My recent years' "woodworking"...

[dpb]

He was an unusual duck; extremely talented mechanically and an excellent worker but absolutely unable to maintain a long-term job if it was tightly structured. Had all the certifications for aircraft mainframe maintenance and repair, had been in Rome w/ TWA when they went belly-up, eventually had gotten on w/ Boeing in Wichita and got hit in the big cut there. Had some experience in plastic injection as a kid growing up in Miami so had heard of a supervisory position available in El Paso was why he had ridden the freight down there. W/ not buy one or two teeth left, unkempt hair to his shoulders and all he wasn't exactly corporate America's vision of supervisory talent so that didn't pan out! :)

He did yeoman work and was about 90% of the labor in the paint prep and painting while I was doing the other structural and rebuilding the couple of doors and so on as he wasn't an expert woodworker w/ all his other talents...As you can see in the one where he's working on the west end, it was sanded and washed over every square inch before painting--a tremendous amount of time and effort; I've no idea how many manhours we did spend in that prep work, I regret not keeping a better diary.

I'll try to post some of the detail work and as said, I'm trying to get ready for I think the third winter to get the windows done over the winter plus hopefully the mow floor areas that buckled owing to the time while the roof was leaking badly.

[Swingman]

Ditto ...

[Swingman]

Yabbut, back then If you liked your insurance plan, you could keep it...

[dpb]

Thanks, I'll try to keep it at least sorta' on topic... :)

[Scott Lurndal]

We had a chopper that we pulled with the MF180, and a blower to fill the silo. Mainly chopped corn for silage.

Threshing oats was actually enjoyable - it was a multi-neighbor event - two farms shared the binder and threshing machine; we'd set the threshing machine up in the center of the field early in the AM (level it, then grease every one of the hundred+ (at least it seemed that way) zirks) then thresh until dusk. We ran the thresher with a Farmall M, and used either a Farmall B or a Farmall Super C to fetch the shocks.

Baling the resulting pile of straw was a dirty, messy job.

[dpb]

...

...

Yes, we had ensilage cutter (2-row Gehl's) and an Allis blower for silo-filling as well. Too dry here for reliable dryland corn; we used other sorghum feed crops for the ensilage source. Of course, the irrigated folk use corn for ensilage altho they all use trench or surface pile storage any longer; nobody fills an upright any more.

In the olden days, the blower was run off the flat belt w/ an old 'M'; it was converted to direct PTO drive and one of the smaller Deere's used. We went from M to 400 to 560 Farmalls before the 4010 and up Deere transition as the power unit for the chopper.

I broke out the old ensilage blower a couple of years ago to run a bunch of old straw bales thru to break up for use when we regraded the yards around the house to restore drainage. After 60 plus years including the "Dirty 30s" and the 50s in particular when had so much dirt blowing the elevation had increased around the house by as much as 8-10" so it was sitting in a hole when we returned that had caused some foundation settling...drug it back down to more nearly its original level to reestablish drainage for when it does actually rain on occasion...when Dad had his "retirement" sale a few things either didn't sell or were never collected by the buyer; the ensilage blower was one that had no bidders. A-C blowers were the best; they, unlike Gehl or all others had curved blades. Story goes they reached a limit of how high could lift ensilage with flat blades at reasonable rpm and somehow the problem got over to the Allis Chalmers power generation people and a steam turbine engineer designed their blower blades for them.

I've thought if ultimately get the shop really set up to take that blower as the core of a dust collector...and how's that for back "on topic"??? :)

[Unquestionably Confused]

[snip]

Pretty smooth segue. If you do use that for a dust collector, won't you have to bolt the Powermatic table saw to the floor? I can see where you might have a problem loosing the off cuts as well. ;)

[dpb]

...

Actually, it probably is too large but there's a smaller one left from the silo unloader that is probably what I'll actually try it with. It's about 24" diam instead of 36 or 42 or whatever the ensilage blower actually is (I really don't know w/o measuring it but it is sizable).

