Rennebu Prison Blues

[humbe]

November 1996

And a beautiful november morning at 08:00.


And a restart later to be able to disable pro shot. Hmm.. There have to be a key that fixes this. Which one is it

Erik's big baling contract is still offered, for the 3rd month in a row.. Well.. We have nothing else to do in November, so lets give it a shot..



The JCB Fasttrack having 348 hp and a road speed of 73 sure is a different beast than our Fendt.. The windrower also looks interesting.. While windrowers putting everything to one side is great for manual driving, the ones putting the grass in the middle is a bit simpler to use to get Courseplay to help bale. Will test it out a bit at least on this big field.

With the income from this contract, we are getting a fair share of money needed to get a bale wagon of our own, which would allow us to sell bales in winter without leasing one.

[humbe]

That's a lot of bales..



Without Courseplay I would not have bothered with this. Too much perfect stopping to let out bales before continuing. Courseplay was pretty good at slowing down and standing still while expelling bale, so while some grass remained, it picked up most. I manually picked up enough to fill the baler once more and ignored the rest

We screwed up a bit initially. Not adjusting the bale size, we were configured for 125 bales, and the tractor needed to stop every 15 meter to eject one. We stopped and adjusted to 180 cm, but then the baler couldn't wrap them, and we had to stop again to adjust to 150 cm bales.

After delivering 3 loads, 72 150cm bales, the the animal dealer, they just needed 3 more. Still, we had another full load + 2 extra bales + 5? 125 cm bales and 2 large grass bales. We considered storing the extra bales we would get elsewhere to wait for higher prices in winter, but price is pretty good now too, so we just sold what we could sell. We took the two grass bales up to our field though.



Even the 348 hp fasttrack was limping up my hill with 2 bales at 9 kph.



I was pretty annoyed with myself when I created the extra two large grass bales. Considered what to do. I added the cut bale mod, but I was not allowed to cut bale on someone elses land. If I temporarily bought the land it would likely screw up the contract. If I temporarily bought the neighboring land, the baler would refuse to pick it up as it was reserved for contracts.. Grmpf.. Ended up bringing them home to cut them up.

And cutting up two large bales ended up in quite the pile. Took some dodgy driving to get this into our small baler.



We bought supplies to set up a little maintenance area up at our field. Used it to reconfigure our wrapper to use 3-point connection instead.

That made it a lot easier for the bales to be detected and wrapped. Thus I'm pretty sure the issue was the mod being very picky about the height and pitch of the tool when picking up bales. I guess this is the most tested configuration. Not easy to use if bales don't stop in a fairly flat area, but I guess we can use a bale spike to move bales in tricky areas.

With the massive income from the latest contract, we can also afford a bale wagon. Yay.. Now I think we have all the gear we need for a little silage bale operation..



The maintenance area can be seen in the background there.. Just some tools we bought and a piece of the road we flattened out a bit to make it easy to look underneath the vehicles. We should probably do some maintenance work on our equipment over winter. Hopefully we can learn whatever we need from manuals we got with the gear.

The 12 bale trailer cost 450.000 kroner, so it was really tempting to go for the 24 bale new awesome trailer we've been using for contracts. But I guess fits the tractor and time a bit better, and leaves us something to aspire too later.

Maybe we should see if we can build a little shed up here to store the gear over winter a bit better.

[humbe]

Using 170 thousand on a shed hurts, but a roof overhead will be good for both me and the machinery.. If weather gets bad I can put up my tent inside the shed .. Though a better plan might be to complain to Lise and see if I can find shelter down in the valley somewhere. If only there was a pub here or somewhere I could spend some time and be a bit social over winter..



Cut down a few trees to make room for the shed. I figured we'd stuff it down here, where it was kinda sheltered for the weather, and isn't in the way if we decide to change our fields up there.. Wonder if we should try to get a plow and plow up a bit more of the meadow.

Tried to remove the small brush from the trees. Will handle them later I think. When we get to sell our bales, we should have enough money for a half decent tractor trailer, which should at least make it a lot easier than with our small car trailer.

Come December, the light is gone at 17:30..



No contracts in winter. We've decided to take a break until we sell our bales. No snow either though. Temperatures haven't dropped much either. Still above zero.



Accounting for 1996.. Lets look at the numbers. It's been a surprising half a year.

In total we've invested 2.119.316 kroner into vehicles and gear, 171.071 in vehicles and 502.525 in land area. Still we have no debt.

We've earned 2.167.599 in contracts alone, and add to that 114.747 for extra crop we got to sell after harvest someones Canola, and 479.465 selling bales that we ended up with extra after baling contracts. On top of that 50.852 for selling some wood from our plot. That's an income of 2.812.663 kroner for half a year.. And we haven't even sold the bales we've produced from own land yet.. Still feels a criminal amount of money for half a years work.

