CCF

John Deere 2010 with loader and several Ford 17xx utility tractors out in the western part of the state. 

Happy birthday James

another good one beetwood    even got Gav there now my goodness lot of tea and scones being needed.... :D

Cheers Rick! 

Great yard you have there Stephen, amazing how much progress you have made on this recently 

As I will be gone this weekend, I am posting the farm journal early. I will start the farming season again next week with Farm Journal #1 if all goes to plan.

Much to our surprise, last night's winds did more damage then expected. Fortunately no buildings or pieces of farm machinery had trees knocked on them, but there were several good sized trees that came down in the woods last night. Much to the farm owner's dismay, the trees required moving for opening day next week. We spent most of the day cutting up and moving the trees, which put us further behind schedule on cleaning up the farm than anticipated. As a result, most of our full time farm workers have volunteered to work overtime next week on Monday through Friday, from the hours of 6am to 8pm. Thanks to the generosity of our farm workers, we may be able to get the farm ready in time for opening day.

When the farm workers came at 7am, they found several large tree branches in the way of the farm machines that fell during the night. They picked them up and got right to work cleaning up the downed trees:

The downed trees were larger than they expected:

Zane was assigned to hauling out one of the trees with the 430 crawler, while Marky was assigned to hauling out the other large tree with the 2010 crawler:

Once the trees were hauled to a more open area, they cut up the trees to more manageable pieces with chainsaws:

Once they finished, Zane loaded up the pieces of wood into the dump truck with the loader, while Marky drove the dump truck to and from the brush pile:

The new road came in handy when driving the wood down to the brush pile:

The downed trees and branches were cleaned up by 4pm. As there would not be enough light to begin cleaning out the pond, the farm owner had the farm employees work on the stone wall. Gavin picked up some rocks with the skid steer for the stone wall:

Loading up:

When the dump truck bed was full with rocks, Marky drove the load over to the stone wall, where the farm owner was watching the evil Bazza position the rocks in the stone wall. The farm owner was also watching Marky to make sure that he did not accidentally  dump a load of rocks on the evil Bazza:

After the truck came back, Gavin resumed picking rocks:

After Gavin began loading up the dump truck for the second time, one of the hydraulic pistons began to crack, leaving the loader stuck in mid air. Gavin decided that the skid steer had enough for the day, so he retired it down by the pig pens:

Some significant progress was accomplished on the stone wall, so the farm owner let the farm employees leave early for the day:

At the end of the day, all of the equipment was parked down by the pig pens again. A jack was put under the loader of the skid steer for the night. The farm owner is giving the weekend off to the full time workers so they can catch up on sleep for the coming week, so several of the part time workers will haul the skid steer into the barn to fix this weekend:

A view of the farm from the opposite hill, it will not be long until the trees start waking up and growing leaves:

The farm owner had no trouble locking up the farm thanks to the nearly full moon:

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

Photobucket changing it's appearance for the umpteenth time this week 

Cleaning up the debris from last night's wind storm 

Oh how I wanted to haul this away with the BEETie mobile...if I could only just get it down  :D

Some great pictures guys 

Will the competition be ending on the 31st, or will it be extended?

WOW David, some excellent pictures of farm work in Louisiana! I think this has to be your best journal to date!

No Marcus... the MM's were the Super 90's I think  - Longer ones  \

I thought I remember someone saying on TTS that these were really Olivers Badged as Massey Fergusons, I will try to find the TTS post.  \

Windy here today, good job I put the BEETie mobile in the garage this afternoon, else the cowl might have cracked from a falling branch.

Another great piece Anders, I cannot believe the functionality of your r/c tractors and implements. Once quick question, where did you find the 1/16th figure that is in the tractor cab?

Today, we did a little bit of work with our new crawler. Now that most of the dirt pile in front of the pond has been moved, we are able to create a small road that leads from the bridge over the irrigation ditch, to the road leading to the woods. We had a similar road on the farm back in 2004, but the road was used for a spot to dump dirt when the new excavator arrived. Now that we are opening the farm to customers, we want to make the farm easier to travel. The new roads will also make routes from the barn to the woods easier, particularly for new farm employees.

