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Farm Journal -Cider Hill Farms


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Today, the farm tried to clean up some of the light dusting that we received last Thursday. While the snow from the snow storm several weeks ago was still frozen solid, the light dusting was cleaned up easily.

Because the snow blower is in the shop with a cracked auger, we used the road grader to remove the snow instead. A farm employee is grading all of the snow from one road into a pile:

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A view from the barnyard:

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Finishing up the road, and parking the road grader off to the side of the road:

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Meanwhile, Dave, a recently hired farm employee, is picking up the snow pile with the IH backhoe, and dumping it off to the side of the road:

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A view from the cab:

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Parking the backhoe off to the side of the road for the night:

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

*The Adventures of Marky and the evil Bazza" are now posted Here to keep the two different Cider Hill Journals seperated. *

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In the first two weeks of March, one of the things we like to do on the farm is start up our farm machinery to get the oil ready fro an oil change, and to make the farm machinery easier to start when needed in the spring. This week, we took out several tractors to get ready for the year, and get some farm work done.

Today, Dave hooked up the IH 5288 to the rear grader blade, and graded off the road from the barn to the fields. Although most of the roads were muddy, he was able to get the tractor through with no problems:

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A view from the cab:

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Continuing grading the road:

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Cleaning up the rest of the snow on the road, looking from the back of the cab:

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Turning around and heading back to the barn:

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Driving through some of the muddier parts of the road:

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Finishing up and driving back to the barn:

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Meanwhile, Gavin, a recently hired farm employee is picking up a trailer that the farm lent to a local farm:

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A view from the seat:

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Continuing down the road:

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It was not long until Gavin accidentally hit a soft spot on the road, and got the tractor stuck:

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Gavin called Dave up on his cell phone to come pull him out of the soft spot in the road. Fortunately the 5288 was still warm, so he rode down with a chain to tow out the tractor. The 5288 had a bit of trouble getting to the tractor, but it made it through the soft spots on the road:

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Hooking up the chain to the 560, and slowly pulling it out of the soft spot:

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The 5288 managed to pull the 560 out from the soft spot. Seeing as the 560 would not be able to handle the soft roads, Gavin took the IH 5288 to retrieve the trailer, while Dave parked the 560 back in the barn:

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

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Good stuff Tim, how'd you know I like playing in the mud ::);D

Great stuff Tim... please repremand Gav.... he set off in a tractor without making any checks... he's got no fuel and very little oil pressure as well  :o

Not to mention his bad driving either... fancy getting stuck  ::)

Shut it big nose, at least I haven't caused the quantity of damage to the tractors that you have ::) ::):D :D

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Another great read Tim excellent, is that your house in the backround of one of the pics? you live in a lovely part of the world.

I'd do a bit of firing and Hiring if i was you some of those workers are a danger  ;)

Too true Tim.. I will be happy to sit in on the interview for my next partner in crime... lets get rid or the evil Bazza and that pillock Gav...

Perhaps we could have "Super Garret" ... maybe I could ACCIDENTLY run over his new farm buildings  ;D

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Great stuff Tim... please repremand Gav.... he set off in a tractor without making any checks... he's got no fuel and very little oil pressure as well  :o

Not to mention his bad driving either... fancy getting stuck  ::)

Cheers Marky!  :)

Good stuff Tim, how'd you know I like playing in the mud ::);D

Shut it big nose, at least I haven't caused the quantity of damage to the tractors that you have ::) ::):D :D

Cheers Gavin...I'm going to have to side on you with this one...do you want me to find Marky's ever growing list of damages to farm equipment?  :D :D ;):)

but there is still time Gav!! :D :D :D

nice work again Tim

Cheers Ben!  :)

Another great read Tim excellent, is that your house in the backround of one of the pics? you live in a lovely part of the world.

I'd do a bit of firing and Hiring if i was you some of those workers are a danger  ;)

Cheers Garret...yes that is my house in the background mate.  :)

It will have to be a while before anyone new to the farm gets the sack...doing that requires topping Marky's list of tractor damages!  :D :D :D

Glad everyone liked this week's journal...hopefully only a few weeks more until the weather is good enough to start up the farming journals again.  :)

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Don't bother finding big nose's list Tim, if you wrote it on paper it would destroy too many acres of forest ::):D :D :D :D

Wait till he sees this, you've asked for it now Gav!  :D :D :D

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gee Tim your a great story teller thats brilliant  ;)

Cheers Steven!  :)

If all goes well, I will be starting up my journals again this Sunday.  :)

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Still a bit too much snow on the ground to start the journals, so the farm did a bit of snow and ice removal the past week.

