Carla D-Great new adventures and an Amazing Life

[promiseacres]

prayers that things settle with the water... constant mud sucks....

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

Miss @Carla D,

I am SO HAPPY you have paid a visit to the forum! I am SO SORRY you have been having so much trouble with rain and mud. That is enough to drive anyone crazy! I hope you get a break from the bad weather, so you can get caught up. Has your dad recovered from the accident? I hope he is OK. Was the driver of the car at fault for the collision? I hope the driver will end up paying for the damages to the tractor and equipment. I shudder to think how little work we could get done without a tractor. I will grant your ingenuity for using your 4 wheeler as a tractor. I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. I wish you and your family the best, and when you get time, please stop by the forum and let us all know how you are doing.

Senile Texas Aggie

 

[farmerjan]

So sorry to hear about the mud.... then to add to it the accident. I can only echo @Senile_Texas_Aggie 's thoughts, and hope that the car owner will have to pay. If your FIL had the necessary slow moving vehicle triangle on the tractor, then he should have some grounds to stand on...not knowing the laws there.... but here, basically they have right of way except if he pulled out into the path of the car. Still, hoping that he will be okay and that is still most important.

Kudos to you for doing as much as you have with the pen building and trying to make things more workable for the time being. Maybe cutting back for this year with the hogs is the best thing to do. The good thing, hogs are fairly fast in getting to breeding/production age and size compared to say a cow.... so you may only be "behind" for a year.
We had the mud last year and it was the pits. Lost some calves and had some others just not do well for months. The cows did not do as well last year either. This year has been better, but we have cut our herd down a bit too.

We used an old horse drawn rake the first year I was in Va pulled behind the pick up to rake the hay that we cut with an old single sickle bar horse drawn mower, pulled by the same pickup. Forked it on the truck by hand and then forked it up into the loft by hand. It can be done, but you need to be younger than I am now to do that kind of physically challenging work.
Necessity is the mother of invention and make do.....

 

[Carla D]

Miss @Carla D,

I am SO HAPPY you have paid a visit to the forum! I am SO SORRY you have been having so much trouble with rain and mud. That is enough to drive anyone crazy! I hope you get a break from the bad weather, so you can get caught up. Has your dad recovered from the accident? I hope he is OK. Was the driver of the car at fault for the collision? I hope the driver will end up paying for the damages to the tractor and equipment. I shudder to think how little work we could get done without a tractor. I will grant your ingenuity for using your 4 wheeler as a tractor. I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. I wish you and your family the best, and when you get time, please stop by the forum and let us all know how you are doing.

Senile Texas Aggie

I missed you. My FIL is doing miraculously well considering he was thrown several feet in the air and landed on the back of his head. I would consider him 90% recovered. They are however making it impossible to his license back. They say his reaction time is too slow. Hes 74 years old, doesnt do video games and never had a traffic violation. Hes not even allowed to drive with a passenger as a 15 year old would be able to do. They are testing him and his reaction time by doing games similar to real life arcade games. Of course hes not going to have quick reaction times with this. Hes not wired that way. Then to top it off, they want him to do an actual drivers test behind the wheel In the middle of December. He has not driven his truck since August. Hows he supposed to jump behind the wheel for the very first time since his accident in snow? This is the upper Midwest. Everyone drives like fools with their first snowfall. His accident didnt kill him, but believe it or not his not getting his driver’s license back will. Hes been very patient and played by their rules of not driving. He lost his wife 8 years ago. I used the chance to be very active in his childrens and grandchildrens lives as reason to live after his wife had a really long and painful last year of life. He cant stand being a burden on his family. He was nearly always busy helping family. Every day was a different child to help out. He has six of them. Its really frustrating watching him go down hill over something as crazy as a drivers license. Give him a verbal test with a diagram to refer to and hed pass immediately. His reaction time is better than mine. But, when all said, hes doing pretty darn good for flying through the air and landing on the back of his head. Not once did he lose consciousness, vomit, or have confusion after his accident. Hes still 100% the stubborn independent old farmboy hes always been. I guess thats the long version of an answer.

 

[Carla D]

So sorry to hear about the mud.... then to add to it the accident. I can only echo @Senile_Texas_Aggie 's thoughts, and hope that the car owner will have to pay. If your FIL had the necessary slow moving vehicle triangle on the tractor, then he should have some grounds to stand on...not knowing the laws there.... but here, basically they have right of way except if he pulled out into the path of the car. Still, hoping that he will be okay and that is still most important.

Kudos to you for doing as much as you have with the pen building and trying to make things more workable for the time being. Maybe cutting back for this year with the hogs is the best thing to do. The good thing, hogs are fairly fast in getting to breeding/production age and size compared to say a cow.... so you may only be "behind" for a year.
We had the mud last year and it was the pits. Lost some calves and had some others just not do well for months. The cows did not do as well last year either. This year has been better, but we have cut our herd down a bit too.

We used an old horse drawn rake the first year I was in Va pulled behind the pick up to rake the hay that we cut with an old single sickle bar horse drawn mower, pulled by the same pickup. Forked it on the truck by hand and then forked it up into the loft by hand. It can be done, but you need to be younger than I am now to do that kind of physically challenging work.
Necessity is the mother of invention and make do.....

They are actually blaming him for the accident. They said he pulled out in front of the car. That car had to be going at a super fast speed to have done the damage they did and to not have seen him sitting at the corner. He states he clearly looked both ways. He knows that is a dangerous intersection and people speed badly on that highway. A state highway which only has two lanes. Hed commented along with my husband at how dangerous that intersection is.

his entire rear left wheel was snapped right off under his seat. It was an old Alice Chalmer. Sent that flying as well. His sickle mower isin about 16 busted up pieces. My FIL will be really lucky if they dont try to sue him.

I told my husband if he can find away to cut about 8 acres of wild hay id rake it up by hand and possibly even hand bale it. time never showed up.

 

[Bruce]

We learned that in the past one of our neighbors diverted water off of his property so he could grow crops. He has beautiful corn in the field right now.

And was that water diverted toward your property being downhill from theirs? Seems that is the way it goes in the midwest. Farmer 1 wants to get water off the field, puts in "tile" so it exits at the low end of their property. Where is it going to go? Onto the neighboring property so they now have twice as much water on their land so they do the same thing until eventually there is a landowner with a waterway to dump the water into.

Seems like the only bright spot in your life the last few months is that your daughter is happy and doing well at school!

 

[Carla D]

And was that water diverted toward your property being downhill from theirs? Seems that is the way it goes in the midwest. Farmer 1 wants to get water off the field, puts in "tile" so it exits at the low end of their property. Where is it going to go? Onto the neighboring property so they now have twice as much water on their land so they do the same thing until eventually there is a landowner with a waterway to dump the water into.

Seems like the only bright spot in your life the last few months is that your daughter is happy and doing well at school!

Thats not the only bright spot. A lot of good things have happened because we have been forced to look at things differently. My dad had suggested we make a pond out of the water that finds its way to our place. I kinda like that idea. If we do it just right we may not have to water our livestock all year around. I want ducks and a pair of large tan colored geese. I don’t remember the breed they were. They seemed very majestic, calm, and didn’t mind our daughter. But, for the most part temperament can be controlled if you have a little girl that loves everything, carries her animals around if they are small enough, sit with them and talk with them. She actually was the only person out of five of us tha could get a weak little runt piglet to drink from a bottle. She still has things to learn. But i learn loads from her everyday.