Tractor ran out of diesel

Now that I finished the harrow work, on Sunday I decided to drive my John Deere 5420 tractor to the gas station to refuel.  I thought I had enough fuel left. (My fuel gauge quit working last year.)   I forgot all I did since I last fueled up the tractor.  The bad news is that I ran out of diesel.  The good news in that is that I ran out while in my pole shed, and not out on the road.  I had just warmed up my tractor for a minute and was raising the loader to get ready to drive when the tractor ran out of diesel.

What?!!!

I drove my pickup to the gas station and got 6 gallons of diesel.  When I tried to restart the tractor it ran briefly then stopped.  I followed all the manual's instructions on bleeding the air out of the fuel line.  http://manuals.deere.com/omview/OMRE199128_19/OUO1043_0000243_19_28FEB02_1.htm

The book also said to completely fill the fuel tank before trying to bleed the air and restart the tractor.  So two more trips to the gas station with the extra two gas cans I found. The extra cans enabled me to transport 16 gallons at a time.  I found my fuel tank holds about 26 to 27 gallons.  So I have extra diesel for another day.

I tried bleeding the air again and restarting the tractor.  No go.  The bleeding didn't seem to work.  Off to YouTube and Google to look for ideas.  While I was bleeding the air correctly, the priming pump didn't seem to be drawing diesel.  My arms got tired from pushing the primer.   The YouTube videos had fuel primed in 10 to 12 pumps.

This tractor model doesn't have a fuel pump.  A web site mentioned a check valve between the fuel tank and the fuel filter. This check valve is meant to provide a one way directional flow of fuel from the tank to the filter.  I couldn't find it.  I even checked with Wyatt who had replaced an old fuel hose for me last year.  He didn't remember seeing a check valve.

A web site mentioned possible debris blocking either the check valve or the priming pump.  I took the cover off the priming pump.  No debris.  With the top off I added diesel and filled the priming pump and the fuel filter.   No go.

This morning I had Curtis help me.  He used my air compressor to add pressure to my fuel tank and I went through the various bleeding steps again without using the priming pump.  This time I had fuel come out the filter base bleed screw and the injection pump bleed screw.   Then I was able to start my tractor after turning it over a few times.  15 minutes after shutting the tractor off I was able to easily restart it.

I don't know if the priming pump quit working, or if there was debris in the fuel line blocking the flow until I pressurized the fuel tank.

Lessons learned:

1. Fix the fuel gauge.
2. If I run out of fuel, don't try to restart the tractor until I completely refill the fuel tank.
3. Don't run out of diesel.

Leaning feeder

The cows have been hard on the long wooden feeder.  They push hard against it while eating.  It was starting to lean badly again.  So I pounded a metal t-post next to the feeder to help hold it upright.  Because of the forecast of rain over these next three days I gave the cows an entire big hay bale in the metal feeder and turned them loose on it this morning.

The bigger cows push Sugar and the heifers around when eating hay.  Lately I've taken to splitting the hay I feed twice a day into the large metal feeder and the wooden feeder.  The cows all go to the metal feeder to eat.  Then I put the rest of the hay into the wooden feeder.  The heifers and Sugar see I do this as they were pushed away from the metal feeder.  Once they are at the wooden feeder I close the corral gate so they can eat without hassle.

This morning they came into the corral to the wooden feeder.  But since I put a large bale out and didn't use the pickup, I had no extra hay for them.  I think they had to wait until the big bully cows finished eating so they could eat. They were sad.

No extra hay for us?

Harrowing

Today I finished dragging my harrows across all my pastures.  Usually I am done by the first week of April, but not after this cold and snowy Winter.  I worked to finish today as tonight the rain came.  It is suppose to be colder and rainy the next few days.

Under some of the large trees, where the cattle like to lay a lot, the manure was thick.  Too much manure will eventually kill the trees.

Seed

Today I got the seed for my hayfield.  I got an alfalfa and orchard grass mix.  The mix is 80% alfalfa and 20% orchard grass.   The orchard grass is suppose to grow again after the first cutting.  Previously the grass in my hayfield was broome grass and that grass never really grew much after the first cutting.  So the second cutting of the field was mostly alfalfa.

