Rolling Feed

Our eldest son, Christopher, was able to purchase oats cleanout from a neighbor.  Cleanout (or Screenings as some call it) is the 'stuff' that is removed when we clean our grain to get most of the weed seeds, and other foreign matter, removed before planting.  The grain goes through a machine that shakes the seeds across various sized screens so, hopefully, only the pure seeds remains.  The rest is cleanout.    The oats cleanout that Christopher was able to purchase is great for feed to our cattle and those in the feedlot. 

Before we feed this we like to run it through a roller mill.  The roller mill cracks the grain making it more digestible for the animal.  We have also done this same process with corn and barley for the same reason.



The whole set up for rolling our feed

 We auger the cleanout (aka grain) from the bluish-grey building (grain bin). 

It goes into the roller mill. 

 

 

 There are two roller mills in my photo.  Yesterday the men tried the red one on legs.  Today, they are using the (formerly red) one that is hooked up to the tractor.  Both of the roller mills do the same job but it was decided that the one on the tractor was doing a better job of cracking the oats.  The one on legs runs with electricity.  The one on the tractor is run by the tractor's PTO (Power Take Off). 

 

Oats Cleanout

 Here is a fairly close photo of the Oats cleanout.  The long, narrow, oval shape is the oats seed.  There is also some straw (the dried stem of the grain plant) and other random seed.  This is what it looks like before it goes through the roller mill. 

 

 The top of this photo shows the grain going into the roller mill.  The bottom left hand corner is the rolled product getting augered away to the little white hopper bin (see top photo) for storage.  Just above the auger in the bottom corner is the rolled grain coming out of the roller mill. 

This is a closer look. Toward the upper right corner the rolled oats are coming out of the roller mill. The auger in the bottom left is taking it to the hopper bin.

 This is what the grain looks like after it goes through the roller mill. 

You can see how the grain is cracked open.  

Here is a photo of the tractor that makes the roller mill work.  Brett is sitting in the tractor making sure there are no problems.  Sometimes the top hopper (holding area) of the roller mill gets too full so he has to stop the grain from augering until there is room for more grain.  Yesterday he said he had to stop the auger every two seconds and wait for two minutes before there was room for more.  I guess it was better today!

 

Sharing with Farm Photo Friday

Week 8/52: Andy makes friends

If you have been following my blog you know that calving has begun at NoDak Herefords.  You also know that I have been participating in a 52 Week Project where each week I submit a photo with Raggedy Andy in it.  This week Andy finally visited the barn.  He found out that the straw (hay that is on the floor of the pen to help keep it warm) looks like his hair!! 

He made two new friends today. 

This calf was especially snuggly.

(Because we sell bulls, I was told to tell you that this calf has a brother for sale.  Give us a call if you are interested.)

This calf was born just a few hours before this photo was taken. 

Andy tried to ride this bull until he realized he is too flexible and could not sit up!  (Andy is too flexible, not the bull!)

I will be sharing this with Farm Photo Friday

Wet Corn

A while back I wrote that we were chopping corn. It was piled into a huge pile and packed firmly with a tractor.  

This is what the corn plants look like after chopping.

 



This week Brett got a few days to combine some corn. 

Mark got to ride in the combine for a while too.

 

 

 

This is a photo of unloading corn from the combine into the truck.  There is chaff from the grain flying in the air so the picture looks "speckled"!  Also, you might notice that one snout on the combine header is angled up.  There are chains that run under each of the snouts and one had broken.  The guys lifted the snout to get at the chain so they could repair it.

The corn grain is a quite wet at about 24% moisture so we had to come up with a plan to store it until it is time to feed it to the cattle.  To safely store the corn grain in a bin we would like it to be at about 14%.  So, they piled it on the ground.  Today they started to run it through a roller mill.  This machine flattens each kernal of corn making it easier for the animals to digest the food value.  After it has run through the roller mill, they pile it again.  Then, because it is wet, they will pack that into a pile (much like the chopped corn).  They tell me that helps to preserve it better.

This is the pile of wet corn.  It does not slide real well so Mark (and later, Brett) had to shovel it toward the auger.  The grain auger on the right is the one they used to make the pile.  There is a small auger going from the pile into the roller mill.  Then the auger on the left takes the rolled corn from the roller mill to another pile.

 

This is a shot of the roller mill.  On the top you can see the corn coming in.  It then runs through the roller mill and comes out at the bottom.  There is an auger there to move the rolled corn to the next pile.

Basically the same photo as above, but it shows the pile of the rolled corn.

Corn before rolling

 

 





Corn after going through roller mill



 

 

 

Christopher came with the payloader (yes, it finally got fixed) and moved large scoops of grain toward the auger so Brett didn't have to do so much with his grain shovel.

 

 

 

Christopher moving some of the rolled corn.  He will eventually drive on the pile of rolled corn to pack it just like they did with the chopped corn.  He will pack it after they get all of the corn rolled.

 

Link to Fresh from the Farm's Farm Photo Friday

This & That update

WOW!!  It has been awhile and lots has been going on.  I suppose that is why it has been awhile!

