to make a short story really long...
As the farm operation has grown and we’ve become less dependent on paid tractor work, our equipment needs have changed. A few years ago we made a huge leap and bought a very used skidsteer. Until then we only had Big Red, a highly unreliable quad with a dodgy transmission. After one of the mountain men did some work to it, it would start more reliably, so that was good, but it still came out of gear frequently and ‘park’ was kind of an overstatement.
The Old Farm was very hilly and one day while I was moving paddock fences I heard a tiny click as Big Red slipped out of park and rolled backward down a hill and far far away. Delightful!
At that time we were feeding small square bales which are easier at feeding time if you have a small flock, but a lot of work to bring in and stack. The work of stacking bales is not the only reason we wanted to switch to round bales. We wanted to bale graze, we wanted to be able to store them outside if necessary, and we had gotten a great price on a used big bale feeder, but we had no way to handle them outside of farmer power. Chris can always move them, but I can’t turn a big bale over until it’s really dry. I’m going to say it has something to do with his height and leverage, etc., but it’s probably just that I am weak from driving around eating French fries. We were also removing bedpack* by hand at that point with some help from the Mountain Men, so it seemed like we could justify the expense of a used skidsteer.
*Bedpack is a combination of manure, bedding material (straw), and spilled feed (hay in our case) that Joel Salatin calls the ‘carbonaceous diaper’ which you can google and get better explanations than what I am going to give here. It is extremely hard to shovel, the straw and hay works like rebar and the manure becomes concrete and if you’ve never had to clean it out of a barn by hand be grateful. There are some pretty exciting mushroom possibilities and of course all of the incredible fertilization properties, but still.
Our farm guardian angel (who conveniently lived next door) knew of a skidsteer for sale in our price range (as close to 0$ as possible) and the deal was done!
This photo is misleading because posing for this photo is about the longest period of time I’ve ever sat in the seat. The thing is kind of hard to drive, you have to hold out the choke for like 20 minutes, and in order to do that you have to sit hunched over like you’ve dropped French fries on the floor of the car, which you would think would come naturally to me, but no. Then it bucks LIKE CRAZY when you go too slow or too fast, so that is terrifying, especially since there were no safety mechanisms (you know, like seatbelts?) invented in 1984 when it was built. I have NO patience for learning this kind of thing and I totally gave up on the skidsteer right away. That left Chris to be the primary skidsteer operator due to his sticktoitiveness and the fact that there was no one left to do it. I have used it a tiny bit at this point. I can pull it out of the barn to make space, and I have loaded some composted manure into the manure spreader with it, but for all bale moving, Chris has been in charge.
In 2021 we had a crazy wet spring/summer. The farmers that we usually would hire for tractor work were totally unavailable because they needed to catch up on their own work on the few dry days, so we were left with a huge amount of winter bedpack that needed to be spread and no realistic options. We decided it was time. We needed a tractor so we could spread our own manure and do a million other jobs that we had been paying people for. Aside from the money, this is no big deal, right? In the past, any time we went to White’s Farm Supply there were a ton of used tractors and they had several locations, so surely we can find exactly what we need for a fair price. TOTALLY WRONG. Production and supply chain delays were affecting everything and the people who would have normally bought new tractors were snapping up the used market like hotcakes. There was nothing left. Anywhere.
So we went to the Big E which is like a state fair for New England with our close lifestyle advisor, Jim. First priority was to hit the wine tasting where you have to look the earnest wine makers in the eye while you taste the product of their life’s work. As a food producer, this kind of thing gets to me, so we drank more and bought more than we might have otherwise. At some point after drinking the wine and buying a very scratchy wool cape, we made it to the tractor dealership part of the fair. And then we got on a waitlist for a new tractor (EEEK!). It took 8 months and we had to sacrifice the tire type that we ordered for the tire type that was available (and gets stuck easier), but that’s when Kelly Kubota came into our lives.
The plan was for me to be the tractor operator and Chris to continue operating the skidsteer. Part of the reason we thought these assignments would work is because clearing the barn and spreading manure is faster if someone is dedicated to loading and someone is dedicated to spreading. This means that he has been the big bale man this entire time. Literally. I haven’t moved a single bale.
Now that the John Deere is 39 years young, there’s more backfiring, and some other general indications that it needs service. We decided we need redundancy in our system since the bales are far from the winter sheep buffet. Way too far to push them by hand anyway.
So today the new bale spear for Kelly Kubota arrived and I can begin sharing the feeding responsibilities. Hopefully it doesn’t take longer than 3 minutes to master moving them.
UPDATE: while I was writing this I was thinking that the upcoming weekend would magically be spring and I would spend all weekend outside in the sunshine teaching myself to move the hay bales with extreme precision. I thought there would be photos and video and this post would be totally worthwhile. Then we got a ton of snow and I opted to work on the indoor DIY project and then go into town to eat Mexican food instead. You have to know your limitations, right?