[humbe]

January 1997

A new year has come.. About time to sell our bales..



Ola Haldor has made AutoDrive routes you can download separately. (Auto-generating from map doesn't work nearly as far, as traffic routes are only set up for some of the roads.)

Testing out autodrive route to animal handler. They work somewhat, but autodrive and traffic doesn't mix well. A bit sad with the traffic not being able to take and consideration for big farming vehicles. Easy to get stuck with a big vehicle when traffic comes up on both sides and refuse to move away. Has had to disable traffic and reenable it once to reset traffic and get out of a sticky situation.

Our tractor was very slow getting up the hill to the main road crossing by the animal dealer, but managed at least.. With auto-drive it's no issue at all, driving at good speed.

Another autodrive issue is that some of these roads are very narrow, so if the routes is to allow traffic in both directions, which is to prefer, especially in the roads there's traffic, then big vehicles ends up on the side of the road, and hitting guard rails besides the road at some points.

But still, great having routes.. Just have to know about limitations and drive some parts yourself..


January.. Still no snow, and no snow on the weather report for all of January.. Strange.. Global warming is happening for sure..

Ended up getting 337.873 kroner for our bales. Woah.. And we can likely get three grass harvests a year. We can make a very nice income just repeating this every year.

[humbe]

Decided to get a trailer, and some spruce saplings, so we could plant some trees that are easy to work width..



Got an Orkel TX 130 from Fannrem, not far north of here, Looks to be a versatile and nice trailer. Here in logging configurations. Not enough tension belts for this hopeless load of birch and something else, but should work well for other loads. Likely a bit too new for the time period but it fits the map

I think we lost some on the way, but nothing is on the road at least..



Trying to plant a spruce tree though, a municipial representative comes running out of the woods.. STOP.. STOP..
You're not allowed to plant more trees. Rennebu is at its limit!!

Eh?? I don't understand, but I guess I have to comply...

I have cut down some trees, but either they don't count, or pre-planted trees have gone beyond the limit, so who knows how many must be cut down before new can be planted. I think there might be mods to increase the limit, but I think the limit has already been increased in the map due to it's massive size. I guess I'll leave it alone for now.

[humbe]

Went by the shop for some new supplies.. A plow will be useful to plow up some parts of the meadow. Seems grass can grow quicker in a plowed field. Also, something to use our front loader with would be nice. We hope this pallet fork can be useful to carry bales, load trees and pallets alike.



With a plow, it would be good to have a seeder so we could sow grass where we plowed. With money from a logging haul we should be able to afford one.



The shop owner told us to drive with the spikes turned downwards, so we don't ram them straight into a vehicle if there's an accident.
I like the cab view from this tractor. Functional mirrors so we can see what's behind us. Default set ok too, so didn't need the adjust mirror mod to adjust them, though I guess I could fine-tune them a bit.

Got 60k from that log haul. Should be able to afford a seeder.

Still no snow though.. It's January and still temperatures above zero.. What's the world coming to...

[humbe]

*ring*.. *ring*..

Someone is calling, saying he's sorry he refused us to grow any more trees. He now assures me, that the required registration protocol for trees in Rennebu now has been extended with a hundred blank pages, and I can grow more trees on my property if I want to, as long as I register them. MoreTrees mod worked to up the plantable tree limit

With the border dispute from last fall, we figured it would be good to figure out exactly where the border was. Creating a fence is a lot of work, but I figured we could grow some trees just inside the border, so, when they grow up a little, it's fairly easy to spot where the border is.. And we used the tree line to repaint grass on top of the part of the field not on the property to avoid confusion.



I love this hand plant sappling mod.



When we go around our property, we see that there's quite a bit of meadow on the south side that is on the property. If we cut down some of the pine forest down there we could extend the field there. The meadow is far from flat, but the field was steep to begin with.. A smaller steep field doesn't sound better than a bigger steep field.



Cut down some of the pines on top, to extend the field quite a bit into the meadow up south. The size of field 53 is likely doubled. One haul of pines should make for a lot of nice firewood at least. I guess someone might be interested in firewood, but I don't know anyone, so i guess we'll sell it to the sawmill, even though they will pay stuff for pine as it's not much to make planks from. I ended up just sawing the small parts into small enough pieces so they just disappear. Not worth anything anyhow, so just keeping the main trunk that's at least worth something. Oh.. And I'm using the lumberjack mod, so I can remove the stumps with the saw.

We stayed up late nights to finish plowing in January, and strangely the ground never froze. Now in February, and still everything looks green. Will be strange to sow grass in winter, when it's supposed to be a couple of feets of snow on top of the field, but as long as it stays like this, I guess we'll get a seeder and sow some grass..

