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sort of, i must have a few main leaks somewhere that i can't find via surface water. i'm also trying to figure out where exactly all my loving tile drains empty into, and so far I've only found one that actually empties into my creek. the rest just seem to be putting the water ??? somewhere?
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Dec 1, 2020 18:53
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I think the typical method would be to add some sort of vibrant dye to the water.
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Dec 1, 2020 19:07
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that's what I'm doing, hence me being blue. was just hoping there was a way that didn't involve my hands being blue for days 
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Dec 1, 2020 19:08
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There are companies that will locate leaks from the surface—https://www.americanleakdetection.com is one I know of just because I have a family member who runs a franchise, but I assume there are others. IDK what even a ballpark price would be though.
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Dec 2, 2020 03:44
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Schrödinger's heifer: an ailing animal separated in the evening and left overnight. May be considered simultaneously dead and alive until observed at morning chores. Edit: gently caress, I killed her. Uncle Lloyd fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Dec 31, 2020 |
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Dec 31, 2020 12:43
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My wife and are are the typical couple who have good luck gardening and immediately think farming for ourselves would be a good idea We also listened to some of One Straw Revolution and therefore are even more self confident. I need a slap in the face I think... Also all of Wisconsin's well water is contaminated because of farming and manure spreading and dairy. Can I farm without loving up the land?
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Dec 31, 2020 18:08
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Uncle Lloyd posted:Schrödinger's heifer: an ailing animal separated in the evening and left overnight. May be considered simultaneously dead and alive until observed at morning chores. Oh no! Sorry to hear that.
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Dec 31, 2020 19:01
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Uncle Lloyd posted:Schrödinger's heifer: an ailing animal separated in the evening and left overnight. May be considered simultaneously dead and alive until observed at morning chores. Bummer, that's rough  Gotta do the humane thing though, just part of the job and it's the right thing to do.
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Dec 31, 2020 19:36
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French Canadian posted:My wife and are are the typical couple who have good luck gardening and immediately think farming for ourselves would be a good idea You can buy a bunch of prepared soil, then recycle it after mixing in compost and letting it stew for a while. You'll always be buying dirt though, if only to keep up with constant expansion. Then you can get an reverse osmosis filtration system for the water, remove all sorts of dissolved solids, and go about adding your own nutrients. If you're going that route, coco coir hydroponics or even deep water culture would be more prudent, but require much more attention than throwing a seed in some dirt and just watering daily. By prepared soil I mean poo poo like Fox Farms soil, that runs about $35 for 1.5 cu feet, which is enough for two 5 gallon pots. If you'd like to know more, see the growing cannabis made fun and easy thread in TCC. The techniques are exactly the same as growing weed, nutrient ratios are pretty similar but everyone has their own experiments going. There's always going to be pollution after the fact, but you can compost a lot of plant matter and minimize impact in other ways, especially with water because RO filters are anything but cheap.
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Dec 31, 2020 20:47
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CRUSTY MINGE posted:You can buy a bunch of prepared soil, then recycle it after mixing in compost and letting it stew for a while. You'll always be buying dirt though, if only to keep up with constant expansion. Then you can get an reverse osmosis filtration system for the water, remove all sorts of dissolved solids, and go about adding your own nutrients. If you're going that route, coco coir hydroponics or even deep water culture would be more prudent, but require much more attention than throwing a seed in some dirt and just watering daily. Thanks. Re: the water, I meant more than farming causes the water to get hosed up. I'm not so worried about using said water and we'd probably not farm in our current state of Wisconsin (as we'll be moving soon). But I'm just curious about how to avoid doing similar damage myself, to the water table, etc. And why do I have to buy soil? It doesn't replenish on its own if I do things properly? I realize cash crops gently caress up the soil and pull nutrients and that's why you can to inject fertilizer. But for sustainable farming, I have to still buy new soil and mix in perpetually?
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Dec 31, 2020 21:56
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You don't have to truck in top soil or buy pallets of bagged stuff, soil restores with time, but it largely depends on how long it's left to lie dormant, what kind of restoration work you do, or what most people do, rotate crops. You would still be supplementing soil with fertilizers if you were going to cash crops. Then you have pesticides, herbicides, all that jazz if you want to work any substantial land. Also tilling, discing, plowing top soil. Going with bagged soil would be more along the lines of small gardening, greenhouse, learning ropes because it's easier to have success with on a smaller scale. Pests and plant diseases are easier to manage on a small scale too, and less likely in a greenhouse environment. You could always get large plots in a dry area with high water plates and run circular driven irrigation around a well, but that'd be more damage than small scale. Start small and work to grow. My grandparents worked corn and soybean rotations, but still dumped tons of anhydrous ammonia in the fields every year, still sprayed round up, and we'd torch the stalks every year until the mid-2000s. They had about 800 acres and it was a chore every year. Starting small will be less likely to burn you out, because everyone was fed up by mid-october every harvest.
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Jan 1, 2021 03:45
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Feels good sending in that final payment on the tractor. Time to start saving for more implements and a 5R 
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Jan 5, 2021 02:09
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xylo posted:Feels good sending in that final payment on the tractor. Time to start saving for more implements and a 5R 
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Jan 6, 2021 01:27
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Cows like eating and sleeping and getting scratches. They're creatures after my own heart.
