Crazy, Crazy job!!

[bobcat_ron]

40 acres of beautiful fall rye (??) seeded last year, the customer wants to plant blue berries in it, and the grass must go, so he want's me to mow it down, what a shame!
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t178/rdj07/Pictures022.jpg
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t178/rdj07/Pictures021.jpg

1 acre per hour (40 acres) X $80.00 per hour= $3200.00 contract.

I will confirm with him on Monday, he can make a cash crop for that price!

[DBL]

better get a baler...

[Gravel Rat]

If you mow it won't it all grow back ?

I will bring my Stihl FS110 and knock all that down in a couple hours :laugh:

Wouldn't it be easier to scrape all the crap up with a excavator with your brothers wide ditching bucket or dozer the stuff ?

You sure get some weird farm jobs.

You must go to value village for your T shirts :laughing:

[BrandonV]

mow it and then spray i suppose is the plan? is he leaving grass stripes?

[AWJ Services]

1 acre per hour

What are you mowing it with a weedeater?

[bobcat_ron]

It's going to be ploughed up for berries, so the owner wants the grass right down to the ground, the flail I use does a nice job of it, an acre per hour is what I base it on if the grass was so thick, you can't even see the dirt, this field there are lots of open spots and thinned out grass.

Either way, I love mowing with my Kitty Cat!

[Fieldman12]

That is about what we charged with a tractor and bush hog in the past. We usually on did for or five acres at a time though.

[Fieldman12]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc3QliZIhq0

[allinearth]

Doesn't anyone bale hay there? I'll bet somone would cut for free just to get the hay.

[BIGBEN2004]

Or just cut it down and let it bleach out and bale it for straw, that is what we do and our diskbine will cut it as close to 4 inches and then if he wanted it closer your mower would be able to do it easier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdir5QdgD4w
That is one of our fields of rye that is straw.

[bobcat_ron]

Doesn't anyone bale hay there? I'll bet somone would cut for free just to get the hay.


The weather here won't give good hay, it's raining now and it'll only get up to 20 degrees Celcuis all next week, and the grass has to be cut down by the middle of the following week for planting.

[zemzabob]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc3QliZIhq0

Thats a cool video.

[stuvecorp]

Sounds like a good job, not to hard and can make some money. Need autopilot for a job like that.

[bobcat_ron]

Sounds like a good job, not to hard and can make some money. Need autopilot for a job like that.

And some kid with an R/C helicopter and a camera to track my every move every hour on the hour!

[stuvecorp]

BC Ron, you need a minion!

[bobcat_ron]

Here's a good view from Google Earth, the spot where I took the pics are from the road at the lower right corner:

[coopers]

Yikes, that's a lot!

[bobcat_ron]

I'm starting to doubt the "40 acre" claim, looks more like 70-80 acres, I have worked there last year cleaning ditches before it was laser levelled, but still, YIKES!

[Gravel Rat]

That is quite abit of area to mow seems like a waste. Is blueberrys a better market right now ?

A couple D11s with U blades from Finnings rentals should do the job quickly :laugh:

[bobcat_ron]

40 acres my ass!!

I just measured it, 77 acres according to Google's measuring!

The owner is going to have to clarify this tomorrow!

And yes, all blueberries, the market is going to crash with all the new fields that were planted 5 years ago, now they are in full production, so the price will drop.

But we aren't the only geographical location that can grow them, now they are being grown in South America year around, so all these crazy buggers are planting like mad and trying to sell, which won't happen.

[Gravel Rat]

If the farmers grew the number one crop there wouldn't be a problem :laugh:

I think the farmers are trying to try anything to keep going. I watched a program on TV the other day a farmer said you do this because you love farming otherwise why bother doing it there is no profit anymore.

B.C. needs the farm land and not turn it into condo developements.

[bobcat_ron]

If the farmers grew the number one crop there wouldn't be a problem :laugh:

I think the farmers are trying to try anything to keep going. I watched a program on TV the other day a farmer said you do this because you love farming otherwise why bother doing it there is no profit anymore.

B.C. needs the farm land and not turn it into condo developements.


I hope the blue berry industry goes to hell, then the land will be worth less, and we can come in and mow all the plants down and reclaim the land back to real "farming"! :laugh:

[coopers]

I hope the blue berry industry goes to hell, then the land will be worth less, and we can come in and mow all the plants down and reclaim the land back to real "farming"! :laugh:

HAHA, Call me dumb but what's real farming then?

[bobcat_ron]

HAHA, Call me dumb but what's real farming then?

The kind of farming where you milk cows and make crops off the land that feed the cows that you milk, spread the manure on the land to grow the crops.

Not the type of farming where you plant a bunch of bushes that take 5 years to start reaching their productivity, pile on gallons of herbicides, pesticides and weed killers, turn the land upside down and screw up the drainage, pollute the water ways with plastic from green houses and blue berry pots, flip the houses and buildings cheaply just to make a profit, that's not farming.

[AWJ Services]

Not the type of farming where you plant a bunch of bushes that take 5 years to start reaching their productivity, pile on gallons of herbicides, pesticides and weed killers, turn the land upside down and screw up the drainage, pollute the water ways with plastic from green houses and blue berry pots, flip the houses and buildings cheaply just to make a profit, that's not farming.

I like your way of thinking.
Georgia basically lost all of it's rich topsoil from poor Farming practices.
The soil is a consumable resource.

[bobcat_ron]

I like your way of thinking.
Georgia basically lost all of it's rich topsoil from poor Farming practices.
The soil is a consumable resource.


