Aborting studies to help gramps farming in Calmsden

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humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

Aborting studies to help gramps farming in Calmsden

Post by humbe »

This covid ******** has gone on long enough. I've been stuck in an expensive little apartment in London for ages. If I have to study remote anyhow, I guess I can just as well move back home. Gramps is getting old and need someone to help him on the farm too.

I don't have a car, so I've packed the few belongings I have into some boxes I got a lorry driver to drop off. Then I jumped on my old trusty Mustang and drove into the countryside. An August morning, I'm coming into Calmsden from Cirencester.

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Been a long time since I was in the backcountry here.. Wonder what mighta changed. It is a beautiful day for sure..

I thought it would be a bit more traffic around here, but it sure looks quiet. I hope gramps is home.

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humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

Re: Aborting studies to help gramps farming in Calmsden

Post by humbe »

Seems business haven't been great around here. To pay back loans, gramps have had to sell of some land, and all he is left with is the sheep pasture. It's a sizable pasture at least, so we should be self-sufficient on grass. After he scaled back some years ago he moved 2 shacks onto the pasture to fit what he needed, as the farm yard sadly had to go. There's 40 sheep in the pasture, and all the gear we need to work it gramps is telling me.

Turns out his health is worse than I'd hoped, so he asks if I could take responsible for what's left of the farm, which I happily agree to.

The sheep pasture is conveniently located just a stone's throw away from the house.

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Hmm.. These shacks don't look like much. What could they possibly contain.. Lets have a look.

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There's two trailers in the first shed. A water trailer to get water for the sheep I reckon.. And a utility trailer we can use for just about anything. There's spare parts behind there to extend the walls up a bit, and the tension belts seems to be in good shape. There's also some hay bales in the corner. Is that all the hay we're left with? Good thing there's plenty of grass to mow here. Oh.. And there seems to be a grass roller over there.. Don't look like much but might be useful.

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Wow.. This shack is crammed.. There's the old Massey Ferguson 185 Turbo. Is he still using that thing? I think he bought that back in '73. There's a small bale trailer behind the tractor.. The windrower in front here looks fairly new, and I think I spot a tedder and a mower behind it.. And a front loader too. Oh.. And is there a tiny plow behind that tractor? Looking closer I also find a weight, and some tools to help repair and maintain the bits. I guess that's it.

I guess to start of we need to create us a budget and try to evaluate the state of the machinery we have..
humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

Re: Aborting studies to help gramps farming in Calmsden

Post by humbe »

After looking through the stuff, and getting some quotes from a salesman, this is what I end up with:

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One thing is for sure. I won't get rich if I sell this stuff. At least all of it is in working order.


I've basically looked at how stats and rebates for used gear sales work, and made all my starting gear as if I bought it as used equipment. Coupled with being low end mods of stuff, they all end up very cheap. At least on sell price listed behind here.


While the salesman is not willing to pay much for it, if I had to buy it all in used state, it would have cost me $33.075 if I calculate correctly, which makes my starting budget:

Code: Select all

Vehicle/equipment:  £33.075
Sheep pasture:     £110.352
20 lambs:            £4.000
20 adult sheep:      £9.760
16 small hay bales:  £2.500
Savings/Cash:       £35.890
---------------------------
Total:             £195.577
Oh.. But gramps.. The sheep don't have anything to eat and drink here.. About time to get to work..
humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

Re: Aborting studies to help gramps farming in Calmsden

Post by humbe »

We used to drive down to the river to get water in the old days, and frankly, that was maybe just as easy as using this pump. Takes a while to fill the 2000l water tank of this ancient tech.

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After carrying 4 small hay bales over to the through and taking our water trailer for a spin, at least the sheep finally have something to eat and drink. Though they can't be that hungry as they don't seem to eat of the grass on the field.. There's a good mix of races here.. Some lambs and some a bit older. Lets hope we can get to where we can get some wool production going.

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0% health and 0% productivity doesn't sound good. Hope it's just because the game is fresh, and it'll keep rising as long as they have food and water.
humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

Re: Aborting studies to help gramps farming in Calmsden

Post by humbe »

This mower wasn't exactly designed to be used in a pasture with grazing animals. Have to be careful here.. Luckily the sheep are at least somewhat afraid of it.. Ideally we'd just leave this field fallow, but as we have no other fields, we'll have to make hay for winter somewhere..

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Tried driving both ways around the field, and driving clockwise was certainly the easiest, as I can basically follow the grass edge with my wheels. Some mirrors would still be useful on a tractor though.. 20 kph seems exceedingly fast to drive with this small equipment though. Considering slowing down to be able to take it a bit easier..