Let's see, what have we done?   We have finished the small grain harvest, fixed the break-downs, chopped the corn for silage, patched breakdowns, hauled straw & hay, waited for parts ....  You get the idea.  It seems we have had a lot of machinery down time. 

The motor went out of the payloader.  There was an air leak on the semi causing the trailer wheels to lock up.  AND the hydraulics aren't working right on the John Deere tractor/loader.  There were a few days that all three of our hay hauling pieces of equipment were down at the same time.  Well, we are still waiting for the verdict on the payloader.  The semi is fixed.  We are using the tractor until it can get to the dealer's repair shop (this Monday).  The hay hauling project has slowed down tremendously.

We hire the corn chopping done.  There is a man out of Alberta, Canada we hire.  It is the type of job that would take us nearly two weeks to do by ourselves.  It also takes three to four people to do it as we need someone to run the chopper, someone to pack the corn pile and someone to drive truck.  (and a full time mechanic to try to keep things running)  It got to be more efficient for us to hire this custom crew.  They don't require anything from us (except the check!) and we can work on other projects.

Chopping corn & filling the truck on the go

     

Packing the pile

            

 Christopher is finally getting the last of the buildings from the old fertilizer plant.  He had a hard time finding anyone to haul the hopper bins.  Finally, after many calls from two men, they are getting this done.  There were seven hopper bins at the site.  Four for Christopher and three for a man from another town.  I wonder how long until this whole feed mixing plant is up and running on the feedlot?  It is getting late in the comfortable work season.  (a few snowflakes have fallen already)

 

I came upon this big Moose cow yesterday when I was taking tools out to the field for repairs.  A couple of days earlier I saw a young cow moose about 10 miles from here.

 



The cattle are ready to come home.  They are starting to sneak out of pastures looking for green grass.  Not much outside of the fence either as between the first part of June and now we have made had a total of half an inch of rain and most of that came a couple of days ago.  Things are quite dry here, but I don't think we have it as bad as many parts of our nation.

Joining up with a linky party:  Fresh from Farm: Farm Photo Friday

The tale of six big pigs

We had some visitors while working on the combine today.  I thought you might get a chuckle out of them too.

 

Mark & Brett are busy working when the pigs show up.  I was helping too but just had to get the camera out and take some photos!  Christopher has six pigs who live on this old farmstead that we own.  They got tired of their barn and broke out a few weeks ago.  Christopher knew they would not go too far as they liked the feed and water in their barn.  So, they are "free range pigs"!!  One afternoon Christopher received a phone call from a neighbor who had to come through the yard to get to his hay field.  The pigs decided to follow him around while he cut his hay so C. had to go get them (and they don't chase that well)!! 

At least we learned that they are people friendly.

 

They are also curious.  Here one is tasting the scoop shovel.

 

 

 

But the guys needed as little break so had to give Wilbur some attention.

 

 

 

They are eating the canola off of the combine header.

 

Just hanging out with us.

Wilbur really loves attention!!

 

Linking to Farm Photo Friday

 

 



Grape Jelly

Christopher & Paige were oh so kind to give us some grapes.  (If I ever see another laundry basket full of grapes it will be too soon!)  So, I made grape jelly.  I have a niece & nephew who have won great ribbons making grape jelly for 4-H so I thought I must have some of the same genetic talent! 

I decided to photograph and blog about the good, the bad and the broken rules...  

Wash grapes and remove them from the clusters.

Ready to cook before juicing.

I boiled them in a little bit of water until the skins broke open.

I then put them in cheese cloth and squeezed out the juice.  I dislike this step as I usually end up burning my hands.  I juiced another day and used a Sauce Master as shown here:   

I did not cook the grapes first with this.  The only trouble I found with this method was that I got pulp.  So I just ran the "juice" from this through the cheesecloth (over a large bowl) to strain out the pulp.  I used a product SURE-JELL Fruit Pectin to gel it up. 

Cook the juice and SURE-JELL Fruit Pectin on the stove top.  Later adding sugar and cooking some more.  I just follow the recipe in the SURE-JELL package.  Then pour the hot liquid into jars and seal with canning lids and rings.

Here is the breaking rules part....  I cheated and just turned the jars upside down.  It is now 12 hours later and they all sealed.  However, USDA states they should have had a boiling water bath as that is a more safe perservation method.

We have sampled some and it is quite tasty.  We will likely share some as Christmas gifts and much of it we will enjoy ourselves!

Linked to:  Farm Photo Friday,  Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop, Rural Thursday Blog Hop

Yellow wild flowers

One benefit of traveling around for harvest is that I get out on some prairie trails and find new photography subjects.  This week it happens to be flowers.  Our Fotos by Friends group this week is looking for photos with sun or moon light.  I tried to snap a few photos of flowers with the sun shining through them.  I took a few others too as the sun (and the flexibility of my body) don't always cooperate!!

Sunlit Wild Sunflower

Butter-and-eggs  or  Yellow Toadflax

 Prairie Tickseed  or  Stiff Tickseed

Linking to:  Fresh from the Farm Linky Party

Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop

Sunday Stills

Nature Walk

My little photo group on Facebook , Fotos by Friends, had a theme of spiderwebs this week so it was time to go for a walk. (Heaven forbid I take photos of the webs in the house!!)

