Farmerjan's journal - Weather

[Baymule]

My sister and BIL have 3 acres and a huge home outside of Conroe, Tx, probably a $500,000 to $750,000 place. They bought 11 acres behind their place that runs along the road to keep someone else from buying it and making it a trailer park. LOL Right after they bought it a cell phone company called.....the upshot being that they put up a tower and gave them a 30 year lease.

You and Verizon will get this done. The monthly payment will be welcomed, it can be used in a variety of ways to upgrade equipment, truck or whatever is needed. Phooey on that wicked ol' witch.

Proud to be your friend.

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

Miss @farmerjan,

Here's something related to your area of expertise. I watched a video yesterday on the YouTube channel How Farms Work, which was about wrapping hay in plastic. It was fascinating to watch the bale wrapper at work:

Ryan, the guy that runs the YouTube channel, said that he wrapped the bales in plastic to keep it from getting wet. I was surprised because as far as I know folks around here don't wrap round bales, and I have never heard you mention wrapping bales. Ryan did say that the bales contained oat straw. Would that be more susceptible to getting wet and rotting?

Senile Texas Aggie

 

[Bruce]

Lots of added expense in plastic and a HELL of a lot of plastic going in the landfill.

I haven't seen any tube wraps here but some do plastic wrap individual bales for outside storage. There are machines that wrap bales after they are net or twine wrapped and dropped on the ground so I expect it is like in the video, they have to pick each one up and put it in the wrapper. And there are machines that will net/string wrap then plastic wrap before they are dumped on the ground.

 

[Mini Horses]

Only thing they wrap around her, in the white plastic, is the forage they ferment. "marshmallows" Hay is net wrapped often, they usually store inside.

 

[farmerjan]

Okay. I watched it through twice to try to hear as much as I could. He said at first straw, but then hay. Since they did not say that they combined off the oats, it was hay although pretty dry. The description of protecting it and keeping it dry was referring to keeping it from sitting out in the weather and the rain/wet soaking through several layers that is actually wasted as it rots. This is done to take a hay crop of some sort with a certain percentage of moisture and for it to ferment as @Mini Horses said. We have done it over the years when we cannot get the window of enough days to make "dry hay". We especially do it when we are trying to get the sorghum/sudan grass made as it takes longer to dry. It is called baleage or haylage, but when done in bales, whether tube wrapped or individually like big marshmallows, it is baleage. At a certain moisture (different for different crops but in the 40-60%) when you wrap, and they are tight in a row, it will heat and ferment. Because the environmental moisture is excluded , it will do as we call "ensile" and make feed that is both palatable and liked by most kinds of cattle. You do not get waste or rotting like the bales that are left out. No rotting or wet unpalatable outside layer, means less waste.
It is also used as a filler as in feeding some of the baleage along with some good hay. That stretch's the good hay and the two will mix in a cows rumen and they can do with some less that high quality feed. It is also not as coarse as dry hay, and is usually more easily digested, up to a point. The cows have to ruminate, which mixes the stomach juices through the chewing of the cud, among other digestive enzymes breaking it down. It will make a less than good feed into something that the animal will eat more of and get more of the food value out of it. Not more nutritious, but more able to digest. Actually, if made right it is pretty nutritious, and you are capturing better protein levels if cut and made with a 2-3 day window, or when it is You can cut the hay/crop at close to the perfect time, get it " dried down" to a certain moisture, and then can wrap rather than lose the quality if say rain threatens. Cuts your necessary drying time 1/3 to 1/2.

It gets a bit costly, and yes there is plastic waste. But in today's farming climate, putting up a silo, buying an unloader, and then having to chop the hay to put in the silo and having to unload it, and cart it to the cows...etc and so on; this is a much cheaper alternative. You need a skid loader or loader on a tractor to put them on the wrapper, then just a spear on the tractor to take it to the cows . Great for preserving a crop on a rented field, because you don't want to build infrastructure on someone else's land. We paid about $6.00 a bale when we got it wrapped in the past. And the person who is getting their bales wrapped pays for the "film" used. It does depend on how "sealed tight" you want it, and that is dependent on the number of wraps, or layers per bale. We rented one from a farmer when he wasn't using it to do ours. It helps to pay the farmer for the cost of the machine. 20,000 to 40,000 for one.