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Jan 9, 2021 02:20
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French Canadian posted:Thanks. Re: the water, I meant more than farming causes the water to get hosed up. I'm not so worried about using said water and we'd probably not farm in our current state of Wisconsin (as we'll be moving soon). But I'm just curious about how to avoid doing similar damage myself, to the water table, etc. Regenerative agriculture is most definitely a thing. I'm in Europe so I can't directly tell you who to look at in the US if you are interested but I know there are people doing impressive things. The work of Alan Savory was what got me interested in the approach. After experimenting myself I don't necessarily agree with everything they say but it's a good point to start. So yes there absolutely is a viable alternative to hi input hi output "modern" agriculture. https://savory.global/
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Jan 14, 2021 10:38
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It's the most wonderful time of the year - the end of the winter manure spreading ban.
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Apr 8, 2021 22:43
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Also the most wonderful time of the year: when cows go back to pasture.
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May 16, 2021 02:11
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Put my girls into summer pastures today. We've had a poo poo spring though so they still need a little extra.
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May 16, 2021 19:31
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We finally put ours back in the pasture too a few days ago. We kept them in one field for a couple months while they were calving and it was pretty torn up. We were getting pretty tired of watering them while we were busy planting since there's no other source of water for them to drink there so it's nice not to have to think about that every day.
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May 16, 2021 19:38
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My mom's wheat crop has pinched heads due to hot weather and drought conditions this spring. They have already file an insurance claim and harvest isn't until late July. Everyone in the area is in the same boat. Of course, this would be the first year in a long time when the price is OK.
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Jun 9, 2021 06:17
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We had rain at the right time for a while, and first cut forage yields were very good, but it has turned a little drier and we're kinda on the edge of drought being a problem again like it was last year. I really don't enjoy making small square bales, but when the round baler tractor blew the radiator, desperate times called for desperate measures. At one point it stopped knotting completely on one side, but through minor fuckery and major profanity I managed to make it work again, which was a miracle Jesus himself could not have matched. 
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Jun 20, 2021 00:54
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Small bales suck rear end to deal with. My condolences.
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Jun 20, 2021 00:59
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Uncle Lloyd posted:We had rain at the right time for a while, and first cut forage yields were very good, but it has turned a little drier and we're kinda on the edge of drought being a problem again like it was last year. Wish I had that bailer :3. We don't have many acres on our little slice of heaven but the grass went crazy this year and had I a mower/bailer I'm sure I could have a modest chunk of hay. Would have saved it for the cows we plan to get as soon as some fence work is done.
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Jun 20, 2021 07:44
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Hey, you're not supposed to be there.
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Jul 13, 2021 01:17
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I once had our whole herd make a break for a gate that got away from me and run into a corn field. That was a miserable and embarrassing hour or two chasing them out again. Cows absolutely love corn for some reason.
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Jul 13, 2021 02:25
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I wish I had a photo of it (but seemed rude to stop driving and snap shots) but a few weeks back I was driving through rural Wisconsin, and saw a large group of Amish men, and a 4 horse team doing haying with some sort of non powered baler. It had a tall aspect, and appeared to be driven by the wheels of the wagon, with men riding on top, as well as walking in front with pitchforks. They formed a windrow, the wagon scooped it, the guys on top stuffed it down a chute and it popped out rather loose looking bale's. As far as I could see, it looked mostly made out of wood. Also, it was about 90F out! A little farther on, I saw a freaking *6* horse team doing some fence work, looked like some post driving. Just kind of awe inspiring to figure managing to keep a group of big rear end horses and humans on task and not getting injured.
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Jul 13, 2021 18:48
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my kinda ape posted:I once had our whole herd make a break for a gate that got away from me and run into a corn field. That was a miserable and embarrassing hour or two chasing them out again. Cows absolutely love corn for some reason. We have pregnant heifers and dry cows on pasture at work, and happily we've only had one midnight escape so far this year. Since I know there are other Vermont goons in this thread, did anyone else see this horribly depressing story from Tunbridge?
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Jul 15, 2021 02:24
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Uncle Lloyd posted:We have pregnant heifers and dry cows on pasture at work, and happily we've only had one midnight escape so far this year. Yeah, that is heartbreaking. We desperately need better broadband in the state but I've been pretty skeptical of the "We'll just run fiber everywhere" initiatives, and this is one more reason for me to dislike them. I hope those dairies get compensated and the contractors get fined, even if it won't bring back the animals that suffered. Does Act 250 have any post-hoc provisions on projects like this, or is it purely a pre-project thing?
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Jul 17, 2021 03:30
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 This particular cow has made it a point to get stuck in almost every single spot she can possibly get herself into ever since she calved. Fortunately she hasn't hurt herself any worse than needing a night on the bedded pack, and hopefully she will figure out how to be a little more of a freestall cow, and a little less suicidally sheep-like.
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Sep 12, 2021 21:41
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bit of a strange question - what is the cheapest thing i could possibly plant that would eventually get tall enough that i could bale a cutting? right now on my farm i have red clover and some bum landscape fescue mix in between my nursery stock, and i'd like to replace that with something i could eventually bale. this isn't for feed purposes (it's for erosion control/seed covering during landscaping work) so my 'needs' are pretty simple.
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Sep 29, 2021 16:09
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Ryegrass is what I've generally used as cover crop if I want to toss something down for green manure for the next season. It'll get tall enough to bale as well.
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Sep 29, 2021 21:10
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Kinda depends on if you want a permanent stand? Ryegrass would be about perfect for an annual crop, it'll yield a high quantity of coarse straw (we use it for making bales for animal bedding), but despite the name even perennial ryegrass doesn't really last long term as a pure stand very well. For new permanent seedings you'll probably want a blend if you're applying this fall. I've seen good results from an oat/timothy and/or orchardgrass mix. Corn season. 
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Oct 5, 2021 15:04
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