Farm Journal -Cider Hill Farms

[CCF]

Excellent mate......Really enjoyed reading that......Sorry it took me a bit to get around to reading it...... ;)

Glad you liked it mate 

[smallclaas]

Once again Tim a great read, the pigs look happy like that Massey is it Ertl?

[CCF]

Once again Tim a great read, the pigs look happy like that Massey is it Ertl?

Cheers Garret, aye the Massey is made by Ertl. 

[FB]

nice work again Tim!!!

;D ;D ;D

[CCF]

nice work again Tim!!!

;D ;D ;D

Cheers Ben! 

[CCF]

Like in most situations, the weather before a large storm is usually better than normal. This week before the large snow storm, we experienced this situation, in which the temperature rose to nearly 20 degrees. While the weather was nice, we could only do so much on the farm, as half of the ground was still frozen, and the other half mud. As we are expecting out excavator to return from the Caterpillar dealer within the next week, we decided to do a few jobs around the pond that could not be done with the excavator. Now that these jobs are done, it will be much easier to finish digging the pond when the excavator comes back from service and repair. Below are some pictures of how me made use of our warm spring day.

In order to expand the pond more towards the grass field, Martin moved the pile of dirt over to the larger pile:

Driving towards the pile:

Dumping the dirt into the pile:

Meanwhile, Dave is filling in some of the corners of the pond with the IH backhoe. Last May, the pond filled up from all of the rain showers, and flooded parts of the grass field. Before the middle of April roles in, the goal of the farm is to make sure that the pond will not flood when the spring rain starts:

Dumping a load of dirt into the corners of the pond:

After Martin finished moving the dirt pile, he pushed back the dirt pile several feet towards the woods, making it easier for larger vehicles to drive on the road to the right of the pond. Marky is grading down the area recently drove on by the skid steer:

Finishing a pass:

Meanwhile, the evil Bazza is beginning to pay off his large debt to the farm by cleaning up the piles of dirt that Marky graded off to the side. The farm owner and several police have been monitoring the evil Bazza all day:

Dumping the dirt into a pile:

The farm managed to finish all of their tasks by 6pm. They parked the farm machinery off to the side of the pond for the night, knowing that they would most likely be using it again the next day before the snow began:

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

[CCF]

Today, we ripped up some new ground for fields in the spring. Hopefully if all goes well, we will be adding manure to this field in two weeks.

Driving down the main road from the center of town to the farm with the tracked tractor and ripper. We are bringing the tractor back from it's servicing at the local John Deere dealer at around 1pm when there are no cars about:

Arriving at the field:

Ripping up the field:

Parking the tractor at the end of the field. We will finish the field tomorrow when there is more light:

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

[BGU]

Like the tracked JD!

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

[Lady Ferguson]

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

[Lord Ferguson]

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 

[NewHolland2]

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

[CCF]

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... 

[CCF]

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!

[Lord Ferguson]

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 

[CCF]

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 

[CCF]

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!

[CCF]

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!

[Rick]

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

[CCF]

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

Cheers Rick! 

[Lord Ferguson]

Two more cracking journals there Timmy B... Looks like I had a great time on that JD crawler... still... at least it's not green... As for me tipping a loaf of rocks on the evil bazza.... as if I would 

[rich.new holland]

Two more cracking journals there Timmy B... Looks like I had a great time on that JD crawler... still... at least it's not green... As for me tipping a loaf of rocks on the evil bazza.... as if I would 

??? marky

well done tim 

[CCF]

Two more cracking journals there Timmy B... Looks like I had a great time on that JD crawler... still... at least it's not green... As for me tipping a loaf of rocks on the evil bazza.... as if I would 

Cheers mate... 

??? marky

well done tim 

Cheers Rich 

[Lord Ferguson]

??? marky

well done tim 

Oops... I meant a LOAD of rocks...  - Borrowing Seans keyboard  :D

[CCF]

Today on Easter Sunday, the farm hosted a tractor egg hunt for several of the members of FTF. The objective of this event was for each member to drive around on a tractor, and pick up an egg with a jumbo Jaffa Cake inside. The event was a big success, and the farm would like to host more FTF events in the future with more members.

As Marcus could not make it to the egg hunt, he volunteered to hide the jumbo easter eggs around the farm on Saturday evening:

All of the members that participated got up early on Easter Sunday, and arrived at the farm around 7:30. They then got in their tractors, and waited until the farm owner gave them permission to begin:

As soon as the farm owner blew the whistle to begin, the tractors scrambled everywhere:

First off is Andy the boss racing down the farm track on his new New Holland 4wd:

He spots a bright orange egg at the end of the track, sitting on top of the dirt pile:

Next up is Jason in a Case Quad Trac:

He spots his egg near the woods after a bit of searching:

After Jason is Gavin on the old IH 560:

He spots an egg in the pig pen almost instantly:

Next comes Ben:

Ben finds his egg right near the grass plants by the road leading to the entrance to the farm. Some members claimed to have seen him driving his egg away to a pawn shop to exchange for 99p:

After Ben follows Marky:

Marky finds his egg at the base of the oak tree in the middle of a small grass field:

Following next is Nathan:

Nathan finds an egg with his favourite colour on it under a bridge:

After Nathan comes Sean roaring along in the IH 5288:

Sean finds his egg in the middle of a new field started last spring on the farm:

Garret and Mark follow after Sean:

They both found their eggs on the sides of the large field:

Following next is Rick on a John Deere utility tractor:

Rick finds his egg near the new field the farm recently started:

Following up are Martin and Will:

Each of them find their eggs near the large field:

Last but not least, Scott takes up the lead using a different means of transportation:

Scott finds his egg at the base of the compost pile:

Even though he was not invited, the evil Bazza made an appearance at the event:

After trying to steal Marky's eggs and failing, he went to look for his own egg. Fortunately he found an extra one on the road to the woods:

After everyone was done collecting their eggs, they lined up across the firm and dry part of the large field for a group photo. Everyone even decided to include the evil Bazza in their photo:

Visible in the pictures are some signs of new life of the farm. After Easter, the grass seems to grow again and the trees begin to grow their leaves again. Spring has officially arrived, and it will not be long until it is in full swing:

That's all for this week folks, hope you enjoyed. Next week will be Farm Journal #1

[FW]

Very good Tim!