Tips for Efficiency

1. When driving the tractor some distance, try to make use of the trip in both directions. If you are on the hill to feed and have a little time, pick up downed limbs and move them to a place to burn or otherwise dispose of them. You can pick up rocks at a remote area and drop them in a road to fill a hole. If you need large rocks to make check dams, carry them off the hill when you return from feeding, don’t make special trips.

2. Store bales near where they are grown, then feed them back on the meadow. Use temporary string fences to protect the bales when you pasture the meadow. Do this if the mud doesn’t get to be a problem.

3. Large trees of useless species or otherwise unsuitable for timber can be removed by burning brush around them.

4. Someone who cuts firewood can be given rights to cut up downed and carry away unusable trees. They can also help clean up after timber cutting operations.

5. If you have pole timber you can cut (or can buy cheaply) pole sheds are a very cheap way to build storage sheds. Use locust poles in the ground. White oak poles or maple make the best rafters. Avoid using hickory, because it rots so easily and there are insects that burrow in the dry wood.

6. If you pick up small rocks in one place, that improves the pastue. They then can be used in roads in place of purchased gravel. Have your children pick them up. Creek gravel is illegal if taken from streams under the control of the Army Corps of Engineers.

7. All lumber should be “sticked up” and kept in the dry with a roof. Have the sawyer make sticks one inch thick and two or three inches wide to use for this purpose. Poplar lasts well in use, but piles of it are subject to boring insects which weaken the lumber and make piles of dust. It is best to use poplar within a year or two of the time it is sawed out.

8. Decking screws now available are much better fasteners than nails for gates, especially, and about every thing else. Also, use the appropriate screws for metal roofing.

9. Keep the tools necessary for what you can do. Don’t be in the position of having to borrow or buy them when a crisis occurs. If you are in the farming business for the long haul this is one of the best investments you can make. Have fencing tools, convenient tools for the mechanic work you will do on your machinery, simple woodworking tools at least. They save time and when you can do it yourself it saves money.

10. Maintain good relations with your neighbors. It’s worth the extra effort to avoid a perpetual fight. Be a good neighbor. Stop and talk occasionally, plow out their driveway when it snows if you have equipment, let them hunt, pick mushrooms, cut wiener sticks, etc. It helps when the cows are out or you accidentally spill dirt or hay on the road, when the odors get strong or other unliked things characteristic of farming industry occur that you don’t have control over. Pulling their car out of the ditch requires a little more care, because a tractor can damage the car. I mention that damage might occur if it is not hooked right, and insist the other man hook his car up. If it is a woman, custom pretty much demands you get down in the dirt, but be careful what you connect to. After a while being a good neighbor gets to be a habit and doesn’t cost any effort. They will pay you back in the same way.

11. Borrow only for things that will make you more money than the borrowed money will cost. Sometimes the benefit is hard to figure out in advance, be careful. Particularly, don’t run a big, expensive truck for personal transportation.

12. Feed cattle in the late afternoon or evening. If you feed in the morning 60-65% of the calves come in the dark. If you feed in the evening 60-65% come in daylight. If you are able to attend them, you have light. Even if you do not, it helps with the predators.

13. Unless you trade a lot, hire your trucking. Put the capital elsewhere.

14. Look for drains, pipelines and other buried stuff when there is a slight skift of snow on the ground, not enough to cover it. The depressions will catch blowing snow and become more conspicuous.

15. Breakers across roads need a little more stone than the rest of the rock based road. If you just put soft dirt from the ditch across the lower side, it will be broken down in a short time. When the breaker gets leveled out and won’t divert water add a three or four inch high row of stone about the size of one or two fists along the lower side and shovel soft dirt from the ditch over it to seal it. After you drive across it a few times it will not seem too high, because the rocks will be driven into the road base below and the soft dirt on top will be forced into the cracks between the rocks.

16. When building a culvert only the downstream side of the fill around the pipe needs to be secured, unless it is two and a half feet high or more. Use a wall of rocks, a concrete wall or some such on the lower side. The reason is that the stream only pushes gently on the upper side. What washes it out, if not properly constructed, is the current down from the top to stream level on the downstream side. When you build a culvert you must constantly watch for sticks that wash downstream and block the entrance to the pipe. Unless you must have a high quality stream crossing, fill in some with stones and be sure to have a stone area below the drop off to rceive any water fall to prevent it from washing out below the crossing. Once again, this applies to intermittent (dry up in a dry time) streams only. Streams with continuous flow are controlled by the Crops of Engineers. See your Natural Resources Conservation Agent about crossings, etc. of these steams.

17. Never hit the same stone twice with a mower or brush hog. Dump stones you pick up in the field into gullies or other spots where they will help, or use them for check dams in runs to prevent rapid runoff. Small rocks make road material.

18. Keep a barrel or two of diesel fuel and equipment to take it out of the barrel by hand in case of power outage or delayed delivery of a new tank of fuel.

19. Keep you fences up in fairly good shape. It’s better than chasing cattle. Use high tensile electric and keep the bottom wire about 17 inches above ground, to keep the grass off. They won’t crawl under that height.

20. Maintain a supply of bolts, nuts and small parts you use often. Don’t have to run to the store for small parts. Same for lubricants like SAE 85W-90, or WD-40. You loose time and money running to the store.

22. Check over machinery before you use it. Seasonal equipment should be repaired and good shape before you put it in storage or during the storage season.

23. Sheds are far cheaper than buying new machines. Don’t let machinery stand out in the weather unless you have it covered. Acid rain isn’t talked about as much as it once was, but it is still with us.

24. Keep a list on your computer of where you buy things on the net. Keep all the information needed for ordering, such as parts numbers, and the internet address.

25. Where possible, make trails along your fences so you can ride the four-wheeler to check fence.

26. Avoid culverts as much as possible. Use rocked stream crossings. Culverts are a nuisance because they stop up all the time. It takes only a few floating sticks to block the opening of a small culvert.

27. The two most convenient ways to thaw frozen locks are: a) Hold the lock in your hands for a minute or so. This is for young, warm-blooded guys, and it is good for a few degrees below freezing. b) For the rest of us and for really cold temperatures take a container of hot water from your house and pour half a glass or so on the lock. Water has about ten times the heat capacity as steel and it doesn’t require huge amounts of hot water.

28. Just as snow can help you find depressions caused by pipe ditches and other recent ground excavations, heavy rains can help you find seeps in your fields. Drive around after a heavy rain and keep your eyes open for unusual wet spots, or water draining down a low place in the hillside. This indicates the water table is above ground while it is rainy, and it means the water table will be nearer to the surface than other places in the field at other times, as well. In heavily traveled places it may be worth a drain.