Backfilling the footers on the new hay barn

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]All right, folks. I don't know what we're going to end up doing here today, but we're going to try and back fill on this barn here with the dirt. And uh got some of that wheat hay. I want to check and see how far along that's coming.

[00:00:11]But we'll get this knocked out here today hopefully.

[00:00:15]And I got an offer to do maybe 75 acres of clover. It's 25 miles from home. 25 26 miles. I got to do some math and figure out how much room we have on the pad. How much I want to be with tarps. It's going to be tough to get room. How much can we market? Where's our margin? So, we got some math to do here. here this afternoon. I'm going to try and knock this out here quick then start looking at forecast and see because what I want to do we got tritekale 30 40 acres down we've got 26 acres a week wheat down that's pretty thin so that's more like a third cut off alpha tonnage wise there ain't much out there if even third cut you know we're talking a half ton at most but these two clover fields we got 116 acres of clover I'm hoping to drop Sunday and two days from now today's Friday out all my trickle and wheat tomorrow after the rain then mow 116 acres of clover Then what I want to do is hop here at the home place, mow all this, small square bail, all this before I hop it in anywhere else. But we have some time limits on both fields of clover. The first field of clover I've already had lined up. We're going to start there. That's 5 milesi from home.

[00:01:12]The second one, the 75 acres. If we want to do it, I don't know. We have a tentative uh we have about 2 to 3 weeks max to get it done. And that's if we have windows to finish what we're doing now, finish this and then hop onto that.

[00:01:23]That might be a possibility. Got to see if we even have a way to move that much clover. I don't know that we're bailing more clover than we've ever bailed in the past. And I don't know if we have the buyers um for it. I'm sure you you know, like we've done a lot in the past, just kind of bail it and hope they come.

[00:01:38]I don't know if that's the best route, but uh I'm pretty aggressive on trying to grow this thing and keep doing what we can. And uh I I have a hard time turning away opportunities if I think we can make it happen. And I think we can make it happen. I just got to hope that luck is on our side. And God willing, we can get the opportunity to get in the fields when we need to and get it knocked out.

[00:01:57]But I hate to keep pushing this off and we really haven't pushed it off to do some other opportunities. I kind of want to get the barns going first. But I think once we get the clover 116 acres that's close to home done. I want to do this field here at the home place. We got 41ish acres here between the grass and alpha alpha. I want to get that knocked out small square bail that before we go hopping into anything else.

[00:02:16]And then since I field that's 26 mi away. It's to the south. We have another 20acre field of clover we're doing all year. So these first two big fields we're talking about are one cut only.

[00:02:24]They're planting to beans or corn after.

[00:02:25]they need to get them done and out of the way so they can plant their row crops. I get it. Um, no problems there.

[00:02:30]It just puts a time crunch on us. But since we're already going south, right on the way back, it's about 8 miles from the house, you know, right on the way to this 75 acres. Maybe I just park the mower there and then the next window we get after we do the 75 acres, we do that and then we small square bail that 20 acres. I don't know. That one we're going to try and get three cuts on this year that we have for the whole season.

[00:02:49]There's just so many ifs and buts and I don't know what the answers are. We're inundated with lots of acres, which is not a bad thing to have, but I wouldn't say we're Everyone thought we were going to be in a really wet spring. Ground conditions are looking pretty good now.

[00:03:02]I'm really excited for what we have going on. Nothing too concerning yet.

[00:03:05]It's just a matter of getting those windows to get in and get some stuff knocked out. We're later than what I want to be starting out for hay for the year. It's Memorial Day weekend. It's not terrible. We're in an okay spot, but today I just think I need to just let my mind rest a little bit. We're going to do some skids deer work, which is relaxing, easy, just listen to music and do that. And then maybe uh start watching the forecast and doing some math and figuring out if there's enough meat on the bone to be doing that clover that's further away. And if we have the time, the the the window, the opportunity, and the uh the place to store it, and then the buyers, we have a lot of things that need to line up. And uh at the end of the day, we'll probably just gamble on it and hope we make it work. Um we'll see. So there's a little before.

[00:03:47]We'll see how this looks when we get done. And the other side looks pretty good.

[00:04:47]Heat.

[00:04:49]Heat.

[00:05:38]Heat. Heat.