The first picture on the left of the first link is the one we've got; the next to the right is the later, big brother version...

The second link is a brochure picture showing the curved paddles. It shows unloading out of the back of a truck which was prone to the whole load sliding out at once and slugging the blower. We used a custom-built drag box that Dad designed that let you dump the truck onto it and it was driven by variable-speed hydraulic motor to allow precise control over feed rate to the blower. Once had a third to half the truck unloaded, then could just finish dumping on the drag and head back to the field instead of waiting to finish pushing it all thru the blower before heading back out. Key to not keep the cutter waiting for longer hauls...

[DerbyDad03]

Look up the history of Portland Maine. City hall burnt down twice, once during the Great Fire of 1866 and then again in 1908. The 1866 fire was the largest fire in the US up until Mrs. O'Leary's cow caused some minor damage in Chicago 5 years later.

After the second fire, they rebuilt City Hall using granite, concrete, slate and other fire resistant materials. This was a state of the art building in 1909. Many others took their cue from City Hall and began to build fire resistant buildings.

In 2012, Portland's "new" City Hall celebrated it's 100th birthday.

[Scott Lurndal]

The picture below is similar to the blower we used, although ours was Massey Harris/Ferguson, I believe. The local implement dealer was Massey Ferguson/Hesston (the JD dealer was 30 miles away).

scott

[dpb]

...

In _those_ daze, we had Oliver, Minneapolis-Moline, Allis-Chalmers, JI Case, International/Farmall and Massey-Harris as well as Deere dealerships all in town. Now there's only Deere local; nearest red (Case/International) is 60 miles. The Deere dealership also distributes for most of the major implement manufacturers but they're the only factory dealership in the county. They're actually one of if not the largest single-location independent Deere dealerships in the country by sales volume I'm told...

[dpb]

On 11/09/2015 10:59 PM, [e-mail] wrote: ...

Well, today is one of the those W KS days w/ wind sustained 30-40+, projected as much as 60 gusts, so not a lot I'm wanting to do outside... :(

So, here are a few from haying a few years ago when had some rain and things looked pretty good. From the start, looking east back towards the home place; good eyes can spot the white of the house towards the south end of the larger group of trees; the broad view of bales is west towards town; can just make out the sorta' square shape located on horizon about halfway between the two full bales in the foreground towards the right and the shiny water tower closer to the right hand side. Those are about 5 and 6 miles, respectively, to give an idea of the terrain (it's pretty flat :) ).

The last, over the collected-up group (I took all these the day we were hauling and was running tractor loading and between loads would "gather up" the 34 that fit on a semi so could load them all in "one swell foop" instead of having to keep moving truck every time) looks off to the southeast. On the horizon is the hint of the row of sand hills that leads to the "breaks" that run along the Cimarron River as it makes a big bow from the very southwestern most corner of KS out of NM/OK then back to the southeast on into OK. We're located just 2 mi from the OK line about 60 mi from CO.

This is all native grass re-established in the mid-90s; a mixture of a multiple species the primary including big- and little-bluestem, sand love, blue- and side-oats grama, buffalo, sand love, Indian grass, ...

[Greg Guarino]

What do you have in mind to do with the barn once it's finished? (Assuming "finished" is even an appropriate word).

Nice. For *both* of you, it sounds like. I can't say I've done anything like that. But I can trace a tile floor to a period of time when one of my friends was out of work for a while. And a kitchen backsplash too, but that was a different guy. I've got another ugly job that needs doing - one I really don't want to tackle myself - but unfortunately (ha!) all of my friends seem to be gainfully employed at the moment.

[Lew Hodgett]

"dpb" wrote:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are jogging my memory of when I was growing up in the '50's and living in farm country.

These were the days when crop rotation (corn, alfalfa, wheat and oats) was followed closely since corn took so much out of the ground.