I bought the seed from a seed supplier in Ronan, Montana.  They were $120+ cheaper than the feed supplier in Kalispell.  So today - a very nice day - I went on a road trip to Ronan.  140 miles roundtrip.   A benefit was I was able to stop and have lunch at the excellent Thai restaurant in Polson, MT.    For my 15 acre hayfield the cost for 300 pounds of seed custom mixed was $1,220.   Yeh... not cheap.

I am waiting for the ground to warm up more.  The past few days have been in the 60s and the next two days are supposed to be in the 70s.  That should do it.  The plan was then to plant early next week.  Except the weather forecast has lots of rain Sunday through Tuesday and much colder temperatures.  So I'll see what the conditions are next week.

Once the seed is planted and growing I'll be happier.  I am storing the seed in my garage.  I told Daisy to watch for mice.  When I unloaded the bags I found a dead mouse on the garage floor that Daisy had caught earlier.

300 pounds of seed.   6 bags.  50 pounds each.

Tractor tire fixed

Today I got my repaired tractor tire back.  I had called Les Schwab tire center Monday morning and was told a person wouldn't be out until Tuesday morning as they were busy and one of the people who does service calls was off work that Monday.

So I rode my bicycle to the new Harbor Freight store and bought a breaker bar as I didn't have one.

Then I jacked up my tractor and began to remove the tire's lug nuts.  Between the bar's leverage and my strength I immediately broke in two the 13/16 socket.  And this was an old SK socket, not some cheap Chinese junk steel.  With a different socket I carefully removed the lug nuts and took the tire off.

It takes two people to lift the tire into the pickup.  My neighbor Curtis helped me get the tire into my pickup.  The tire was too big to close the tailgate.

The tire has an inner tube.  When I bought the tractor, John, the salesman, thought the tires had calcium chloride in them as ballast.  (https://countrysidenetwork.com/daily/homesteading/tractors-farm-equipment/ballast-the-tractor-tire-fluids-rundown/)   Apparently not.  The tire was plenty heavy without liquid inside it.

As you can see below the tire had two punctures from two harrow spikes.  Les Schwab patched the tube and $48 later I am back in business.

This evening I started harrowing the south pasture.

Temporary corral

This morning I put up the green temporary corral panels to make the corral a little larger for the cattle.    The grass is finally starting to grow so I don't want the cattle out in the pasture so as to give the grass a head start.  With the temporary corral I hope to keep the cattle in one or the other part of the coral so I can restock their hay feeder without them getting in the way.

I had stored the green corral panels in the NE pasture, and when I finished building the temporary corral I forgot to close the gate to the NE pasture.  Four cows and four calves made it into the NE pasture before I noticed the gate was open.   I had my neighbor Curtis man the gate while I rounded up the cattle and herded them back through the gate.

A correction to my earlier post about Donna not liking Mama cow.  Mama cow doesn't like Donna.  When Donna was visiting, Mama came to the corral fence.  When Donna walked over to the fence to talk to and maybe pet Mama, Mama put her head through the fence to try to chase Donna away.  Mama then brought her head back into the corral and shook her head at Donna.  So, no, Mama cow doesn't like Donna.  I think I am the only person Mama cow likes (or at least tolerates).

Freak tractor accident

This afternoon I started to drag a harrow across the pastures.  I finished doing the NE pasture and began to work on the north pasture east end where I plan to set up temporary corral panels as a large corral to keep the cattle until the grass grows out.

The harrow is five sections and I pull them using a long metal cable. I used this setup with my tractor last year around all the pasture with no problems.  Today somehow the cable got wrapped around the left side tractor axle.  Then the left rear tractor tire ran over the cable on another turn.  With no slack left the cable wrapped around the tractor tire itself and pulled up the harrows to the tire.  I turned around at the sound of the commotion and saw the harrows coming up in the air towards the tractor.  I immediately stopped. By then the left front harrow had been pulled up under the tractor's tire fender and against the left rear tire.  One of the harrow's spikes went through the tire and I heard air escaping.

I had to remove the railroad tie I had placed on the front two harrow sections for weight, then unchain the other harrow sections from the one section in the tire.  Then I had to untie the cable from the harrow section and then unwrap the cable from the tire.  My neighbor Curtis helped me remove the harrow section from the tire.  I was able to drive the tractor to the backyard before all the air escaped from the tire.