[00:06:13]Hello.

[00:06:57]So, this is where we're at with it. It needs packed, and I know I need more probably to do that, but it looks all right. It's kind of leveled, kind of smooth. I don't know. It's all I'm eyeballing everything.

[00:07:07]That corner needs a little more work.

[00:07:10]Pretty much, that wall's pretty much done. That wall's pretty much done. This wall is pretty much done. I need more dirt to finish off that one. I've already started pulling some of this back and I'm going to probably stop for the day. It's starting to sprinkle. By no means is it too wet, at least in my opinion, to keep going. But since I'm not going to be able to finish this and it's just I'm going to need to haul in some more dirt, which we've got piles out in the woods there. Just basically got to bring some scoops up with a tractor cuz it's got a bigger bucket. Um, probably what we'll do when we get more time someday, maybe have two people running, one with the tractor, one with the skid steer because I just need maybe like a few more scoops to kind of kind of finish off. Obviously, right here, there's nothing extra to back fill. I don't know how good my grade is. Like, there's high spots in here. I didn't do the main pad that we're kind of looking at.

[00:08:00]I'm just trying to fill in um from here to that and then kind of eyeballing it from the concrete our ledge there for the doors.

[00:08:11]I've got no idea how right or wrong we're doing it. I'm just trying to make it look pretty look good, I guess.

[00:08:18]Hoping we're not too far off. Some of that dirt we're pulling out of the woods, you can tell it's a very different color. It's more of a high organic top soil. This has got subs soil mixed in with top soil from a field. So, very different in things. Um, I don't know. Yeah, we'll probably need more dirt in a lot of different areas, but this is where we're at with it. You can kind of see. Basically, we took the pad and I told them when you push the dirt away, we pulled off 8 in. We did an 8 in thick pad, just put it in two different piles. So, we had one pile here, one pile there, and then we just the guys who were doing the concrete work, he came in and pushed that all. I don't know if that grade, whatever you want to call it. I don't know. I think we're about 6 in overgrade for the uh the floor of the barn. I think what he told me. So, if we go out to the edge, you can see it's kind of ramped up. And uh it's very ramped up because it's actually lower on this side. I thought he said 120T long the barn is. That's how long it is. Um I thought he told me we were off by maybe six or or no, eight or 10 inches um difference in height from the front to the back. So, I got this ramped up. So, not only is the front 8 to 10 inches taller than the back, but the front's I think going to be 6 in overgrade. So, we're probably close to a foot and two, maybe a foot and 4 in, call it 14 to 16 in um over what the ground is here. So, this is a little steep for what I'm wanting, but we I did what I could with the dirt we had. Plus, it means we're not tearing up any more of the field than we have to as far as using more bringing that uh what do you want to call it? That ramp out too far. You know, if it stops right there where it does, I'll have more to mow and just me being stingy and cheap, I guess. But eventually, it'll probably take this out maybe another 5 10 ft and get that grade a lot smoother. And it's not smooth.

[00:10:14]This isn't perfect by any means, but it's enough I can probably get over top of it with a tractor and pull wagons out, pull wagons through, stuff like that. But maybe not the most ideal for going down with like a truck and a gooseeneck or something like that. But in the front, it's a lot more gradual, a lot more comfortable.

[00:10:31]There's a lot more work I need to do.

[00:10:32]And I might have someone do the final touches and just kind of touch it up for me and make it look good because I want it to be done right. But right now, I'm just trying to get something done while we got some time.

[00:10:45]You can see this is a lot more gradual.

[00:10:47]This I'm pretty happy with. It needs packed in a little bit. You can see where I kind of drove over it. Um, so I'll need to pack it in a little bit and then add more. I'm leaving that open for now so we have somewhere for the cement trucks to clean out the next time we pour the next barn because they cleaned out that pile, which is fine, but now we got big chunks. So, if anything, I'd rather just clean out and dump it in there.

[00:11:08]Um, yeah. I think it's it's looking pretty cool now. And you can see this is nice and gradual. This is pretty comfortable. I'd be I'm happy with how this kind of comes in. A little touch-up work here and there, but all in all, not bad. Hopefully, we'll go out and we'll do some tatting tomorrow. I'm I'm really hoping to try that out and hope we don't just get pounded with too much rain