CCF

FARM JOURNAL #11- FALL FARM PARTY

Every year some time in the end of September or the beginning of October when most of the crops are harvested, we at Cider Hill Farms like to throw a large party to thank all of our customers for supporting local agriculture for another year. We had another great turn out this year, with over 150 people attending this event, some people from farther places than others. Lots of people met for the first time from near and far, so overall we are very happy with the result. Hopefully the farm will be able to throw this party again next year, local agriculture is on the rise again for the first time in many years.

On Friday, we got our John Deere gator back from the dealers with a new gearbox installed. Marky backed the Gator off of the flatbed trailer, while Mandy watched on, safety tickets in hand:

After he backed off of the flatbed, Gavin hooked up a smaller trailer to the Gator, and they went down to the field to pick up a few pumpkins for the fall party on Saturday:

Once they got down to the field, Marky picked up several good size pumpkins, while Gavin pushed over one of our jumbo pumpkins. Together, they managed to get the pumpkin on the wagon:

Once they got all of the pumpkins onto the wagon, they drove up to the barnyard and parked the gator off to the side. Work was still to be done on the farm before they could set down the pumpkins:

Down by where the pig and sheep pens were, Garret, Martin, and the evil Bazza were busy at work. As the vandalized pens were beyond repair, the farm owner decided that it would be more efficient to put in new and stronger pens later on in the fall. Garret popped out off of the posts with the backhoe, while the evil Bazza shifted the 90lb posts by hand onto the Skid steer pallet forks. When the forks had several posts on them, Martin raised the boom and dropped them into the back of the dump truck. The process went like clockwork with the three of them working together:

For the time being, we have moved around our farm animal's pens. The Pigs are now spending their time inside the barn, while the goats and sheep are occupying the outdoor pig pen in the baryard. Until we have the time to build new pens, this is probably how the animals will stay:

After all of the work was done down by the old pens, Gavin went down with the IH and mower and cleaned up all of the brush and roots sticking up:

The place looked much better once it was mowed:

As we did not have enough light to keep going after the mowing was done, everyone packed up for the day and left. The next day, we found a nice surprise in the farm drive. A few weeks back, the farm owner made the decision that work was not being done fast enough around the farm, and we needed more ways to get around. Therefore, the farm purchased a second Gator, this time a TH series, a faster and larger Gator than the one that the farm has been using. Originally the dealer said that the Gator would not be delivered until next spring due to an availability issue through Deere, but apparently several dealers had backed out of their orders, leaving other dealers a few extra Gators. The farm owner test drove the gator around the farm on Saturday morning, he was pleased by how it performed:

Several hours later, Rick, an old friend of the farm came into the farm from out west for the celebration. He volunteered to help collect firewood in the woods with Marky as he arrived a few hours before the party officially began. Rick had a go at driving the new Gator down into the woods, he seemed to like it:

Once they were out in the woods, they stopped and picked up kindling on the forest floor. As there has been no rain for weeks on end, all of the wood was dry enough to burn in the bonfire. Before they knew it, they had a heeping bed and cart full of kindling:

After they had all the kindling and wood that they needed, they headed back to the area where the part was going to be held:

When they arrived, the Farm Owner and the evil Bazza were busy making a few final preparations for the event. The evil Bazza was digging out a pit by hand for the fire pit, and the Farm Owner was putting rocks around the edge of the pit. When the evil Bazza was finished digging, everyone joined in lining the edge of the pit with rocks:

Once they were done with the rocks, everyone joined in throwing in the kindling into the fire pit. When they had most of the kindling in the pit, they used the dump feature on the Gator to easily empty the bed of the rest of the kindling:

Once they were done setting up the bonfire, everyone went off and finished decorating around the farm. Several employees placed hay bales and pumpkins around the fire pit, while the farm owner got the hay ride set up:

Though it sometimes may seem like it, good favors are not forgotten easily. The local farm that Cider Hill Farms and several other farms took care of around Thanksgiving in their time of need brought up two of their calves for the day to give some of the kids something to look at near the main party area during the party:

With five minutes to spare after everything was set up, Garret and Marky parked the Gators up in the lawnmower barn, while the rest waited for people to show up:

As five o'clock struck, cars and trucks started pouring into the farm drive. We could already see that this would be a popular event by how many people poured in within the first five minutes:

People who visited enjoyed the hay ride, or a nice walk around the farm:

Finally at the end of the day, the farm had their famous Bonfire, certainly one of the main highlights of the party. During the party, people stayed and conversed with others, and enjoyed some of the food brought by visitors of the party. Overall, good spirit was shown by everyone in the party, and the party turned out to be a big success:

For a short video of the bonfire, please click on the photo below:

Hate to say it, but that's all for this week folks! Hope you had as much fun reading the journal as I did making it.

