With my last day at cloudland farm today i started off with plowing the back field. This is the same one that i had put up the spring tight fence. For the most part is was self explanatory except for little parts. Like when you catch a rock or some ledge. With the more time you spend in the field the better you get. the next steps will be pulling out all the rock and disc harrowing the field.

thursday

With Wednesday being again to busy of a day to bog i got put behind. But now i am caught up with the forms being put up and concrete inside them drying, I now have my foundation done with the 4 foot frost walls drying as i type. tomorrow will be a big day with the start of plowing at Cloudland and the forms coming of the walls at the sugar bush. Thins are speeding up but senior project is slowing down. I will just have to continue after.

Today was finally a day of closer to part of the sugar house. The footing got poured all around the base. tomorrow will be another big day with forms going up for the four foot frost walls. Today i learned how to set forms. tie the forms all together and set rebar inside the forms. All of these were new experiences for me which is always nice because it mixes things up.

monday

Not to much new going on except finally finished putting down all the drainage stone and pipe for the sugar house. Tomorrow will be a big long day because we are going to be setting up forms for the footings and compacting the soil inside of the forms. at the end of the day we will hopefully have concrete drying. this will be a large step in the right direction on getting things doen and will be another one of my goals completed.

Catching up on all i have forgotten to post

From top to the bottom are, an example of the spring tight fence we use, then the foundation hole for the sugar house, and finally the corral for moving cattle. If notice that it is hard to find time in the day to even do a simple blog posting. I will be trying to stay more current now that things are some what slowing down.

thursday

Today was a good day with the completion of the spring tight fence in the back pasture. All the post were pounded in the wire was strung and the ends were connected so electricity could flow threw to the new section. this fence served as a final exam of my fencing skills considering i had to put all my skills to use. In the past couple of weeks i have worked with temporary fence, spring tight fence, and other various ways of fencing. With most of my pastures fenced in and fixed now it is time to move onto the next page of my project which is cultivation of fields. I will be learning how to till the field, fertilize the field, and seed the field. At the other end of my project tomorrow will be a good day with the help of Brad again we should be making a good amount of head way of the foundation for the sugar house. My goal would be to have the area ready for concrete by the end of next week.

tuesday

With another rainy day come good work. Started off feeding out round bales and then gathered up materials for the spring tight fence that i will be installing in the back pasture. Took out some square posts that i used to build the corner of the fence with. you use three post in the shape of an L so that it will be braced up and supported. To hold the post together i ran wire around then and then used a tightener to take out the slack.

monday

With the beginning to a new week a good start was made. we went out to the back pasture to right down what we would need and to measure the distance of the fence. Then we went down the road and took apart and old fence that we will re use to make the new fence. We also pulled out some posts that will be re used too. We also did some fence maintenance in other spots. After working at Cloudland i continued to hang up some lateral line in the sugar bush so i could start counting possible taps. So far i believe i am around 60.

Thursday and Friday

Same things are still going on, finished up a couple more pastures in the last 2 days and kept of feeding cows and other chores around the farm. Put the roto tiller on the tractor and tilled the garden so it would be ready for crops. Went and visited the field that we are going to till. today we put up a corral for the cows so that we can load them into the stock trailer and put them out to the fields we have fenced in. The sugar bush is coming along to with 3 main lines up and a fourth on on the way. hopefully there will be a foundation in the ground before the end of this month.

We Discussed

Today we worked more on putting up some temporary fence along another pasture edge. We discussed the reasoning between pole separation, which direction the insulator faced, and were to put the twine its self. I also brought a couple round bales out to some steers, heifers, and yearlings. We also put a pump in at the pond so that there will be water flowing to the pastures we fenced off yesterday. After working at Cloudland i took a trip to Bascom's Maple farm to pick up the rest of the supplies i will need to finish off the bottom bush in my total sugar bush.

First day at Cloudland

Today i started at Cloudland by helping Billy with putting up some temporary twine fence. These twine fences are used to brake up large pastures so you can rotate the cattle threw them. Then we drove the perimeter to check the spring tight fence for any breaks or branches resting on it. I also Pulled out the 3 bottom plow and also the disc harrow preparing for tilling the Maple Wood field. After work at Cloudland i met with Brad Hardie at the location of the sugar house site to talk about possibilities for the pad and other features we might do.

Hanging mainline tubing at the base of the sugar bush.

Sunday

End of the third day and things are coming together pretty well. Came close to finishing the foundation hole for the sugar house and was able to hang wire for my bottom main line. Maybe after dinner i might go out and hang some 3/4" tubing on it.

So today would be the end of my second day which went quite well. I started my day at 6:20 with eating breakfast for the first time and also waking up almost two hours earlyer then if i had been at school. I drove down to Bascom's Maple farm and picked up my evaporator and storage tank and a good amount of tube fitting and other supplies. i arived back home around noon and continued to excavate the sugar house site some more and focussed on digging out below ground level for where the concrete pad will be poured. I also started to hang my main line to the sugar bush and got about two hundred feet done.

Today is starting off with a trip down to Bascom Maple farm to pick up some supplies for the sugar bush

Today i started on what is going to be the location of the sugar house. We brought the grade of the hill down so that the area is relatively flat and tomorrow i will start to dig below ground level so that the concrete pad can be framed. I also met with Billy at Cloudland and spoke about what the up coming week would look like.

First post

This would just be me testing out what to do with my blog.