[humbe]

A seeder we need..

The salesman had this old seeder he said was still great that he wanted to peddle. A Case IH 5100 seeder from 1983. Yeah.. He knows its old, but he says its still awesome and I can have it for 48382 kroner. A bargain.. Well.. Lets hope he's right.. The seeder however, is a bit wider than we thought from the bro-chu-re (If I remove the dashes in that word it gets censored to hu** for some insane reason). Do you have a low loader the salesman asks? Low loader? What's that? He shows me.. That's 150000 kroner I don't have.. Can't we fit it on my trailer or something?



Didn't get to test this seeder out in my '75 game as I paused before '83.. So wanting to do it now. It's from before '96 at least, and all the seeders in the shop are way too new.. Though from the stats, I think I'd prefer this direct drill over several of them

With the surprisingly active traffic around here, and narrow roads to our plot, driving this thing just towed looks hopeless as long as all the other drivers refuse to give way.

We got up to the plot alright. Though at 12 kph up the hill, I guess the drivers behind me would be willing to start collecting money for me to get more horsepowers..

But unloading got interesting..



Our behind weight seems insufficient. Until we realize the seeder is entangled in the loading straps on the trailer, even though they are just fastened over the trailer bed. Running quick out of the tractor to unstrap the straps made wonders..

Another thing looking like a game bug.. When I approach with the front loader, it seems to move what I'm approaching long before we get near it.. As my front loader was like 1-2 meters away, the trailer shook like it was afraid and started moving. Have seen the same with bales, when I've tried to approach them with the bale wrapper. They are still to begin with, but starts shaking and moving when I approach them.



But the damn trailer won't stand still. It has no breaks while parked it seems. It's moving away and we need to go after to not tip forwards.. Then we manage to shift hold on the seeder to lift it free.



Only to watch the trailer rolling away.. Run Forest.. Run!!!

We wondered how far we had to go to find the trailer, and if it would still be in one piece.. Not to mention if it ended up hitting someone on the road..



Phew.. it stopped in a tree just before the road.

We got the trailer back up and parked (and after unfastening it, it slid a bit forwards as we tried to park it in a slight incline.. We have to remember that), and were eager to test if the seeder still worked after the debacle.. But then the phone rang again.

*ring*.. *ring*...

Official: I hear you're trying to start a seeder. That is not allowed in February.. It's winter..
Me: Why? There's no snow? The ground ain't even frozen? Why can't I just sow some grass?
Official: Regulations are there for a reason. You have to wait until March!!

Ich.. I guess we'll wait then..

[humbe]

We sow grass in March, but come April, the new bits were then naturally not ready for harvest. We decided to harvest our old patches regardless though. Then we harvest again in July, the new bits will have stayed a month fully grown, but then we should be back on track with April/July/October grass harvests. (Which I think is the optimal path to ensure we always harvest fully grown grass)

In April, contracts start to come again. We ignored a fertilization contract. For those to be worth it, I feel we should be able to use own equipment. Rest is sadly baling contracts all of them. We have normally stayed away from the smaller contracts, as the equipment for lease does not include a bale wagon to get the bales to the animal dealer. Just some tools so the tractor can carry 4 at a time. But now that we have our own bale wagon we decided to do a small contract that offered quite a bit of money.

Also, we figured out, we could borrow the bale wrapper quickly, to bale our own bales too, which saved me a ton of work with our own bale handler that requires precision driving up to all the bales.



With the bale wagon, it was easy to stack the bales high, given flat terrain, but we haven't seen anyone else stacking their bales like this.. I wonder why.. Guess we might end up suddenly discovering why

So what's the plan going forwards I ponder.

There's what looks like a dried up riverbed going through our plot. I guess, in springs, in normal years where there's actually snow here, a stream might form when the snow melts. If winters stays like this one though, it's not needed. But filling it sounds like a ton of work, and we need to get masses from somewhere, so don't think that's useful. There's other plots to buy here instead. We also have a fairly steep meadows with birch trees on the edge of our plot. I think we'll leave that one be too.

We've been wondering about setting up a sheep pen up here though. There's plenty of grass for them to graze on. And we can try to earn enough money on that to get a plot that are more useful for arable farming, hopefully down the valley. The sheep should probably be happy in the areas not fit for fields here, but the small field we have on top here (field 48) is also small, and has a corner that is too narrow to turn ok in. Sacrificing that field wouldn't be too bad either.

[olahaldor]

(what happened to the colors on the log config? They should be black with that color config you chose. And the hoses and cables should be black. Did you get it on Modhub?)

[humbe]

(what happened to the colors on the log config? They should be black with that color config you chose. And the hoses and cables should be black. Did you get it on Modhub?)