I found a couple of spiderwebs:

This is in the corner of a grain bin that two of my guys were emptying out,

so it had a bit of grain dust on it to help it show up nicely.

But while looking for other things to "shoot", I noticed some wild sunflowers.  As I got closer I noticed a honey bee on it.  The bonus:  a lacewing!

The bee about has it's Pollen Buckets full.

There are so many titles one could use for this one, but I will let you use your imagination! 

(Perhaps in the Comment section)

Linking to:  Farm Photo Friday

Spring seeding

We are at the half way mark with seeding/planting here.  Brett does the seeding.  He has all of our canola and barley done.  He started the wheat today.  He has also fertilized the corn ground.  We still have all of our wheat (& possibly flax) to seed.  Also, we have corn to plant.

Here the guys are filling the air seeder cart with barley seed (one is watching the grain cart and one is on the ground to shut things down when it is full).  The semi has the barley seed which is augered up into the cart (yellow thing).  This cart has two compartments - one for seed and one for dry fertilizer.  The white tank here has Anhydrous Ammonia (NH3).  NH3 is nitrogen (fertilizer) for the soil .  I take these tanks into town to have them filled many times a season!  The John Deere (green) tractor runs the jump auger.  We use the jump auger to move the grain from the semi trailer to the auger that fills the grain cart. 

Brett is turning on the NH3 (Anhydrous Ammonia) tank as he prepares to start seeding.

Here he goes!  The implement in front of the grain cart is the part that actually puts the seed and fertilizer into the ground.  There are many hoses and tubes used to move the seed & fert to their proper locations in the soil.  We have had our soil tested so we know how much dry fertilizer and NH3 to add to it so it should be able to produce the best crop yield possible.

The above photos were taken a few days ago.  I just have not had time to post until this evening.  Here is why I now have time:

This evening around 6 pm the rain started.  Around 6:30 it started to hail.  Here is a sampling of what we got.  There is a teaspoon there to help see the size of the hail.  This could wreck havoc with the crops that  have started to grow.  We don't think it will hurt any of our crops, but our neighbors have some really nice winter wheat that could be damaged.   We also received a little over 1 inch of rain in about 1 hour.  So, we will not be in the field for a few days.  However, our neighbors who live about 2 miles south of us only got .25 inch of rain.  So, we hope we can seed our land near their place quicker than the stuff here at home.

Linking to Farm Photo Friday

The case of the missing calf ... OR ... How to be dumber than a cow/calf pair

Yesterday was somewhat stressful.  We knew that Paige's cow had calved but could not find the little black (or black white face) calf.  You see, Momma (aka 63W) has been enjoying getting out of her pasture and grazing around the feedlot.  So, it was my job to try to find the calf.  Here is a bit of a pictoral story about my afternoon...

This is 63W.  She is out standing in the field (no pun intended).  So I rode 4 wheeler around that area a bit looking for the calf.  No luck...

The steers in the feedlot sure wondered what I was doing!

Nature's Carpet

I needed to walk through the tree grove to see if this cow had tucked her baby into a hiding place.  While walking I saw moss on trees (it looked like Nature's carpet!).  But no calf...

Lady bug on a branch

I found a lady bug crawling on a branch.  She didn't mind having her photo taken.  (This photo is supposed to "lay down" but it automatically "stood up" when I imported it. *shrug*)  Still no baby 63W.  I had better keep looking....

Here is another escape artist - and friend of 63W.  She does not have a calf yet.  She was in the trees by the feedlot which is not the pasture either.  No calf with her, so I kept looking....

Grass carpet

The grass is greening up.  This is a bit of a problem as the cows are tempted when they see green grass!  No wonder they want out.  They don't have to share with the whole herd if they break out!  Lucky for me, the grass is short.  The calf can't hide in short grass.  Well, I give up.  I can't find this calf.  So, I guess I was out-smarted by a cow/calf pair!!  I will have to look again later.

On my way home, I found this newborn calf (in the pasture where it belonged).  It was just trying to figure out how to stand.  Those legs are quite wobbly. It doesn't help that mom keeps trying to clean (lick off the after-birth) the calf.  When she licks the calf, the calf stumbles.  But, after only a few trys, the calf stablized and made it to his destination - food!!  It is thanks to doing this blog that I took the time to watch and learn this.  I have lived on a farm/ranch all of my life and had never taken the time to watch these first few minutes of life.   Usually when I found a new calf, I would just make sure the cow "mothered" (cleaning & loving) the calf and then I would leave.  I looked at the pair today and they are doing just fine.

Today on my home from town I found the 63W pair together.  YAHH!!  Plus, there were two more cows with them (including the one that is pictured above).  When Brett helped me get them in he snapped a photo of the pair so you can see that all is well.  From this location, we just had to put them through the gate so they could join all of their friends in the pasture (in the background).  I hope they all stay in now!

Linking up to:  Farmgirl Friday & Friday Fences