I came up with another plan. We pieced it back together, bolted it back on, put hose clamps on it to hold the bearing in place and I cut another 20 acres before dark. All's well and I only lost 2 hours of cut time.

I gave the boy a driving lesson with the haybine, he's got some practicing to do before he can take off on his own. The right hand/left hand/clutch/steering is just a little too much for him! He'll get it tho, practice makes perfect.

The girl ran out of gas coming home from college tonight so I had to take care of that too. Hubby is still on the couch with swollen feet. Nice side effect, ye haw. Better him than me, I got too much to do!

More cutting tomorrow and maybe some raking if the humidity stays low...

Late night, busy week

I had a temporary hiccup with the computer giving me 2 days without so I haven't had a chance to respond to the new comments from my last post... I will soon tho. Turns out Microsoft sent out and update that conflicted with my Kodak Easyshare software, caused it to show a fatal error and when my anti virus updated and needed a computer reboot, Windows could not load with the looped error from the Kodak. Sweet, thanks Mr Gates, appreciate that.

So, it's been a busy weekend and lots to share. It's been cold overnight here the last 3 days, in the low 40's! Thankfully, the cantalopes don't seem to mind too much and I've been having fresh fruit for breakfast every day. The rest of the summer garden appears to be smoked tho, all but the container tomatoes. The fresh ground whole wheat made a beautiful loaf of bread with nice slivers of wheat too. I would have taken a pic of the baked bread but the kids vultured it too quick.

Hubby got a steroid shot in his elbow and we're thinking he's having some sort of side effect. The poor guy has swollen feet and legs. It looks awful. Good thing he's got a Doc appointment in the am.

I need to say a huge "thank you" to several great people that helped me to fix my haybine. You guys are great and I'm back in the hay field tomorrow. Hubby did most all of the work while I moved and restacked 200 bales of hay in the barn this weekend. I tested it this afternoon and it's all good! Just in time too, 50 acres of alfalfa await me in the morning. Thanks again you guys, you're the greatest! Is it okay if I send ya's Christmas cards this year?

I'll be in the hay field all week so farm updates will be late in coming. I hope to get right on the corn crib as soon as it's all done out there and I'll be posting pictures as well. Also, the back corn patch will need turned so I can plant the wheat I need to post about. I should have posted about it back in the spring, sorry about that, but this way you all will get it right from the start....

Oh, I found the chicken I lost. Apparently she fell off the hay bales and got stuck behind them. I found her dead as a doornail, upside down when I was restacking the hay. Well at least I know what happened to her now.

The dehydrators have been going pretty much non stop for a few weeks now, I just pulled out some herbs, sunflowers and the last of the soup beans. I've got tomatoes pulp simmering down on the stove to make sauce with, 2 wheel of traditional cheddar in the presses this evening and the second loaf of bread should be done in a few minutes....

Prepping for the fall garden

Yesterday while I was catching cows with the neighbor(some needed doctoring) hubby ground me up some fresh wheat flour. I just thought he was saying he wanted some wheat bread. I didn't hit me then but, this morning when I was reading the blogs, Alan Caruba over at Warning Signs did a post about wheat. After I read that post, a little light came on in my head. LOL, yup, just like Wiley Coyote, hehehehe. It's time to start prepping my corn patch for a winter wheat patch. The corn patch was a first year planting and that tends to make it a rough spot. It was, the corn did not do quite as well as I had hoped. I think the constant rains in May and June contributed to that too... Now it's time to add compost, till it all in and under and plant a wheat crop to improve the soil. It's just an 80'x80' spot but it will easily produce at least 10 gallons of wheat. The best part is it won't need any tending at all and goes right thru the winter months covered in snow and ice, still green, waiting for the spring sunshine. It holds the soil in place while putting much needed nutrient into it. Winter wheat is part of the normal crop rotation, even for the small farmers.

Another thing it's time for, my fall garden planting. All those plants that go well in the cool spring weather now grow well in the cooler evenings of fall. Carrots, garlic, onion, radish, borccoli...

Repair day

Hubby had an early appointment today and I slept thru the alarm for a half hour. I was tired! Was up until 4 this morning working on some cheese. I really like the cool overnight temperatures for cheese making, the results are excellent. I raked that field this morning, the one that tore my haybine up. I looked for the broken rake piece, did not succeed in finding it. Hopefully it won't end up in a round bale and I will find it easily later today after it's baled.

Yesterday I spent a few hours working with a cheddar recipe with store bought milk looking for good results that can be had from cheese making when you don't have cows nearby to get unhomogenized milk from. The process destroys the milk protiens, making it almost impossible to get a good curd for anything but soft cheeses. The curd was not quite what I expected, it was more loose and soft but it appears like it's setting up well. The wheel comes out of the press at 3:30 this afternoon, we'll see how it turns out and post on it.

Hubby found this site early this morning and I was rather amused, thought I'd share it with ya's for a laugh. It's Awkward Family Photos. I got a real kick out of the Thanksgiving letter post, the link is on the right sidebar. Hope you all get a giggle!

Anyway, to the repairs for the day... hubby's been working on the haybine since he got home. Still have to have the rake bar before I can cut with it, it'll be a while for that. But te sickle bar part of it still needs repaired. We'll be working on the wheel rake today too, it is in need of some serious repair as well. I've been working on the home made cheese press. The base needed replaced as I just had pine and with the constant soap and hot water plus the bleach for sanitation and the corrosive whey on it, the base needed replaced from warping. Can't press the cheese well if the base is warped so a new one is now in place.

Also, this morning the new faucet is functional. Just a cheapie $12 one from home depot but very useul when you don't need a pair of channel locks to turn the water on!!!! I was amazed when I went to home depot by the prices of kitchen faucets. Some of them were as expensive as $300! Why would a person need a $300 kitchen faucet??? Is this a case of more money than sense or what? I'm perfectly pleased with the $12 one, it looks good and it works just fine!

Well, the sun is shining on me today. Some folks I know up the back road called me this morning and asked for some help and in turn, it will help me. They have a broken square baler. I have a broken cutter. They will cut my hay field if I bale theirs. Works for me! Temporary fix for my immediate problem, I get the field I need cut right now cut. Whew, some good luck at last.

I got another gallon bag of white soup beans dried and packed in storage. The plants did not do as well as I had hoped they would. They set pods and started to die off. Must be the weird weather.....

Hubby is calling, I gotta go sit on the tractor and operate some levers.........