SNOW SHUTS DOWN THE TOWN...BUT WAKES UP THE FARM!

guys these are the days that make rural living just so super special last night we got somewhere in the neighborhood of two two and a half inches of snow what a beautiful place what a beautiful farm out here on the snow buddy is a beautiful dog a boy yeah a good old boy he loves the snow guys welcome to the Stoney Ridge farm Channel today I'm Josh Stoney Ridge farmer today we're gonna be having some fun we're going to talk about the woes of snows so the woes of snows on a farm the cows really don't have much to eat when it snows like this right now they're taking the noses and kind of pushing the snow aside so we're gonna get one of these hay bales right here and we're going to take it over to the cows just so you guys know the John Deere tractor is down the clutch we replace the clutch in it and the clutch had a Miss balance in it somehow so it was kind of vibrating a little bit I called the John Deere guys they jump right back on it so it's at John Deere getting serviced we're gonna fire up the skid loader here today and we're gonna hook up to the bale spear haul a bale over and I'm going to show you a cool treat at the end of the video we got something cool for the skid loader so let's have some fun today on the farm all right whoa ain't afraid of word ain't afraid of [Music] you ain't afraid of loud times like this this is my freedom I tuned as well as you confuse so we're pure in our equipment shed this is our tractor guys if this is your first time to the Stoney Ridge farm channel welcome to the channel I appreciate you coming here please pound that like button jump in here subscribe to the channel help support rural content here in America it's awesome what we have here is a John Deere 250 we picked this up for our farm some time around I guess about three weeks ago something like that right now we've got the bucket on it because the last thing I was doing was loading up the manure spreader so we're gonna disconnect the bucket we raise up two little arms you'll see me do that I'll start this machine up we want it to get to good optimal running temperature so I'm gonna let it run for three to five minutes something like that until I see that needle start to move on the temperature gauge then we'll throw on the bail spear and we'll go pick up a bale of hay now we store our hay outside we'll talk a little bit more about that we've learned a little bit we just left Gregg Judy's ranch out in Central Missouri super awesome very educational time and next year we're going to do things just a little bit different just by seeing how Greg Judy's operation works super cool they'll be a link down the video description to his channel great guy just a great wealth of knowledge when it comes to cows and farming and stuff like that if you're here for the fun on the Stoney Ridge here goes so I'm gonna unhook this real quick there are two arms on there basically I clip those arms up now this bucket can be free I'll start the Machine up let it warm up a little bit back it out drop the bucket pick up the bale spear take the hay bale up and then we'll rent and grab something on the back of the pickup truck I think you guys are gonna like it awesome yeah fold out so we got the bail spear all hooked up to the John Deere 250 right here guys if you want a discount on a bail spear on a pallet for it those are the two implements we're going to be using today we work with tighten attachments and they provide coupon codes for my viewers which is super duper cool so the bail spear we're using today is not a tighten attachments bail spear some off-brand I don't know what the heck it is however if you want a discount on a bail spear I believe Stoney spike is a discount code and there's also discounts for pallet forks it's called I think it's Stoney fork so it'll be links down the video description in case you need this stuff for your homestead let's talk about the hay bails we're getting ready to use see these hay bales they have snow on them the top portion of this hay bale about that deep is probably going to waste even the sides are going to waste here's something that I did and I messed up I want you guys to know I messed up don't but your hay bills beside each other because you're going to make another rotten spot right in between there so there's a rotten spot on the top there's a rotten spot on the bottom and there'd be a rotten spot in between the bales so it's something to think about things that I've learned and things that I didn't know what we're gonna do here is grab up this bale and take it over the hill to the cows if I thought about it I wouldn't have it staged right here in other words I don't want to drive hay bales or move hay bales or move equipment we want to think about what's going to have the least impact on the land and what's going to have the least impact on the hay bale so next year we're gonna set our hay bales up we have some plastic pallets we're gonna probably buy our hay got a little eye-opener when our hay baler caught on fire we could have lost our tractor our baler there's a whole lot of equipment that I'm having to maintain and if you really think about it I'm wasting money by bailing my own hay I should be buying my hay when I can buy it for 25 or 30 dollars a round bale it makes no sense to Bale it tell me what you think I supposed to comment down there in the comments section do you think we should go in and get rid of our baler and all of our hay equipment the guy I bought my stuff from got rid of his because it's so cheap to buy hay I enjoy it but gosh when it comes to dollars and cents so what are we gonna do we're gonna waste money we're going to spend $35 on our own bales or go ahead and buy bales for 25 bucks have them here on the farm and bring that carbon to the farm so in other words that turns to manure that turns to carbon and that builds soil let's load up a hay bale [Music] it's very difficult to drive a skid steer and hold a camera so we're gonna set the camera down toss the drone up in the air here in just a