As the farm employees knew that they had a long task before them, they arrived early at the farm around 7:00 am. We have a number of projects to complete before the opening day of the farm on the 7th of April, so the farm is working in full swing. In this picture, Marky is warming up the John Deere crawler for a long day's work:

Once Marky let the crawler warm up for 10 minutes, he drove it down to the road leading to the woods, and began his work assignment of the day:

In order to make the new road easier to get to, Marky cleaned off the road to the woods of debris:

Pushing the debris into a pile off to the side. Martin will come by and clean it up with the skid steer later on in the day:

Meanwhile while Marky was finishing cleaning up the debris in the road, Martin was getting used to operating the loader tractor by picking out rocks from the ground, and moving them with the tractor:

Once Martin had finished picking out all of the rocks, he dumped them off to the side. The rocks will be sued for a rock wall along the road to the woods once construction on the new road has finished:

After Martin finished cleaning out all of the rocks, he parked the tractor off to the side so Marky could get by. In these pictures, Marky is leveling the ground, and preparing for a new layer of dirt to be added to it:

After the ground was leveled, Gavin came in with several loads of dirt for the road:

Once Gavin had emptied the dirt, Marky graded the dirt and spread it on the new road. After he compacted it, the new road was finished:

The farm employees were running ahead of time and the farm owner did not have anything left for them that they could finish with the time left in the day, so they parked up the machines near the pig pens, and left for the day at around 4pm:

Some shots of the new stone wall along the road to the woods. The farm owner is quite happy with the new stone wall:

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

Another good journal David, glad to see you are still about. 

Another good set of pictures Rick, I wonder if the GC2300 is any good for doing wheelies? 

Look at that Ford, she's in good nick! 

Oh right the red ones are ok too  :D

Nice collection of pics mate...the shot with the sun shining on the back of the straw chopper is an impressive one. 

Nice work Nick...looks great just as it is mate. 

Nice work there Mark, looks quite realistic. Like the light on the side of the house, adds more to the realism. 

Cheers Marky 

Nice one Timmy Beetwood... Health & Safety would love you in the UK... I think you need to go on a course with our PDC to learn just how to load and unload heavy machinary..

Then again... ummm... the mini-digger affair.. second thoughts... carry on regardless mate 

Nice little machine you have purchased there mate... can I run over Barry with it in the other topic please

NO 

Good start mate, will enjoy watching your farm progress 

Recently, we acquired a new crawler for the farm. We found a John Deere 440 crawler with front blade that was recently rebuilt in the want ads that was being listed for a reasonable price. Without wasting any time, we drove the flatbed down to the seller to look at the crawler. We liked what we saw and heard when the owner started it up and demonstrated it for us, so we decided to buy it. We will not be getting rid of the 2010 crawler, but we will likely be leaving it in the forest for forest work, while our new crawler handles jobs around the farmyard.

Loading up the crawler at the seller's house:

Arriving at the farm and unloading by the larger pig pens:

As a testimony to how heavy the crawler is, one of the ramps cracked in half while unloading the crawler from the flatbed. Fortunately nothing was damaged:

Once the machine was safely unloaded, a farm employee tested out the new crawler:

Backing away from the mulch pile:

Parking the crawler near the larger pig pens. The farm has several projects that they want to accomplish within the next few days, so the crawler was left outside for the night:

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

Reasonably good weather for the past few days, the temperature has managed to stay around 10 degrees. Currently snowing now, the weather forecast makes it sound like the snow will be gone within a few days though. 

Like the tracked JD!

The picture of the rear of the JD ripping was taken at a good angle- looks very realistic.

Cheers Kevin 

Great story - and I never knew that these models really work 

Cheers Mandy 

Timmy B... how did I miss this thread... I've missed 3 Journals... not just 1 

Where do I start... the pigs... the pics of the Skidsteer in the mud... the grading pics... I could go on for hours... sufficed to say Tim... superb journals mate... please keep em coming..

But clean My tractor please 

Cheers Marky...cleaned the MF off today after it sat around for about a week dirty  :D

Excellent again mate......I like my skid steer...... ;)

Cheers mate...glad you like your skid steer 

I have another journal coming later on...keep your eyes peeled... 

Good stuff mate, nice to see the carpet farm busy again.