Not to start sound like my all time paranoid idol Gravel Rat, but about 90% of the church going "real" farmers here in the Lower Mainland get chills every time they read a passage in the Bible that reads: "........when the people from the East came to the West, they raped the land........."

Kinda scary.

[AWJ Services]

Sod Farms here really abuse the land as well.
When the building boom hit they popped up like flys.
24 hour a day irrigation, tons of fertilizer and lots of chemicals.

[bearmtnmartin]

I have to say you're very hard on East Indians. lots of those blueberry farms are owned by whites, and anyway, the worst pillagers are the greenhouses, which all seem to be owned by Dutch farmers. They clear hundreds of acres of topsoil, pour thousands of cubic yards of concrete, and throw up greenhouses that are city blocks long. That to me is now industrial land. It is a criminal waste of good, scarce farmland to pour a giant slab over it. At least with blueberries, when they all go bust along with the cedar tree growers, the land can be converted back to grass or corn or something.

[Dirt Digger2]

hell i would plant a few blueberry bushes...problem is finding people to pick them unless you open a "pick your own" tourist attraction

"regular" farming has its perks too...but it can get boring "he just takes his tractor another round, another round, another round..." thats about the story behind farming

[bobcat_ron]

I have to say you're very hard on East Indians. lots of those blueberry farms are owned by whites, and anyway, the worst pillagers are the greenhouses, which all seem to be owned by Dutch farmers. They clear hundreds of acres of topsoil, pour thousands of cubic yards of concrete, and throw up greenhouses that are city blocks long. That to me is now industrial land. It is a criminal waste of good, scarce farmland to pour a giant slab over it. At least with blueberries, when they all go bust along with the cedar tree growers, the land can be converted back to grass or corn or something.


99% of all the BB farms here are owned by people of Eastern Indian desent, There's only 2 white guys here that own, and they are selling to...........dee, dee, dee............. East Indians.

I am only hard on them because we and others in our line of work get screwed over constantly by them, they consider giving into their price bickering a form of weakness.
One of our (former) berry grower customers got my brother so pissed off, he put a lien on his property, 1 month later, he was asked to do more work, "just because we did such good work".......bullsh*t. There's still pending legal action against the prick.

But hey, I ain't a racist. :laugh:

[Gravel Rat]

Admit it Ron you wish you could wear a t shirt on your head :laugh:

[bobcat_ron]

Admit it Ron you wish you could wear a t shirt on your head :laugh:


Yes, with tin foil on the inside to keep the CIA satellites from stealing my brain waves. http://deephousepage.com/smilies/tantrum.gif

[Gravel Rat]

Slather your head in some grease then find a nice colourful t shirt from value village and wrap it around your head :laugh:

[SuperDuty335]

Looks like 15-20 acres to me.:cool2:

[bobcat_ron]

I took one last bunch of final measurements last night with a higher resolution, and it came out to 39.89 acres, and from what my brother told me, there are no ditches, only the 2 property line ditches and 1 road ditch, so I'll just go around in circles.

I should have bumped up the price another $800 just to cover my butt just in case.

[wanabe]

Bump up the price $800? I think you are already breaking it off in the farmer for $3200. I could mow 40 acres for 1/2 the price and still make a killing. Why don't he find someone with a batwing and get the job done in 1 day? Or better yet bale it and wet wrap it?

[Gravel Rat]

I think the price Ron quoted is inline for what it should cost to do the job.

You have to make a profit off the job if not why do the job.


I imagine Ron takes minimum 25 dollars per hour for his wages and the rest goes to fuel and expenses.

[bobcat_ron]

I think the price Ron quoted is inline for what it should cost to do the job.

You have to make a profit off the job if not why do the job.


I imagine Ron takes minimum 25 dollars per hour for his wages and the rest goes to fuel and expenses.

Something like that, but I get my fuel in bulk (fam fuel) and there is driving time back and forth for 4 days, about 35 minutes worth.

[wanabe]

Driving back and forth for 4 days? What are you using to mow this? I know I could easly have this done in one day, and use 30-40 gl of diesel.

[Gravel Rat]

Charge them lots :laugh:

[bobcat_ron]

Driving back and forth for 4 days? What are you using to mow this? I know I could easly have this done in one day, and use 30-40 gl of diesel.

My Cat with the 60" flail mower.
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t178/rdj07/Pictures599.jpg

[ksss]

40 acres with a low flow flail mower that is 60" wide? Better pack a couple of lunches.

[bobcat_ron]

40 acres with a low flow flail mower that is 60" wide? Better pack a couple of lunches.


I'm used to it, I do 20 acres of grass evey year for an old coot that is 3 times thicker than that on top of peat bog, and believe it or not, this mower works much better on standard flow, and it generates way less heat than the Bobcat did, I used it on the Horse Trail Park job (see vids thread) and after 2 hours of continuous cutting, the lines were just warm to the touch, I could pop the lines off the loader with my bare hands, if that was Bobcat, I would have no sex life left for about 3 weeks due to severe 2nd degree burns, even jack hammering is a big difference in oil temps, my Dad is beside himself when he "accidentally" grabbed the couplers after 2 hours to talk to me this morning. :laugh:

[bobcat_ron]

Big news......................











I turned down the job, I agreed to show up and do a "trial cut", 20 feet later and the flail plugged up, he had mistakenly planetd Barley instead of Fall Rye, so it was like cutting through wire mesh. Now I have a local dairy farmer involved, if he turns it down, then my brother will take care of it with the Pro-mac.

[JohnnyRoyale]

I would have no sex life left for about 3 weeks due to severe 2nd degree burns, :laugh:

Thats funny!:laugh::laugh::laugh:

Maybe he should consider putting up one of the vertical production greenhouses if he's in it for the money.

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