Monday I'll have to get the tire fixed.  That'll be a big job.   In the meantime I put the five harrow sections back together and used my pickup to drag the harrow around the area I plan to setup my temporary corral panels tomorrow.

I had partially disassembled the harrow sections when I took this photo.

Cutting logs, and Mama cow

A few days ago Jan had a number of trees on her property trimmed or cut.  Even though most of the trees were Aspen, I took the tree trunks for firewood.  I got a large pickup load of tree trunks.  Today I fired up my chainsaw and cut the tree trunks into smaller pieces suitable for splitting and then for my wood stove.

I then, until I ran out of chainsaw bar oil, spent a few more hours cutting up fallen trees in the middle pasture.  I gathered up a pickup load and a half of logs and stacked them for later splitting.  I also stacked half of  "Jan's" logs I cut earlier.

That, and riding 30 miles on my bicycle, has left this guy feeling his age tonight.

In the afternoon I found Mama cow drinking by herself at the water trough.  I opened the gate and let her into the south corral to be with Tobey.  Panda saw what I was doing and came running from across the corral but I got the gate closed before she reached me.  Mama and cow #80 are the last two cows left to have calves.  Mama is usually very protective of her newborn calves and maybe by being in the south corral it would be easier to ear tag, and if a boy, band her calf.  Donna will be happy I put Mama in the south corral as she doesn't like Mama.

Mama is happy as she now has an "all-you-eat" hay bale.  She immediately stuck her head into the bale and ate and ate.  The photo is when she took a break from eating.

Discing: Round 1

Tuesday I made the first pass discing my hayfield.  Since I had worked the field up well last year before planting my oat, barely, and pea crop, I don't need to do much discing before planting my alfalfa and grass crop this Spring.  One more pass should be enough.

I did one pass now to set back the weeds and grass that started to appear in the field this past week with the warmer weather.  Also turning over the soil and burying the residual vegetation from last year crop will 'darken' the soil.  I am counting on this to help warm up the ground quicker before I plant later.  New alfalfa shoots can freeze.

More 'Silver' photos

I think Beulah's calf is so pretty. I think I am going to name her: "Silver".  Here are a few more photos of her from Monday morning.  The calf does a bit of bawling when she is not next to her mother.  But I see milk around her mouth so she is drinking.

I saw Chris plowing his rented field this afternoon and I talked with him about the beaver dam, and about borrowing his packer so I can plant my hayfield this Spring.  The beavers didn't repair the dam I had partially removed a few days ago.  They did work on the culvert dam.  The replaced the north wing/dam from the culvert that I had removed.  They made the new addition even bigger.  I removed the addition.

Patrick, Buddette, and cow 40

It was a busy Sunday.  In addition to the birth of Beulah's calf, and Tobey getting a new hay bale, I had to herd cow #40 and her calf into the NE pasture to be with cow #20 in the temporary corral.  Cow #40 had a slight limp the past few days but this afternoon her limp got much worse.  The muddy corral may not be good for her leg, or another cow may have pushed or rammed her.

I was mainly trying to herd cow #40 and expected her calf to follow. But her calf took off like a rocket and ran way out in the pasture.  Cow #40 then hobbled as fast as she could after her calf.  After a few more 'calf rockets' I finally got the both of them to walk to the gate and into the NE pasture.  Then down to where cow 20 and cow 120 were eating in their temporary corral.

Cow 120 is the cow with the swollen jaw.  Today her jaw was less swollen.  It looks as if she had an infection and the infection has drained somewhat.  Surprisingly cow 120 shows no ill effects and eats well.  So, since I added cow #40 I decided to let cow 120 and her calf (Buddette) out and have them rejoin the rest of the cows.   Herding cow 120 and Buddette across the NE pasture to the north pasture was a small chore as Buddette rocketed around checking stuff out.

Sunday afternoon most of the calves were bursting with energy.  Must have been because of the nice day.

While Buddette was still in the temporary corral she caught ahold of her tail and licked and licked it.  She must have played with her tail for three minutes.  A long time for a calf to play with its tail.

And since I have cute photos of Buddette, I am including one of Patrick.