Got 2 cuts of alfalfa and brought the "tedder" into play as a means of drying the alfalfa.

The wheat was chocked, especially in Amish country.

Later, the wheat was cut and baled in one operation with tractor pulling the baler and spitting bales of straw out onto the final wagon where they were stacked.

The baler had a guy on each side it insert baler twine into bale.

Definitely not a particularly safe operation, but it was an improvement.

Watching those operations convinced me I didn't want anything to do with farming.

Lew

[dpb]

On 11/11/2015 12:18 PM, Greg Guarino wrote: ...

Well, my goal firstly was to prevent it from falling down; couldn't stand the thought of it going to pot (and thankfully have enough resources could afford to do so). It is, afaik, the last one in the county from the initial settling time frame in any shape at all; the neighbor to the mile south had one of almost identical form built by the same chief carpenter/crew just after this one was finished. It fell down a number of years ago owing to neglect and that it never had the poured floor slab and always was surrounded by the corrals such that it suffered much worse from the waste. Also, they got into enough financial difficulty that there were no resources available to be put into it when it could still have been saved.

I had (not sure if I still do or not) original idea that could move the woodworking shop into the mow which is completely open with the exception of a column row under each gambrel break but there's 14-ft between the two rows and the sidewalls are 6-ft high at the edge so the whole loft is essentially well above head height. It's almost 30-ft to the ridge in the middle. Failing that, while ceiling height is fairly low, there are long open areas on either side of the drive on the main floor such that the shop could be arranged to be quite useable there.

It is too low and the driveway too narrow anyway for any current real use from a farming standpoint other than for storage. There is a small feed mill in the NE corner with an elevator leg to the bins that were built in the loft that is still functional altho I've about quit running cattle given recent years of drought which led to no winter wheat pasture for three years running and subsequent increase in prices owing to the major reduction in cow herds (we ran a stocker/feeder operation buying weaning heifers in the fall, running on wheat pasture/milo stubble over the winter and selling the largest part of them in the spring to the feedlots to farm during the summer months other than a small (300 or so) number in the feedlot depending on year) so replacement costs got so high seemed excessive risk plus I've discovered I've continued to get a year older every year...

So, the real answer is there is no "plan"...

Was pretty leery the first few days as he was pretty rough-lookin' dude; I figured after that first day when I gave him his day's wages and took him back to town it'd be unlikely to see him again...but, he was ready the next morning and to my initial surprise I never did see any evidence he was into any drugs or excess alcohol or anything despite the appearances...turned out to really be a pretty nice guy and was, as said above, an excellent worker for the task at hand. Wouldn't have been much of a farm hand; was a city boy from Miami and had very (as in no) interest in the farm work going on around. The few times tried to press him into that service were less than successful... :)

[Jerry.Osage]

I live on the eastern edge of the plains in Oklahoma. Our winds were only about

20 miles an hour with gusts to 35 mph..

Here is a link to a wind map that you might like. It does not auto update, it has to be manually refreshed.

Yes, it is. After living over 40 years in the rice country of northern California I miss that. (We went to California to go to college and wound up staying 44 years until we retired.)

Here, the horizon is usually less than a mile away. I have to drive several miles to get to the top of the highest hill around close. From there the horizon looking to the West is about 10 miles away.

Unless I am mistaken that puts you a little West of Liberal Kansas. It's been a while since I was through there. We stayed a couple of nights south of Liberal at an RV park. Liberal was an interesting town, and we drove around the countryside checking things out. There were some very large circular irrigation plots interposed with dry land farming.

From Liberal we went West over to the Cimarron National Grasslands as we slowly meandered westward back to California.

Excellent. It's heartwarming to see parts of the Great Plains being restored. Can you purchase a mixture of the natural grass seeds or do you have to mix them yourself? Where I live here in Oklahoma Johnson grass is the preferred grass for hay. Where we lived in California it was considered noxious and the state tried to eradicate it as did all the farmers and ranchers.