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humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

Re: Aborting studies to help gramps farming in Calmsden

Post by humbe »

My younger cousin Jason was playing with his drone and got this shot of our pasture.

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A job well done.. Took some time with low working width, but eventually we got through.. Now lets hope I can ted and bale it before there's rain. Did I check the weather report? Pretty dry for the next days I see.. Phew..


Though I do not know if grass rot as with seasons in FS19. Not going to take the chance.

I took a quick look of a youtube video looking at the map, and he was using this command

# enableDoF false

This blows my mind.. I always thought the background was fuzzy due to graphics issues, but then it can actually be sharp and nice, but they disable it by default? Why? Sadly doesn't seem to stick with the savegame so seems I need to do it every time I start the game ;(.. Hoping to find a way to make it default at some point.

Got so many new mods to test out in this game.. VCA came already.. So now I can peek left/right, and when I reverse I automatically look backwards.. And I have adaptive steering, so steering at speed finally works. With VCA I'll try to see how much I can stick in the cab while driving, though I'll be doing some 3rd person shots for the blogg at least ;)


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I really liked the Gaspardo chopper. Looks the part for small time equipment ;)

After mowing, we took a maintenance sweep on the tractor and the mower. £98 for tractor and only £1 for the mower. But the tractor had a little wear before we started mowing
paul_c
Posts: 414
Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2021 4:13 pm

Re: Aborting studies to help gramps farming in Calmsden

Post by paul_c »

Great write up, I'll be following this. Did they leave you all that equipment (I know its old)? I had to buy all mine...
humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

Re: Aborting studies to help gramps farming in Calmsden

Post by humbe »

paul_c wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 3:42 am Great write up, I'll be following this. Did they leave you all that equipment (I know its old)? I had to buy all mine...
Yupp.. Gramps have been farming here for ages, so while his operation wasn't big, at least we have equipment to start off.


Going for a $300.000 from scratch start.. There are something more coming in along the road here. But to avoid a big loan, I figured I'd start of with enough used equipment to do something and expand from there. As the base game is sadly lacking small time / old / cheap gear, I've had to include quite a few mods to get a small start without having a loan. I took advantage of "used vehicle sale" feature in game. Not that I bought all the equipment from there, but I looked at what values was used in real used sales in the game, and then bought the starting used equipment I wanted to test out, and then modified initial price, operating time and age to fit real used sales in game, and added some dirt and paint damage.

Not planning to do much contracts, if any at all, rather try to see what I can make on my own endeavours. And I will be setting economy to at least normal I think, to be able to get anywhere in reasonable time. Think I might start of at easy and possibly adjust down later as I get a feel for it. Seems the setting mostly is about incomes, so I should be able to learn data on costs that make sense across all the difficulties regardless.


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With the grass cut, I was about to start tedding, but this tedder looks to be broke. It won't pickup any grass at all. What am I missing? It's lowered. It turns on and goes around, but if I pull it forwards it just doesn't manage to pick up any. Isn't it lowered enough? What's happening?

Not a good thing to find after having cut all the grass.. We need to get moving before there's any rain..

I call gramps and wonder if there's something about the tedder operation I'm missing.. He's laughing. It seems uncle Simon is playing a trick on me. He needed to borrow our tedder and put his old broken one down on our farm to play some sort of practical joke on me.. Dunno how he thought that was funny, but I guess everyone have their own sense of humor..


And this is one of the hazards of installing a mod not on the modhub. Somebody converted it in the editor for graphics to appear in FS22, but didn't fix all the bits for it to actually work with the mechanics.. Not able to find another oldish looking tedder, I'll just exchange in the cheapest one in game. It's actually cheaper to buy I see, though it has a higher working width and just seems a general better choice.
paul_c
Posts: 414
Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2021 4:13 pm

Re: Aborting studies to help gramps farming in Calmsden

Post by paul_c »

I agree, even on "hard", the fact that contracts pop up and are well-paid on Calmsden is a godsend - you still need to actually do the work, though, on those irregular fields.

I did a "No Man's Land" hard gameplay, I was able to survive about a year and a half and accumulate (or not lose...) that £300k too badly, being able to afford some cheap/basic silaging equipment from the outset and make money that way. However I'd reached a point where anything other than silaging was poorly paid and/or needed significant capital investment. I planned out the next year and it was 4 cuts of silage before enough money to do anything else...of almost all of one of those big "rectangles" in NML. So I've not been back.

