Yes sir, almost more than what we got all summer.
Since last Thursday 2.4!!
It was a nice slow rainfall almost all weekend.
What did you do to or on your Kubota today?
- Thread starter gurn
- Start date
Since last Thursday 2.4!!
It was a nice slow rainfall almost all weekend.
Oregon Gator blades do an excellent job of chopping up leaves. I had a really thick layer of cottonwood and maple leaves in the front yard, and after a couple of passed over them with the BX you could barely tell there had been any leaves on the ground.
Finally been getting some rain in Utopia, 1-1/2"so far this month. About 4" since the first of last month. Light rain for the last 4 days.
Been enough rain to have the burn ban lifted. Got a burn pit overflowing with Red Oak limbs and trunks.
Amazing how many champagne failures a beer budget will prevent one from making. I can afford some pretty neat toys, not that I'll buy them, though. Some would be like killing a housefly with a 20 pound sledgehammer. Kills the fly, though, if you're fast enough with it. Torn/repaired rotator cuffs tend to make me get out the spray. Some of the toys look really cool and do NOTHING. Some are for bragging rights only. I'm a modest person, probably more self-deprecating than many, but I LOVE solving problems with my head, not my wallet.
Not only am I stingy, sometimes, I just like seeing what my engineering education coupled with my redneck upbringing can bring to life. I'm a Yankee's worst nightmare, a redneck with an education. I won't go into details about any of my failures, but I have drawn more than one crowd to see what the heck I was doing, or what I was thinking when I TRIED to do it. Never been afraid of trying, though. "It can't be done" has always been a personal challenge for which the response was always "Hol' muh beer and watchiss!".
Certainly have to have high lift blades. Mulching [gator] blades are exactly the opposite of high lift. They're designed to reduce the updraft so that the blades hit the leaves multiple times to chop them up. High lift blades are designed to cut once, and get rid of it. Using gator blades with a bagger (without a pony blower as you describe) can be done, just not very well. They just don't move enough air (because of the splits in the trailing edge of the blade), which is crucial to moving anything through a tube. I just stuck with the high lift blades that came with the mower, though have found some slightly heavier and more durable ones. A few of my neighbors mulch [under the guise of it being easier], but I always finish before they do because I only have to make one pass to pick them up versus the 2, 3, or sometimes even 4 passes they make to chew them up enough to sift into the grass. I've started as much as 2 hours after one neighbor with a smaller yard, and still finish before he does. Yep, there's more getting on and off the mower, but I probably burn half the fuel they do. Since my greatest discomfort is my lower back, sitting on the mower and bouncing across the yard is harder on me than getting on/off the mower. If I want the leaves shredded, I have means to do that, too, but it would take entirely too long.
I have a little 3" chipper/flail shredder that doesn't have much to do since I bought the WC-68,, It's less affected by sand and small rocks than a cutting blade on the mower. If I take out the baffle, it'll just blow larger chunks of stuff out the discharge. I thought about trying to figure out a way to adapt that as a pony or vacuum on the trailer to pick up the leaves. It moves a ton of air as evidenced by blowing chips nearly 20 feet, but I'm not sure it will with any significant restriction on the inlet. If I closed up the holes in the flywheel where the blades bolt on and covered the chipper chute, I"m sure it would move even more as a vacuum. There may be some experiments this spring to adapt it to leaf gathering/lawn vacuuming. Got too much else to do until then. I want the system to work with the trailer I already have, but not make the trailer unusable for anything else. It's a great little light trailer that's perfect for my yardwork and hauling tools/materials around. I would miss it terribly if I lose the use of it, especially in the summer. So making it easy on / easy off is important. That's the hard part.
trial and error
Well-known member
Equipment
B7100dt manual trans. homemade FEL, 4 way hydraulic dozer blade
Used the Bota to move the splitter around to get a jump on some. the large pile of rounds I have I also find using the splitter to "clamp" the small 2-5" diameter stuff to cut it to firewood length super helpfull and I'm sure I'm not the first person to do that. No pictures of any of that as it is "boring"
Then I had what some will call a terrible idea so of course I had to try it out, behold below the newest Christmas lights putter upper platform. Yes I will still need the ladder to get up there but no more leaning against my gutter every few feet. Ill certainly have to put the counterweight back on before I do this "for real" but in theory this Non osha aproved idea should work quite well. On a side note once I was up there I realized I gotta take the leafblower up on the roof and get the gutters done
Then I had what some will call a terrible idea so of course I had to try it out, behold below the newest Christmas lights putter upper platform. Yes I will still need the ladder to get up there but no more leaning against my gutter every few feet. Ill certainly have to put the counterweight back on before I do this "for real" but in theory this Non osha aproved idea should work quite well. On a side note once I was up there I realized I gotta take the leafblower up on the roof and get the gutters done
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I'm still on the Mole rampage. The effing things got good ears. On the back of the house is an 18x36 covered concrete slab. Extending from that are 4ft wide sidewalks on 3 sides. It's like they can hear the back door open and run silent/run deep. There are signs (mounds) from them surfacing. I stand there with my 12ga and dim flashlight freezing my azz off....and not a movement. 45 minutes go by, frostbite sets in and I give up and go back inside. 30 or so minutes later I'm back out there, and nothing. There are more mounds. They got an informant on the lookout. Effing things, a dirt nap is eminent....tonight!!
