Meet Walter "the Weeder" - Chemical Free Weed control - automated!

Walter has arrived!  Walter the little sprouts weeder robot!

If you remember last year, we toyed with the idea of heat based biological safe weed control . And those tests were quite successful! You can browse through the blog post and see our test plot of using heat to treat the ground before planting.. and the huge difference it made in subsequent weeding.  The use of heat killed sprouted weeds, but also weed seeds, so that the newly planted veggies have little competition during their critical first few weeks.  It is a great no chemical way of weed control!

But ... the down side, our first attempt was VERY labor intensive. So much so  that we actually gave up half way through. We had mounted a propane infrared heater behind a metal 4 wheel wagon and manually pulled it along. Way too heavy, way to slow. Not practical even for the weeding savings.

So.. this year.. we made WALTER! we gave him a name because watching this little guy work is like watching a robot. He slowly plods along burning the weed seeds in the ground as you sit back and watch . Its a BEAUTIFUL thing!

So here is how he works.. We have a few pictures and a couple videos to explain the design. The basic setup is :

• Pulling engine
• a 120 volt winch mounted to a pallet
• a long metal cable (340 feet!) of a very thin diameter
• some safety switches
• Burning platform
• a 120,000 btu propane heater mounted on metal skids
• a wooden cart on skids to hold the propane tank
• some safety switches
• Safety features
• the pulling engine has a pipe that works to kill the winch when the burning platform gets close enough
• The burning platform has a pipe that hits the pallet when it gets close and kills the propane burner

That's Walter! Just line him up, turn him on, and for the next 35 to 40 minutes he patiently burns the ground on a 340 foot row.  The ground is hot, very hot, so hot that a foot behind Walter, you can not hold your hand against the ground. I have not measured, but suspect it is about 120 degrees , and probably about 150 to 200 under the burner.  Hot enough to penetrate a quarter to half inch and kill many weed seeds, but not hot enough to kill the subsoil organisms underneath. 

Some pictures of "Walter the Weeder"

The burning platform, first run. As you can see below, we actually had to change the pull method from the sides to the middle back, becasue this one caught too much dirt by digging in too low in the front. The changed version below worked much better

Propane tank on the holding platform with skids. There is room for two tanks, but used only one today.  The cable attaches on the right of the picture to pull it. The rod at the bottom is the burner safety setup. AS the platform approaches the pallet of the pulling engine, the pipe hits the pallet, slides through the pvc housing, and hits the switch, which turns off the propane burner.

Closeup of the burner safety switch. The pipe gets pushed from the left, through the pvc housing, and the end (wrapped in duct tape) hits the switch (covered with a pad of duct tape). The contact is enough to flip the switch, but then the pipe keeps pushing back without breakinging anything. This allows the burner to turn off long before the winch quits pulling, making synchronizing the two easier. 

View of the burning platform from the front.  The plywood plate on the bottom right of the pic is where the winch safety switch hits the platform to kill the winch. 

Walter in operation! This is the full 330 foot row.  Can you see the pallet??

The updated setup. Instead of a wire down both sides, we put a eye hook in the center of the wooden platform, and ran a wire from the two burner skids through the eyehook That keeps everything going straight and adds just enough up pull to keep the burner from digging into the dirt. 

Closeup of the updated pull system. 

This is a closeup of the winch safety switch on the engine platform. The pipe is inside the pvc housing going to the right, and the end of the pipe is a big ball of foam, wrapped in duct tape. As the rod gets pushed inside the housing from the approaching platform, it slides in  and hits the switch mounted in the brown housing. That switch kills the winch. It takes a few seconds to come to a stop, so the end of the pipe is about 3 inches of foam, plus the actual switch is mounted with a half inch of foam between it and the housing. That provides enough play to keep everything stable, but let the winch come to a halt without breaking anything. 

Engine pallet platform from the burner side That cable going off the bottom is 340 feet of 1/16 inch metal cable. Safety strength is about 100 lbs, enough to pull the burning platform but small enough to fit all that cable on the winch pulley.  The rocks are added weight to keep the pallet from moving towards the burning platform. It takes about 50 lbs to keep the pallet stable. 

Another view of hte pulling engine. The original winch controller is still attached and works, to manually pull the cable in when necessary.  the plywood plate on the upper right is the plate that the burner safety switch hits to kill the burner when it approaches the pallet. 

And now the fun part! a video of Walter working away!

This first video is the burning platform moving. It takes about 40 minutes to complete the 340 foot row. The speed changes of course as the winch winds up the cable, which is a problem to be solved next year.  This is the speed at the far end, when it is just starting. 

The next video is the winch engine pulling. The cable actually wrapped up quite nicely! The motor didn't get too hot running that long, since there is only about 50 lbs being pulled. 

The last video I tried to capture the safety switches running at the end of the row to safely shut Walter down. First the burner safety switch activates to turn off the burner, then the winch switch activates to shut it down to a rest.  I started the video a little late, so its hard to see the first switch activating, but its there in the first 2 seconds. 