Hmm.. Thought I had it from ModHub, but I guess I didn't. I can't remember why, but my mod was just named TX130.zip, and I see [NMC]T-Bone in there when I look at it now. This was one of my favorite trailers in FS19, and I used it in my no mans land game there I remember. Maybe I was so eager to get it into my game when FS22 came out that I caught a conversion from FS19 or something before you put it on FS22 modhub.

Initially thought it coulda been due to the RelightV1300 mod I'm using, but loaded without it, and took the screenshot above. Shop image from other configuration can be seen down to the right..



Removed my old mod there and redownloaded from modhub and edited my savegame.. Now I should have the original ;D.. Also, I see the silage configuration has completely changed. Now I have the box with netting. The thing I had, had some wooden planks above the trailer in silage mode. I did react on that white color initially, but didn't give it much thought...

[humbe]

After the contract, we were looking forward to upgrading engine of our tractor, but then we saw this huge contract, and figured, that if we did that one, we should afford to build a sheep pen. We've managed with the horses we have for now, so lets get some sheep first.. Hopefully that will give us some steady income selling wool.. After that, I guess we'll start to save up for another plot of land.

The big baling contract is on field 107, which is reasonably close to the shop where we lease vehicles and fairly flat. As it's big, we also get to lease some nice equipment to handle it. Just have to remember to use tedder before baler.. Tedder before baler..



That's a big tedder.. At least compared to the tiny one I used in my last game I miss FS19 seasons and drying grass in the sun though. Instantly dry grass after throwing it up in the air seems a bit silly

A bit strange that it doesn't ted everything. Small patches not tedded behind it there.. But I guess as long as it's not much it shouldn't matter..

[humbe]

Completed the contract, and got enough money for a sheep pasture. Ended up stuffing it in the middle part where little else fits. Cut the small field narrow corner to add some bale storage there, and make it easier for vehicles to turn around outside our shed. I guess I may more of that small grass field, especially in front of the new sheep pen, but I'll leave it for now. We've also drilled for water, to provide water for the sheep. Thus we don't need to find another water source and start transporting water all over.



Pretty happy with how the plot layout is now.. Thinking I'll leave it as this for a while, and start saving up money for a plot in the valley where we can grow some grains. Maybe we can afford a little farmyard down there too at some point.

We had quite a bit of hay left over after the contract we did, that we drove up here, to have food for sheep. They can also eat silage. Not sure if they prefer to have both, or if either is fine. Pen tracks separate silage and grass inputs. They should also have quite a bit of area to graze in within the fences. Would be cool if there was a pen where you could fence of an area of any shape within where the sheeps could graze. I know there exist fenceless husbandries, where you can put up fences yourself, but the animals will just use the rectangle of the fenceless husbandry.

Would be good with some money to get some more sheep now.. We won't fill it.

The little forest around my shed is within my plot. So is the little birch forest below my far field back there, and the little spruce forest between the road and my far field.

[olahaldor]

Removed my old mod there and redownloaded from modhub and edited my savegame.. Now I should have the original ;D.. Also, I see the silage configuration has completely changed. Now I have the box with netting. The thing I had, had some wooden planks above the trailer in silage mode. I did react on that white color initially, but didn't give it much thought...

There were some early, non-approved conversions which totally messed up my inbox with loads of shouting and kicking and crying from people who didn't get it on modhub, because it wasn't there. thus, no support.

The silage cage was changed because Orkel launched an official cage IRL, the one I made had to go to adhere to their wish and my contract with them.

[humbe]

I guess we'll have to do yet another baling contract to earn money for sheep.

Looking through the adds at Jokern, we found yet another lazy farmer that can't be bothered to mow his own field.. Ola Haldor he calls himself..



Ola Haldor: Yeah.. If you mow my lawn for me, I'll throw a couple of hundred thousands your way.
Me: 220338 kroner seems a very specific price?
Ola Haldor: It's what pocket change I had left after my last trip to Jokern.
Me: Do you mind if I ask you why you don't want to mow that field yourself? Two hundred thousand is quite a bit of money.
Ola Haldor: I've not completed Diablo yet, even though it was released in January.. I have to get back to my PC ASAP.. Damn Blizzard.
Me: Where should I deliver the hay to?
Ola Haldor: You should get at least 26 bales from the field, which I expect delivered to the animal dealer. Do whatever you want with the excess, if there should be any.



And a misclick driving to the dealer.. Should we drive with a towed stack or dump it out and pick it back up again. Made it like this

24 .. 25 .. 26 .. .. .. 37 .. 38. You'd think Ola had mowed this field sometime before and counted bales.. But his loss.. 12 bales extra for us.. Taking them up to the farm for sheep food.

With 200k income, we managed to get ourself 50 young sheep and 18 older ones.. It's a start at least..