Rotomania

Awhile back I mentioned that a lady called and said she had 8 rolls of woven wire to give away. I managed to bring home 12 rolls from her place - totaling about 3/4 of a mile of wire! She also had 2 of the old Allis-Chalmers Rotobalers sitting there. I asked if she wanted them out of there and she told me I could have them. One was for a spare, but the other was used up until her husband had died 5 years ago. It will need a bit of work, but it should be ok. These balers put out around a 40-60 pound round bale. They are different to work with, but I will use it until I can afford a square baler. The price was right anyhow! I have one (the better one) home now and will get the other in a few days.

I also built a grain bin for the corn I feed my chickens. I used to have a 55 gallon drum in the chicken house for thier feed. They would roost on it and there would be bunches of fresh "chicken do" on the top every morning. I decided it was past time for one on the outside of the coop, with a tube to channel the feed to the inside the chicken house. I used parts I had laying around and a little "MacGverization", but it works great. I built a smaller version to store cat food in that hangs inside my barn. It keeps the cats from trying to get into the food while I'm trying to get it out.

My corn is done for the year! I only had 6 rows, but I got a nice sized pile of ears! I had cut some green for the goats and then waited for the rest to mature. Yesterday, I mowed the patch down with my sicklebar and fed a pile of stalks to the goats. They loved it! They happily munched away for hours - and even stayed up later than usual to eat some! I will probably give them some more tomorrow. I picked up most of the rest with a pitch fork and used the brush hog on the field to shred the stubble down.

The neighbor picked corn Thursday and Friday. I asked him if I could go through and pick up some of the down falls and missed ears. It took me about 20 minutes and I had 2 bucketsful of ears! I could have gotten more, but decided to stop for the day. I also picked up 3/4 of a bucket of shelled corn he had spilled on the ground. I use some of the ear corn to toss to the chickens durring the day. It's fun to watch them run after it and crash into each other over it! They have started to follow me around, looking for it!