Bmyers
Well-known member
Lifetime Member
Equipment
Grand L3560 with LA805 loader, EA 55" Wicked Grapple, SBX72 BB, LP 1272 mower
Looking at all you with rain makes me a little envious. Our last rain was October 29th and if the weather guessers are right it looks like we have a very small chance of rain on Thursday and 50/50 chance on Monday and then nothing till December. Going to be a very dry month. Have brush piles that I normally burn this time of year, but don't want to set the whole county on fire.
I pray that everyone gets the rain they need!
I can positively say, you have had much more rain than I have received..
Last 2 years has been brutal with these extreme droughts. Jan 1, 2022 to Aug 22, 2022, 6.2inches of rain. Lots of folks including myself sold off all the cows in our area last May/June. This year so far, a bit over 14inches YTD, a little over half the yearly average. I got another smaller herd started in February of this year cause the Spring started off really good with rains then the moisture stopped in late May/early June. My cows have been on hay since June. Hay cost can vary from $80(last year hay, stubble or low quality) to $160 for better quality hay.
I hand pitched forked 3 round bales that were lost loads last month. 2 bales the month before. I'm trying my best this year, to keep the input costs lower than what my cows are worth at auction. This is what it looked llike last month here.
Bmyers
Well-known member
Lifetime Member
Equipment
Grand L3560 with LA805 loader, EA 55" Wicked Grapple, SBX72 BB, LP 1272 mower
Wow, yes you need rain more so than we do. At this point in the year, the lack of rain is more of an inconvenience for some outdoor projects and a blessing for the farms to be able to get the crops in without fighting the mud.
So, I should be more thankful and less complaining because as you pointed out, it could be a lot worse.
Hopefully, the rain will fall on you soon.
Got my hydraulic couplers from Summit for the L45 3function. I installed them and did some testing. Since the 3f has never been used, I needed to free up the solenoids/plungers to get it working. Hooked it up to the Wicked55 and after working with it for a while everything smoothed out with the relief valves and working great. It was failing to relief on clamping down, but relief properly on open. Now it's just working great. Pulled another stump out of my wide collection of stumps that need pullin'.
I am being pretty careful with it, but this machine probably needs a bigger, tougher grapple. It's amazing how tough the EA stuff really is though.
I am being pretty careful with it, but this machine probably needs a bigger, tougher grapple. It's amazing how tough the EA stuff really is though.
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You're pretty smooth with that grapple. I would have grabbed the far side fender getting it out of the truck!!
I was mowing some pasture this afternoon and there was a fair amount of weeds etc there. What I noticed is when I mow with a flail the cows are there eating before I make one lap to back where i started. I've seen it every time I mow. I think the flail chops the grass and weeds up enough they just eat it!
Other than loading a hydraulic plow and set of forks that I sold, today was the first real use of the new machine and pull type blower. Received 6 inches of relatively light snow this morning. 1 pass down and 1 pass up the driveway which is 300 yards approximately. A pretty good little hill in the middle but no issues with the 4 wheel drive. Picked up some chains but hope I won't be needing them. Feel a little envious of all the neat projects you folks are accomplishing with your machines. Have almost 1.5 hours, almost time to trade in for newer!
I put the FEL back on and switched to the bucket, grabbed a leaf rake and started raking mulched leaves in to the bucket, stop on them a bit and put some more in,, got 4 packed buckets to the compost pile. Gawd I need a vacuum for this crap
I have one King Maple on my property, and hate cleaning up behind that in the Fall.
Welcome!Other than loading a hydraulic plow and set of forks that I sold, today was the first real use of the new machine and pull type blower. Received 6 inches of relatively light snow this morning. 1 pass down and 1 pass up the driveway which is 300 yards approximately. A pretty good little hill in the middle but no issues with the 4 wheel drive. Picked up some chains but hope I won't be needing them. Feel a little envious of all the neat projects you folks are accomplishing with your machines. Have almo
st 1.5 hours, almost time to trade in for newer!
Great machine you got there, I sold my cab 2020 M7060 earlier this year. I do miss it on occasion.
Thank You. May I ask why you sold the 7060? When we moved here at the end of Sept there was a 2010 MX5100 with plow and forks but no cab and I'm too old (too soft maybe) to be out in the elements nowadays.
Yes sir, no problem. It was a business decision. Was in the cattle business, more work than what it was worth and it involved leased land of couple hundred acres, the brutal droughts have been a kick in the nuts. I can't justify having it for my place with my other equipment, nor does it fit under half my trees. I sold it a quite a bit more than what I paid for. I only have 6 cows and 1 bull, just to keep the Ag exemption on my place, and even those bastards might end up costing more than what they are worth or in future calves worth, cause hay costs etc. All my neighbors downszed or got out. One neighbor next to me hs 350ac, his cousin ran cows on his place, he sold everything cow related. That neighbor wants me to lease his place, nope, not taking on any more animals, he can let my cows out on his place and claim he is meeting the ag exemption needs, but Im not adding any more to the herd. Sorry/rant.....
Ok back to the M7060, I also didn't want to keep it for my side jobs, the fuel tank and hydraulic distribution is on the belly. Not ideal for South Texas brush county, otherwise great machine for improved pastures/land. Using an older 2wd 100hp JD or International is more ideal pulling the 15' batwing in brush country. Those tractors sit high and not much on the bottom side for crap to get ripped off.
Thanks Sundance. Sorry to hear about the crappy luck with the weather and everything. Glad to know the tractor wasn't sold because it was a POS though.
All the best, cheers.
Don't know how long you've had an ag exemption, but in most counties in Texas if you have an ag for at least 5 years you can change it to a wildlife exemption. Depending on county the requirements may be extremely simple of in my case Bandera County it gets a little more complicated. Another route is bees. In Bandera County 5-10 acres and you can qualify.