With all the cleaning and closing/taking care of accounts and such for my Mother I got way behind on a few of the day to day chores of running the Small Hold this year. One of which was moving the round bales from the field to more strategic locations around the various paddocks and the like. The above picture is my current round bale mover an old John Deere 1010. I like her for moving bales over my Fords for a couple of reasons.

1. She is the same horse power as my 861 Diesel and has the same lift weight but she also has an I beam welded to her front that holds what I use as tractor weights around here. Those being logging chains and old window counter weights. I can put about 70 pounds on her total and they fit so much better than on the Ford.

2. She has a bit higher clearance than the Ford(s) which is important when using a rear mounted bale spike since I do not have a front loader tractor..... Yet.  

3. Well I guess one and two are all there really are, but at least I can also claim I own a Deere now :)

I picked this old girl up a few years back and she has some rough spots. One of her front struts sometimes goes out and makes her very hard to turn/straighten back out, she gets water in her fuel line easily so I cannot leave her out at all in the rain even with a cover on the stack. She really needs a new carburetor at this point as the last overhaul showed the insides were pretty bad due to water damage so she takes her own sweet time to get going. I also think she has a hydraulic pump going bad now too. I had to replace one front rim already due to rust damage along with points/condenser etc. due to the water damage. Yet once I get her going she is a work horse and having another live PTO around is always nice.

I used her all afternoon to move the bales which always takes much longer than it seems like it should. I moved or put up 32 bales this year and probably am due another 2 or so from the haul but at this point assuming the horses find a new home I am sure I won't even need half that so I am going to let the guy I had bale em take em as a bonus. Maybe that will encourage him to keep coming back cause I really do not want to buy a round baler myself.

Since as I said I got so far behind I also left the front hay field alone this year so I have no small square bales left. The small bales are what I usually feed to the Ram and the mini-dwarf goat/pet things so this year I am placing a round bale next to their fences and just forking hay over to them as needed. It works but ends up wasting hay a bit but that should not be a problem this year.

Finally as the sun was going down and I was preparing for a lazy evening I discovered we had another death in the family. Seven. That was her name. The very first Ewe I ever got. My original records seem to have some how gotten lost in my Mothers paper stash but I believe she was only 11 years old this year. Well into the average lifespan of a sheep but years behind many of her flock mates, including her mother. I got a couple old retired ewes out there that are pushing 15 this year. Anyway she was in many ways more like a dog as I let her follow me around the place a lot from the time she was lamb until chores got to be a bit much for her herd animal attitude. She really hates tractors I might add.

From the looks of things I have no idea what she died of. There was no worm sign at all, no parasites around the body and she did not appear to be very bloated. I figure she died last night as some smell was starting but we got above 70 today so no more than would be normal. I do a count at feeding time and that was when I noticed one was missing. The body was in her normal sleeping position with two legs extended and two tucked up under her so I saw no signs of thrashing around in pain or anything. Just a mystery I guess. I spent the first hour or so of darkness taking care of her remains and called it an evening.  

Gonna be a bit odd around here without Seven as she was my leader ewe. I could get her to follow me anywhere which then prompted the rest of the ewes to also follow, even the skiddish ones. Luckily she has a brother from a different season named Boris who Mrs. PP insisted on keeping and is as much a follower as Seven was. 

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!