second and follow me down there to the past year where we're gonna be working in the pasture is a bare spot basically it's a spot what grandpa used to call dead land in other words it needs biologic materials so we're going to set this hay bale down and whatever goes to waste will be put back on the land right there in probably two years or so that area will really recover and really be strong and really have a robust stand of grass pretty cool [Music] we're down here at the gate the cows know when I'm coming that means food they'll start moving toward me they're up there grazing right now we've got some awesome stockpile forage form up there we've got our water system right here running also so we're filling up to 100 gallon water tanks a passive water flow system that runs from our pond up here so what we have here is a gate every gate on the farm hands down needs a lock on it I'm gonna unlock this gate and I'll show you the lock that we use I don't use a keyed lock because I don't want to have to carry keys with me all the time I'll show you this is the type of lock that we use very simple it's a master lock I'll post a link down the video description it is a combination lock a four number combination I use this on every gate on the farm guys what's to stop some prankster some teenager or whoever from coming up and unlocking your gate and releasing your animals and that causing some serious serious problems for somebody somebody hits one of these cows out on the road out here and we have a life-and-death situation it's a horrible horrible thing I think about it all the time you really need to protect your animals and protect other people from being harmed so whenever we get done with the lock we get ready to work on the fence I'll just clip it right here right onto the wire there it's stored when I get done I'll come back out I'll lock it back up now I've got food on the skid steer the cows are gonna be going after that food they want that food for sure so they probably won't come out the gate it's muddy and that wheeled skid steer doesn't do good in the mud at all so I'm gonna get up here as close to like close as I can I'm gonna get in the gate and I'm gonna get over in that grassy area right up between those trees is where I want to drop my hay bale because that's where I want to get started rejuvenating the land let's do it now don't forget at the end of the video I got something really cool to show you we're gonna unload it off the truck snow on a farm guys it's not all fun and games it's a beautiful thing for sure but it's not all fun and games so let's talk about where I just put this bale and the reason we didn't put it inside a bale ring or a cradle feeder look right here see that it's a little gully it's about six inches deep what I'm trying to do is fill that gully the biologic material so the next bail that I get I'm gonna put right here and right here hopefully we're just about out of bail feeding season here I'm gonna step up here you'll see how gentle these cows are this is a number three I call it Butthead and I saw a little string here get that string out meaning a cow's been to the vet because a piece of twine in its tummy cow can't digest that at all these guys are chowing down man what gentle animals I'll say it again I've said it before this is what I've been missing in my life super cool super duper cool that's it for what what's going on today I just had to go out drop a bale of hay to the cows stick around after the credits if you want to see what we're unloading off the back of the pickup truck I'll just go ahead and do a spoiler spoiler alert it's a set of tracks for this machine so that we don't do that what we just did so we need a set of tracks on our wheeled skid loader in order to make it a lot more versatile here on the farm so we're going to go unload those real quick you'll get a little sneak peek at a future video [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I know my truck is relieved to get those off of there man that this is a set of grouser tracks okay and the way these work went get a little close up and talk about them this set of tracks will lay it out on the ground we're gonna do a full installation video we're also gonna do a before-and-after so we're gonna take the skid loader over on the other side of the farm run up some really steep stuff and I'll show you just how slick these tires are in other words when you get in snotty mud and mess those tires are absolutely worthless that machine won't move it just won't move so we put a set of grouser tracks on it and it's a much more capable machine instead of spending 40 or 50 grand or 35 to 50 grand to 80 grand on a skid steer that has tracks we can do track over tires and save that money pretty awesome all right these are the tracks it's a steel track it looks like rubber but it's a heavy heavy-duty steel track right here this pallet weighs 916 pounds we'll lay all these out and then we'll run right over top of them with the wheels on the skid steer and we'll buckle them in so the skid steer will go from a machine that's worthless in the mud to a machine that just absolutely kicks butt in the mud so that's it that's what's going on on the farm today guys thanks a lot for joining me here on the Stoney Ridge farm I hope you learned a little bit today about feeding your cows about where to put your hay bales about putting tracks on your skid steer how to hook and unhook stuff just all kinds of fun stuff here today on the farm thanks a lot guys I appreciate you be sure you found that like button on your way out the door jump in here subscribe the channel I've got somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 videos out and we're not stopping this is our 200 acre farm right here we took it from a briar patch and we're making a beautiful farm a working farm that we're gonna make money on and we'll show you how to make money on your farm thanks a lot guys we'll see you next time on a Stoney Ridge all right during break [Music] Pearse we've had some ways opposed to me Stoney read Oh