At least on Calmsden there are other opportunities, embracing the full palette of what FS22 has to offer.
humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

Re: Aborting studies to help gramps farming in Calmsden

Post by humbe »

Uncle showed up with our tedder the same day, so no harm done.. The Pöttinger Alpinhit worked like a charm. 4.4m working width seemed a lot after mowing with 2.4m mower. Especially as I probably have 0.5-1.0 m overlap driving from cab ;) Also, a bit lower max speed at 15 kph driving was less stressful..

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Forgot to disable DoF (enableDoF false) this session, and already annoyed about the blurry hills in the background here. What a ridiculous default.

The sheep sure looks amazing. They lie down, walk around, waggle their ears and look around.. For the most part awesome.. But they sometimes run (?) by standing still on all 4 legs and moving half a meter per every nth frame and do something that just looks like a graphic bug. Not sure if they want them to move fast and lack the run animation of what not.. Would be better if they didn't then.

Also would be great if they were scared of the tractor and ran away when one came. I understand they don't want to implement object collision with the tractor, but having them run away sounds like a superior solution to having them not move, and eventually you drive straight through them to move on.


Used oil and other stuff for £12 and $1 to get the tractor and the tedder ready for their next job. So.. The sun is drying up the grass very fast here.. Next up we'll see if we can windrow that hay, making it ready to be picked up.


I do miss the FS19 seasons bit with hay having to dry, so you cared about the weather forecast when wanting to make hay, though it was annoying with the 3 day seasons "bug" where drying didn't scale with number of days in season, so you needed to turn number of days up in season just for that. I do also understand that they didn't wanna push that on everyone. But an optional feature would be good.. Or maybe they could even just make the hay get an even lighter color when properly dry, but it worked to pick it up before that, so people wanting the functionality could not allow themself to pick it up until the right color showed proper dry hay, and others could pick it up immediately if they wanted to.
humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

Re: Aborting studies to help gramps farming in Calmsden

Post by humbe »

Never had so many bales on a trailer before.. And on a SEK 802 to boot.. But never worked with small bales I could pick up before either.. At this point they started to fall of, so better get them stacked in the shed. Windrowed headland first and tested baling and picking them up to see how tight rows I'd have to make. Not a wide pickup on the baler, so I need to make pretty narrow rows. I'll be driving one way around each way, so I can collect hay from both sides into a row, but I need to overlap the row well when I go the other way around or I won't pick up everything.. Quite a few bits left on the headland row I made..

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Not entirely sure what configuration would be best for the trailer for this job either.. Figured a low frame around would make it easy for me to toss them aboard. No sides would make it easier to get them on, but didn't wanna mess with tension belts driving and stopping so much so figured I'd get fewer on before they started falling off..

This is definitively a two man job though. Having to get in and out of the tractor all the time takes its toll. Stopped for 3 bales at a time around the headland.
Mwal
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Re: Aborting studies to help gramps farming in Calmsden

Post by Mwal »

This is pretty good, you’ve got me hooked
paul_c
Posts: 414
Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2021 4:13 pm

Re: Aborting studies to help gramps farming in Calmsden

Post by paul_c »

You'll die a slow death handling small bales......Even on my most harsh settings I basically ignored the small baler after 1 calamitous attempt at loading the trailer (they wiggle around on their own and any neat stacks disrupt themselves). So my min spec is a loader, forks and a flatbed trailer of some kind. The smallest round baler isn't too expensive. I like the SEK802, I may buy one myself! (Need to get it specially ordered and imported though...)
humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

Re: Aborting studies to help gramps farming in Calmsden

Post by humbe »

Windrowing the rest of the field.. Some patches I'm missing, but I'm just keeping speed. The patches can probably be taken extra with baler if I want to get them.. The Krone windrower works fine, but 4m working width isn't much for a windrower. Could probably almost have just drove baler twice as long instead. But baler pickup seems less than 2m, so I think it will be slightly easier. After windrowing we used materials for £5 to repair the windrower and £22 to get tractor back into shape. The windrower stacks nicely together when not in use, so not taking up much space.

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Baling sure is hard and backbreaking work.. Was hoping to be able to tip the bales of, but failed to find a way to make the back gate fall down, so this didn't work out as well as I hoped for. Not too much trouble getting them off though..

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How many small bales did we end up with. Not looking forward to picking them all up..

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Thought we did a good job stacking, but there's a little drop at the back of the shed and some bales seems to have fallen off a bit behind there, so a bit unsure how to continue the stacking.. I guess we'll still pile on top here, but it won't look as neat as I was hoping for. Next time, I think we need to ensure we stack all the way back to the wall..
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humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

Re: Aborting studies to help gramps farming in Calmsden

Post by humbe »

Gave up stacking nicely as my foundation broke.. End result not that impressive...

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Last edited by humbe on Sun Jan 23, 2022 7:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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