UPDATE! Here is a better video of the end of a row showing the safety switched working

Overall we are VERY pleased with Walter... He performed beautifully with only the one small change. I would love to get some temp readings if we have time.. but the priority now is getting these seeds in the ground. 

We may be making Walter available for rent, to anyone local that wants to use heat weed control in your own garden. If you are interested, contact us and lets talk. 

Back home

We finally arrived Back home on the farm today, after a somewhat unexpected 2 week trip. I say somewhat unexpected because we had indeed planned a short trip to San Diego where my oldest son got married. But that short trip turned into a major 2 week adventure for a whole list of reasons!

Good to be home now!

Please excuse our silence here, and in email or voicemail. It will take a bit to get caught up and to get things back in stock.

Good to be home!

posted from Bloggeroid

First 150 turkeys in the oven!

Finally, after 3 years of skipping thanksgiving, we put the first 150 or so turkeys into the incubator! There is room for about 40 more, and then we will have a pause while waiting for replacement parts for the third incubator.

It took a little "creative repair" to get these incubators back in service. I didnt think soon enough ahead to order necessary parts to bring them out of storage and into service. But hey, duct tape, some fish line tubing, some careful patches and they are working!

At this point we are on target to get about 100 to 120 turkeys for thanksgiving. When we are more sure of the hatch rate we will start taking deposits for thanksgiving turkeys.

The best news is, this starts our year round fresh turkey! Plus all the add on like that delicious turkey stock, organs, bone broth.. yum!

posted from Bloggeroid

Meat price restructuring is now complete! Enjoy the lower price!

As promised a short while back, we have drastically reduced our meat prices. DRASTICALLY! There are two reasons why this was possible.

First, we went through our yearly review of profit center cost and production, and discovered that  changes we had made to purchasing feed allowed an across the board 35% reduction in pork selling price.  yes.. 35%!

But wait.. there's more.. we have now completed our transformation from the current meat pricing model of "price cuts for what they can sell for" to a more farm style "price the meat based on what it costs to produce".  Basically we stopped comparing price to "everyone else" and instead based our price on our own farm,  and figured out what it takes to make this profitable. period.  Where most meat sales is based on the cut individually, we now base our totally on the cost to produce the overall animal that the cut comes from.



For instance, we have only 3 price levels:

1. Farm direct in bulk - $5 per lb (hanging weight)
 This is the price for buying a whole animal direct from the farm, in bulk, and paying separately for the butchering. This is the least expensive way to do it if you can handle the quantity of meat all at once.  Traditionally called "farm kill", it is where you have total control over what you get, save the most, and end up with a lot of meat all at once.

2. Plentiful USDA packaged cuts - $8 per lb (individual packages)
This price is for cuts that come "plentiful" like ground pork, chops, etc. Cuts where the cut produces much quantity.

3. Limited USDA cuts  - $10 per lb (individual packages)
This price is for cuts that come in very limited quantities, like ribs. There is only 2 full racks of ribs per animal. Due to the smaller quantity, the price needs to be slightly higher to cover expenses that cant be spread out across many buyers.

To make life even easier, we sell meats in approximate weights, not exact quantities. We round each package to the nearest half pound or quarter pound. Over time it all balances out and it saves a vast amount of time over individually priced packages.

So, please do browse through the online store. Some prices have dropped in more than half with the combined effect of both changes.  We are committed to bringing you the highest quality nutritious meats raised humanely, and at reasonable prices that allow you to save money while the farm is reasonably profitable.

Time will tell how this new pricing model works out, but we feel comfortable that it will be best for everyone!

Little Sprouts Eggs improving!

The good news about our required reshuffling of the animals is an improvement in egg quality!

As you may recall, we purchased a young flock of birds to add to our existing flock, effectively doubling their number. Unfortunately we didnt have time to think through where to put all these birds in a pinch, so they all went together in the existing egg laying spot.

It didnt take long, and all the green grass and plants were eaten or trampled. Too many birds in a smaller area does that.  But now, with the reshuffling, the birds are back out on green pastures with plenty of grass and weeds, and of course, bugs!

What does this mean? you can expect the eggs immediately to take on a deeper orange color. The color of the yolks is directly related to the amount of greenery in the bird's diet. The more living green foods, the deeper orange and thicker the yolks are. The effect is almost immediate.  So expect to see a change in the next delivery!

Here is the shot of the new locations, if you look way back in the center, you will see the chickens are now placed (in their laying trailer) right between the sheep and goats! There they have access to both pastures freely, and the abundance of bugs that both herds bring.

The grass back there is about 4 to 6 inches tall, so it will last a while!  The trailer will move back and forth within that protected paddock to spread out the "fertilizer" and provide new grass continually.

While there is no verifiable health benefit of eggs that are grass fed from eggs that are grain fed, there is a noticeable difference.  We are going to do out best to keep these girls on tall grass for the duration of the summer. And hopefully bring online our "bug barn" and its designed in supply of 100,000 mealworms per day! (stay tuned on that!)