I have heard of some people doing it to preserve dry straw to use as bedding. The straw is in the 10% moisture or less. Don't know of anyone around here local doing it.

 

[farmerjan]

@Senile_Texas_Aggie ; couple more things you asked that I don't know if I directly answered. Yes straw tends to absorb more moisture if left out in the "weather". The stems of grain crops, oats, wheat, barley, rye, and others, grow straight and tall. As the grain ripens, the stems become hollow as they dry out in an upright position. When the grain crop is combined there are 2 ways different harvesting equipment work. The grain is clipped off of the top of the stems and run through the combine with the stems left standing. Often then these fields are replanted with what we call no-till; the field is not plowed or harrowed but the no-till drill will slice through the "dead" residue and plant the seeds, and the stems will just fall back to the earth as a "mulch" for the new crop. Protects the soil from erosion also. OR the grain, stems and all, are cut, the grain is threshed off the stems and the stems are "spit out" in a windrow left behind the combine. These rows of stems are the straw. Since it is dry already, a baler can come behind and just bale it up into bales of straw, or it can be raked like 2 rows together to be baled. The prettiest yellow straw is Rye straw in my opinion. Wheat straw is darker brownish color. I believe that it is barley straw that is touted to be used in ponds to counteract algae (maybe?). All make decent bedding although I think that wheat straw is less desirable for horses.
Straw is more hollow stems and they will absorb water more so not often rolled and left out. I think that is where there are some that are wrapping it to protect it for future use if they don't have any inside storage. Most straw is baled in square bales, small or even the big ones, and is in demand by contractors and such that do any kind of landscaping as well as farmers that do bedding in stalls or pens and such.

 

[farmerjan]

My sister and BIL have 3 acres and a huge home outside of Conroe, Tx, probably a $500,000 to $750,000 place. They bought 11 acres behind their place that runs along the road to keep someone else from buying it and making it a trailer park. LOL Right after they bought it a cell phone company called.....the upshot being that they put up a tower and gave them a 30 year lease.

You and Verizon will get this done. The monthly payment will be welcomed, it can be used in a variety of ways to upgrade equipment, truck or whatever is needed. Phooey on that wicked ol' witch.

Proud to be your friend.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. New snag. The wicked witch has filed a new lawsuit. Michael's lawyer called him yesterday, when we were in Blacksburg at the dr appt. So they had this already prepared before the board of supervisors meeting monday night. Lawyer received a 3 inch thick file of papers for the law suit. They did not add Verizon to the case, because they said the last lawsuit wasn't final..... but they are the ones that did not sign the papers drawn up to finalize it in the court. Spent the whole ride home, nearly 2 hours, on the phone with the Verizon lawyer, the rep he has worked with, his lawyer,........
It is going to cost and we are really debating.... but if someone doesn't stand up to these kind of BS bullying people, because they don't want their VIEW infringed on, then they will keep doing this. I think that there will be some more discussions.... but we really want to do this and fight this bytch. One more thing, in her tirade Monday night, she made the comment that it was wearing on her to have to come back and forth from Mass. for this. She is trying to preserve the value of her property.....
Go the HE// back up there and stay there if you are not going to stay here and be a full time resident. Heard that her husband has had another heart attack.... she is creating so much stress there it is no wonder. Feel a little sorry for him as he is a pretty nice guy..... cannot for the life of me see what he saw/sees in her.

The monthly payment will be dedicated for paying off the lawyers costs.... a year for the first time around... now another year probably for this fight.... If we ever even get it up. Don't know if they can start on it before this lawsuit comes to court... Once up the possibility of them forcing it to be taken down is nil....

 

[farmerjan]

@Baymule did the tower in any way cause the property value to decrease in their very "expensive" home? This is the argument besides that the "deed restrictions" they keep citing..... yet I find that I look for places there are towers in order to be assured that there is service in case of an emergency.

 

[Mike CHS]

I didn't realize you were in that part of Virginia. I have a friend that retired to Blacksburg many years ago after he left the Navy. Phil Jones was the name but everyone called him Peaches.

 

[B&B Happy goats]

If verison wants to put the tower up, and you ok it, why should you and your son have to pay for a attorney ? Won't verison foot the bill ? ......If you have to pay a attorney, why don't you slap the witch with a lawsuite for emotional distress and ask the court to have HER pay your legal fees.....