This summer I did something that I never intended to do again. I helped an old friend haul hay. He's a grumpy old fart and he got mad at his wife because she wasn't driving the truck the way he wanted. She jumped down out of the truck, told him to go to hell, and went to the house.

He called me and I went over to drive the truck for him. Before we started I told him that if he started shouting at me I wouldn't go home until after I dragged him off the tractor and kicked his butt. We got along okay but we wasted a lot of time because he really didn't have a plan. Rather than driving in straight lines we just meandered all over the field. Before long, I was wanting to shout at him ? but I didn't. I just grinned a lot as I maneuvered the big truck and trailer around wasting a lot of time and fuel.

The second cutting I drove the tractor and did what you did. By the time he got back with the truck the next load was gathered up and ready to load without moving the truck. It saves a lot of time, but I got the distinct feeling that he wasn't happy. It wasn't the way he liked to do things.

Jerry O.

[dpb]

...

Well, peak we recorded was right at 50 instead of 60 altho Garden City did hit 60 and farther north closer to the center of the low was as strong or stronger. Still broke some ground loose, though, particularly some of the later wheat where we didn't have as early rain to get it up and covering the ground.

Pretty kewl view; I hadn't seen that before. Thanks.

Well, I was rounding pretty liberally (so to speak :) ); that is Liberal in the background and the place is just to the east of town a few miles. The edge of the major irrigation areas is just to the north and west; much of the north half of the county is irrigated and probably 2/3-rds of Haskell County to the north. There's water under us but not good gravel formation so it's difficult to get a good quality well that can pump hard enough for irrigation purposes without excess sand. KS has since we've been back closed the Ogallala for new irrigation as the water level is dropping drastically but OK hasn't yet acted except in the most minute of ways. It's inevitable that the irrigation as being practiced today is going to come to an end.

Speaking of being in the non-flat areas, I spent 30 yr, roughly in Piedmont VA area and then E TN (Oak Ridge) which is in the hills of TN and there isn't a flat and level spot much bigger than a quarter. There, even if you get to the top of the ridge, it's tree-covered so you can't see out and even if can, there's just another ridge in the way. Even the top of the Smokey Mtn's are tree-covered with the exception of a single peak so even there it's hard to find good vistas. Pretty country but surely did get tired of being "closed in". To make it worse, I spent some 10 yr of that time servicing/installing/supporting online coal analyzers in the E KY, SW VA, WVA coal country which is even more tight valley structure than E TN.

It's pretty easily obtainable now altho one waits until drilling to do the mixing as there's such a difference in size that it all settles out by size in shipping if try to do it in bulk. Back when they first started establishing these stands in the beginning of the CRP program, it was pretty hard to come by as there just wasn't that much of some of the native grasses still around, particularly the taller varieties that tended to get grazed out leaving mostly just the buffalo (although there's certainly nothing wrong with it; and there were large areas in which it was essentially the only grass even before being broken out.

Johnson grass has had a metamorphosis in its assessment indeed. It depends on whether it's in the place you want it or not--in wetter places than here it's a bane for other crops as it is so invasive and hard to eradicate.

Hey, we old guys are pretty typically crabby!!! :) It's in the job description.

[Electric Comet]

nice to see a barn getting some tlc

i see a lot of reclaimed barn wood ads so i always thought that old barns were dying breed

[dpb]

On 11/14/2015 11:18 AM, Electric Comet wrote: ...

They are; there's no way to economically justify the investment in this one; it has no real functional use in a modern operation; too small in driveway width/height to get any equipment in larger than a half-ton pickup, too small in capacity for animal usage; as another has already said, hay storage is also passe with modern large bale handling and the like...

I did it simply for the nostalgia purposes of being the home place and perhaps eventually some shop space.

[Leon]

On 11/14/2015 11:48 AM, dpb wrote: Snip

Reason enough!