Next week's journal will focus on fall preparation of the farm, and harvesting Onions and Squash.

A few tractors spotted at the Topsfield Fair last Sunday 

Kubota stand:

Nice Farmall C:

John Deere something or other parked up in the back of the cattle exhibit:

Wish I could have got a few more shots, but the crowd was ludacris after noontime 

thought you would have know better than making a comment like that timmy marky will be after ya

are there many  landinis arround over in the states then??? always asumed it was a euro brand to a certain degree

There's a few around here mate, think they get some in from Canada but not exactly sure  \

Johny- Actually i'm pretty sure that was a Wide Front model 

Sure it hadn't broken down Tim, it looks a bit suspect to me! 

Was smoking just a bit the night before when it was out mowing, wouldn't be suprised  :D

Weres the big stuff?

We don't really see many of the big 4wd's on the Northeast coast mate, have to go to the Midwest for those 

Nice Landini spotted at the real Cider Hill Farm last Sunday:

Thanks for the info Tim.... they sure like to get the most out of their castings Ertl 

So.... which one of you Shermans is going to "look out" for a muddy one for me then 

If I see one at the local co-op store, i'll be sure to put it aside for you mate 

Another new release from Ertl, thought a few of you might want to see this. Good to see that they are now expanding the muddy concept beyond the John Deere models. I have posted up more information on the model in the new releases page if anyone is interested:

http://www.farmtoysforum.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=160&Itemid=74

Looks nice mate, good to see someone who took the time and effort to do the conversion accurately 

Some more great stuff Sean, wheat affect looks good 

Happy birthday F-P Junior 

Here is a few pictures of some of the tractors that I spotted on my holiday out west. Apologies for the quality on some of these, most of the pictures were taken through a tinted window while moving 30-45mph.

Nice old Heston swather parked up:

John Deere CX Gator in Zion:

Older Combine, not sure of the manufacturer. Pretty sure this was the first combine I saw before  :D

This definately was the find of the trip...Massey Ferguson 180 pulling a New Holland 114 windrower:

Still was parked up when I came back the next morning:

John Deere A:

Old Forsdon parked up:

That's all from this trip, hope you all enjoyed.

Nice work mate, looks the part 

Although...I think the Massey Massive may need to start watching you..it has been a while since you have done any MF conversions, and all we have been seeing are Ford conversions  :D

Drank too much water at work...ended up paying for it for the rest of the day  :D

Dealt with the #$%er at work again today, and left early as there was nothing to do. Spent the res to f the day working on my Model Farmer articles. 

Happy birthday Nigel

Love the new sign Tim... but this safety stuff is keeping me sooooo busy, I'm soon gonna need a pay rise

Ok the farm owner has cut you a deal...he says that you now get 25% of every safety ticket you give to Marky...by the time he pays up, you will be so rich that your children will never have to work!  :D

Thanks Mandy 

maybe not  :D

Could pull some real wheelies with that combination... :D

FARM JOURNAL #10

As we are moving into August, the weather begins to change for the better, and the season prepares to shift. Over the past week, the temperatures have been staying relatively low, and we have been having several cool mornings. In just a few days, we will begin transplanting our pumpkin and squash plants to the field, the final crops of the season. So far, this year has been an even bigger success than last year, and we have managed to keep on top of all of the farm tasks. As we go into the fall season, our chances of a good harvest are on the positive side. Over the next few weeks, we will try to maintain our crops as best as possible to get a good harvest in the fall.

Fall seems to be coming a bit early this year. some trees have already started shedding their leaves over the past week:

On Monday, Zane and Martin did a bit of weeding around the farm:

On Tuesday, Mandy informed the farm owner that according to new regulations, a set of professional ramps would have to be used when loading vehicles, or a docking area would have to be used in the future. As the cost of the professional ramps was unjustifiable, we decided to make a loading dock for the farm. After looking around the farm, we found that the cliff from the barnyard overlooking the road to the pond would work with a few adjustments. First, Zane loaded up some dirt in the loader tractor bucket, and dumped it where the new ramp would go:

Next, he spread the dirt with the rear grader blade. We were surprised just how little work this project took. Next time we go rock picking in the fields, we will dump the rocks under the ramp to form a strong base:

On Wednesday, the Gator transmission failed again for the second time. This time, the farm owner decided to let the local dealer have a look at it. This gave us a prime chance to test out our new loading dock. Gavin and Marky pushed the Gator, while Martin steered and braked:

As they got to the ramp, Gavin and Marky gave a final push, and let the Gator roll onto the flatbed truck. Martin put on the E brake, and put blocks of wood under the rear wheels. Mandy watched on in the John Deere loader cab, Safety ticket book in hand. Fortunately, she said that the ramp was very well designed, and complied with safety standards:

On Thursday, Gavin fixed the IH 300U from the damage that the evil Bazza and the Blue man had inflicted on it the previous Sunday. When he was working on the tractor, he got his first safety ticket because he did not disconnect the spark plugs before trying to work on the machine. The ticket Mandy gave him was a $25, because it was his first time:

After a bit of work, Gavin was able to fix the tractor. He mowed down a few long weeds on the farm to test for any problems:

On Friday, Dave did a bit of woodworking on the farm. He made a large fence to go up in back of the barnyard so the deer would not go into the barnyard, and continued working on a new sign for the farm entrance that he had been slowly working on for a few weeks:

On Saturday, the paint dried on the new sign, so we decided to put it up as we had good weather. Garret and Gavin carried the sign out of the barn, and lifted it enough so Dave could slip it on top of a pallet on the skid steer:

Once the sign was on the skid steer, Dave brought it down to the farm entrace with the skid steer, while Garret and Gavin followed on foot:

When they got down to the farm entrance, Garret and Gavin held the sign while Dave slipped it off the pallet and positioned it with the skid steer:

When they were done positioning, Dave shut off the skid steer, and they stood from a distance to make sure that the sign looked good where it was:

A close up of the front and back of the sign:

The sign was placed successfully, so they packed up everything, and left the farm for the day as there was not anything else to do around the farm. Next week, we will put some bark mulch around the sign and plant a few plants around it:

Hate to say it, but that's all for this week folks!

I would like to thank Dave McQuerrey "dmac" for making the sign, fence, and pallets

Yes more of that McCormick pics please Tim but are you sure its a W8 and not a W9. As far as I'm aware there were W4's W6's and W9's but I'm not always right!!!!

Here you go Bill:

1) Parked up next to the AC

2) Rear end of the McCormick

I will try to get some more pictures of it when I am back from my holiday.

These two were spotted at the Rowley town common yesterday during the farmer's market. More photos of each tractor are available upon request.

1) McCormick WD-8

2) Allis Chalmers (did not find a model number on the machine, I am sure someone here will know what it is)

Woke up at 730am to go to work, only to find that everything had been done and I was not needed today...Could have got a few extra hours of sleep instead!  :D

Rain with a bit of thunder and lightening at the moment...one bolt struck a little bit off behind the house just a few minutes ago...sounded quite strange after it hit  \

Some more nice additions mate, amazing how large Ford Farm has grown by looking at the background of the pictures. Nice job as usual mate 

FARM JOURNAL #9 : PT.2

Over the past few days, we have been busy on the farm, particularly in weeding. After weeding, the crops appeared to be in better condition than we assumed.

On Friday, the Farm Owner tried to fix the Gator, by propping it up with a few pieces of wood, and sliding under it to fix the problem. Of course, Mandy say him, and tried to comment that he was not safely holding up the Gator. After listening to Mandy try to persuade him to safely lift the Gator in the future, the Farm Owner told her to go clean out the Pig Pen with a disgusted tone. Gavin and Marky began to crack up in the corner of the barn after she left:

The Boss did manage to get the Gator to move again, but it moved much slower, and the gearbox makes a small noise. We will be sending the Gator to the dealer to be properly fixed by the end of the coming week. To make sure that the gearbox would suddenly not fail, the Farm Owner drive the Gator around the farm several times to see if the gearbox would give out again. Fortunately, it did not give any problems:

On Saturday, the farm focused on cleaning up the onion crops of weeds. The crops had some weeds, but definitely not as many as last year:

The Farm received some good and bad news on Saturday morning. The good news was that we were now able to drive out our machinery in the controversial land that we had been leasing, and the bad news was that we were no longer to farm the land, because too high a percentage of the land was deemed to be wetlands. Thankfully though, we had our loader tractor back on Saturday, so the farm employees could throw the weeds in the bucket as they moved along. This year, we only got a little over a loader bucket full of weeds, a good sign:

When the bucket filled up, one farm employee drove the tractor over to the ever expanding compost pile, and dumped the weeds:

When the field was done being weeded, the tractor was parked out of the way in front of the fields:

The fields looked much better after being weeded. Our crop yield is by far the healthiest onion yield in years. It will not be long before we start harvesting some of the onions:

At the end of the day, the farm employees sat around the loader tractor and Gator, and shared a few drinks on the Farm Owner for a job well done on the farm so far this summer:

Hate to say it, but that's all for this week folks! Next week's journal will focus on general summer work around the farmyard, and the fields.