As a change, the farm has been receiving warm weather for the past few days. With the warm weather came some rain, which aided the snow melting. This week, the farm tried to remove the rest of the snow and ice covering the roads. We were unable to finish, but should be able to finish by next weekend if the weather stays as nice as it has been.

After a night of rain, there were several puddles and get spots in the roads:

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We decided to take the 250 skid steer out to break up some of the ice and snow chunks on the road up to the barnyard:

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Ruts lets in the road by the skid steer:

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The shorter road to the barnyard looked dry, so the driver decided to go down it. Little did he know that it was extremely wet underneath the dirt:

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As the John Deere tracked tractor was being pulled out of the barn today so that the barn could get swept out, the driver got a call from the skid steer driver. The 9420 met the skid steer down by the barnyard, and pulled it out of the wet spot in the road:

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After the skid steer was pulled out of the wet spot, the driver proceeded on to the road up to the barnyard. When he got there, he cleaned enough ice off of the road that the sun would melt the remaining ice after several days:

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Meanwhile at the top of the hill, another farm employee was cleaning up the ice with the John Deere 320 skid steer:

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After a long afternoon of cleaning ice and snow from the roads, the skid steers parked up in the barnyard by the barns. The temperature is predicted to stay above freezing for the night, so the skid steers were left outside for tomorrow?s use:

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

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Brilliant Timmy B.... thaty nasty big green thing looks a brute... some great pics again Tim... well done mate... now I can see why your were gobsmacked that we were all grasscutting over here....  ;)

About time that lot melted for you huh  ;)

Cheers Marky...aye it is about time all of this snow has melted. Still another two months until anyone starts mowing their lawns around here, most of them are still frozen or bogged out at the moment.

Another good one Tim a problem though we never have is too much snow :D

Cheers Garret...be considered lucky mate!

I may have a small journal coming later on today as the weather has been cooperating, keep your eyes peeled.

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After a long period of freezing temperatures, the weather has been warming up around the farm. Spring tillage and manure spreading are now in sight, spring is now on it's way. Although cold temperatures and possibly snow are predicted soon, the ground had a chance to finally thaw out. This week, we took advantage of the thawing ground to do a bit of long needed cleaning.

The temperature was 10 degrees today, so the pigs had their first trip outside since the first week of January:

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As Zane and Martin, two recently hired farm employees, were about to pack up for the day, they both smelled the strong odor of the pig manure from early January in the outdoor pig pen. As the smell would no doubt get commented on tomorrow, they decided to stay a little longer to clean out the pig pen:

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Before they began, they knew that they would need the trailer, as there were more than a few bucket fulls of manure in the pig pen. Martin called Marky on his phone to drop off the trailer. Fortunately, Marky had not left yet, and delivered the trailer to the barnyard:

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After he delivered the trailer, he parked the Massey Ferguson at the bottom of the barnyard, and left for the day:

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After Marky dropped off the trailer, Zane jumped on the Farmall A and warmed up the engine:

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Meanwhile, Martin started up the John Deere 320 skid steer, and headed up to the barnyard:

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After Martin drove the skid steer up to the barnyard, he led the pigs down to the larger outdoor pen near the pond. This was the first time that the pigs were in the larger pen since November:

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After he had put the pigs in the larger pig pen, he drove the skid steer into the pig pen and began mucking out the pig pen:

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While Martin was mucking out the pig pen, Zane backed the Farmall and trailer into the pen to be filled up with pig manure:

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Mucking out the pig pen:

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Finishing up mucking out the pig pen. Surprisingly, there was not as much pig manure in the pig pen as expected:

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Martin parked the skid steer, and Zane went to empty the pig manure out on the flower beds. He did not bother having Martin follow him to spread the muck out on the beds, as the flowers would be coming up soon. Instead, he will spread the muck out with a shovel tomorrow:

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Driving the Farmall and trailer back up to the barnyard, and parking it in front of the barn:

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After the Farmall and trailer were parked, Martin and Zane put the pigs back in the clean pig pen:

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At the end of the day just before they were leaving, they spotted a doe and to fawns in back of the barnyard. They looked to be the same ones spotted in the woods last November:

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A job well done!

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

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