August 2024 Accomplishments

Here’s a summary of what we accomplished in August on our various projects.

• Personnel
  • Hired Rebecca as seasonal farmhand
  • Welcomed Claire back from her leave of absence
• Bridge
  • Finished installing the decking
  • Placed 118 tons of rock for the western approach
  • Finished site cleanup
  • Load tested the bridge with:
    • John Deere Gator (about 1500 lbs. plus operator)
    • Bobcat Toolcat (about 5600 lbs. plus operator)
    • Toolcat with 1/4 cord of dry firewood on a pallet (about 6400 lbs. plus operator)
    • Dodge Ram 2500 pickup (about 6600 lbs. plus operator)
    • John Deere 35D mini-excavator (about 8000 lbs. plus operator)
  • Ordered and received signage (speed limit, etc.)
  • Placed the bridge in service almost exactly two years after we placed the arches. What a project this was, but we’re all happy with the results!
• Barn
  • Tidied up the worksite in preparation for resuming work
  • Moved all needed tools from bridge worksite to barn worksite
  • Confirmed that framing is still plumb, square, and true
  • Replaced some temporary braces to keep everything plumb, square, and true
  • North wall
    • Identified and repaired pockets of wood decay in existing framing
    • Installed hardware to resist uplift and overturning forces (wind and seismic)
• Hospitality
  • Hosted one-day planning retreat for Childhood Health Associates of Salem providers and families
• Garden
  • Began harvesting tomatoes
  • Zucchini harvest continued
  • Tomatillos being harvested
  • Harvested a few purple snap beans
  • Planted some kale
• Hayfields
  • The 4″ cut on the fescue harvest this spring appeared to result in grass that stayed at least somewhat green even to the end of August.
  • South field still has a lot of weed pressure from coastal tarweed, but it looks like last month’s mowing set it back enough that there will be minimal seed production this year.
  • Horse feedback on this year’s hay:
    • Horses are eating north field hay that has a fair bit of false chamomile in it.
    • Horses are picking through south field hay that has coastal tarweed.
    • South field hay that had a lot of velvet grass in it produced a slightly sticky hay, but the horses are eating it just fine.
• Pastures
  • First half of the month still okay for light grazing
  • Second half of the month we closed off the pastures
• Forestry
  • Moved deck of logs (leftover from Zahler’s thinning) at edge of north field to mill yard
    • Successfully used the fetching arch with the junior arch trailing to move longer logs for the first time.
    • Moving long logs across the bridge (east to west) with the logging arches works fine, but clearance at the peak of the bridge is tight; larger diameter logs will require a skid plate at the bridge peak.
  • Moved logs from North Flat to mill yard. They came from a wolf Douglas-fir that came down last winter due to ice. The first two logs were 16′ each, scaling to about 500 board-feet between them. They are fairly knotty, but will make good 1x material for the barn. The butt log was a challenge for both the excavator and the Toolcat.
• Sawmill
  • Milled 1781 board feet of Douglas-fir lumber (including new best of 264 bf in one day)
  • Trained Rebecca
    • As a sawmill helper
    • To build firewood boxes
    • To grease the Toolcat
    • To operate Toolcat
      • Empty
      • Using forks to move firewood box (single stack only)
      • Using log grapple to move logs on trails and in yard
        • 12′ and under, single and multiple logs
        • 14′ and over, one or two logs at a time
• Horses
  • Summer shed started mid-month
  • Trained Rebecca to do morning feeding
  • Hay consumption went from 1-1/2-ish bales a day to three bales by the end of the month.
  • Elf: doing well
  • Shasta: still underweight, but appetite continues to be good
  • Nemo:
    • tore his upper eyelid, but recovered nicely with sutures (was a superstar for suture removal)
    • At healthy weight now.
    • Not getting as many bite marks as he integrates better into the herd (still bottom of the ladder).
    • Food aggression much better; can now be fed in same pen as Shasta without drama.
    • Did fine for his first hoof trim with Bobbi.
    • Discovered that he will slip electric fence gates to be with the herd
  • Simon:
    • Rebecca has been giving him some extra attention and that appears to be helping him.
    • Discovered that he will slip electric fence if it is a little bit too tall.
  • Herc: weight stable, feet healthy