New hay bale for Tobey

On Sunday Tobey had about a day's worth of hay left to eat in his feeder.  But I had to start the tractor to get a couple of hay bales down from the top of the stack so I decided to give Tobey a new hay bale.  I took his old hay and gave it to the cows.  They were less than pleased as the older hay was from Calvin's field.  Tobey got a new bale of the grain hay.  He was happy.  I put part of a small hay bale in the barn's wooden feeder to distract Tobey as I lifted the metal feeder up onto its side and prepared the new hay bale.  Later Tobey buried his head into the new bale and ate and ate.

Calf 11 - Beulah's

Beulah had her calf this afternoon between 4 pm and 5 pm.  From her behavior just before 4 pm I suspected she would give birth later in the day.  Just like last year Beulah quickly gave birth.  When I next saw Beulah at 5 pm her calf was all clean and was standing and drinking milk.  That was fast!

The calf is a heifer.  Another heifer!   But that is ok.  The calf is a beautiful silver grey. A gorgeous color.  The photos don't do the calf's color justice.  I am already thinking of keeping the calf as a replacement heifer for next year.

Beaver dam

Last Fall I told Chris where the beaver dam was that was flooding the field he rented and was harvesting.  He didn't do anything about it.  Last week the 'lake' got even larger.  Today I put waders on and checked it out.  In addition to the dam the beaver plugged the culvert that makes a bridge over the creek.  The culvert makes a higher dam.  In addition the beavers started to extend the dam on the north side where the water flows around the culvert.  I removed the north side dam extension.  The culvert is completely underwater on the upstream side.  The downstream side only has water that flows around the culvert dam.  It is too dangerous to go in the culvert to try to remove the dam.

A few hundred yards downstream is the original beaver dam, the one that floods the field.  The dam was impressive.  Mud and branches.  I didn't see any water flowing through the dam.  The dam is higher than the creek's banks.  The beavers tried to extend the dam on each side of the creek once the creek overflowed the banks.  But that proved to much of an area to dam. (I think that is why the beavers then moved upstream and dammed the culvert.)   I removed much of the lower dam.  The creek is now back in its banks.   At sundown water was still flowing from the fields back into the creek.  Now to see how long it will be before the beavers rebuild the dam.  Since they still have their culvert dam they may not rebuild the lower dam.

Downstream of the lower beaver dam before the dam removal.

Calf 10 - Sugar's

Sugar finally had her calf this afternoon.  A male calf.  She only had one calf, though she looked big enough to have twins.  Her udder for the past few days was so large she hit it as she walked.  I wonder if she has a little Holstein in her ancestry.

The calf is big.  This is her first calf by Buddy and the calf looks similar to Buddy's other calves.  So hopefully I will get full price for the calf this Fall, unlike what happened with her calf last Fall.

While the mother is not as aggressive as Mama can be, and does not attack me, she does get real close when I work on her calf.  Other mothers usually come no closer than a couple of feet away.  I got nervous and then picked up the calf to carry it across the fence to the middle pasture.  Of course the calf was near the north side of the north pasture.  I had to pause a few times to catch my breath.  And the calf struggled.  And the mother was right behind me as I walked so half the time I walked while looking backwards.  A few times I thought the mother was going to come through the fence as Donna and I banded and ear tagged the calf.

The calf's umbilical cord area was still bloody so I got blood all over me as I carried the calf.  Good thing I was wearing my patched up pants and didn't care.

Afterwards... the cows ate their evening hay and the other calves hung out in the corral.

Cattle and calf photos

Still no new baby calves.  Sugar looks very pregnant and could give birth anytime.

This afternoon Tobey the bull was sniffing around a few of the cows.  Some stood up for him to check. One cow refused as she wasn't interested and continued to refuse when Tobey pushed against her. Eventually he gave up and went to another cow.  Since I don't want any January newborn calves, and it has been three weeks since the first cow gave birth, it was time to put Tobey into the south corral by himself.  Since I didn't want him mingling with the heifers I moved the heifers from the south corral to the loading corral until Tobey went into the south corral.  Then I let the heifers out and the cows into the corral to eat hay.  Tobey was bummed as the hay in the south corral is from a bale of Calvin's hay and not the oats/grain hay from my field.  Later in the evening he was eating from his bale.

Tobey in the south corral.

The heifers did fine mingling/eating with the other cows, though some cows refused to let the heifers eat next to them.

Here are some calf photos...

Patrick is learning how to eat hay.

Tiny dancer

Her hair looks to be so clean and soft.