From: bill@chaos.cs.umn.edu ()
Subject: misc.rual.misc was  Re: Real Farms
Organization: University of Minnesota
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 00:47:38 GMT

In <1992Sep3.205924.27072@news.iastate.edu> mpleis@iastate.edu (Cowboy) writes:

>We need a discution about real farms here. I mean a farm you make your living
[stuff deleted]
>Our farm this year is as follows:
>2500 acres crops
>90 head dairy soon to be 300+ (Reg. Jerseys)
>4 families live and work the farm
>N.E. Iowa location
>We are all computerized.
>Plus we write software for farms, sell software and hardware, and design new
>special equipment for farms and dairys.

now is this a 'real farm' (tm) or is this a 'university farm'?????
no the size bugs me not, 'cause that sounds normal? for what i know about iowa
but judging from your address i'm curious.
btw most 'real farms' (tm) around here are run by people who wouldn't know
how to change the station on a computer much less post to the net. and
they are to busy being farmers / diarymen (sorry but i refuse to neuter that 
word!) to use a computer. yes i'm aware of the potential and wish i could
do something about it (ok so email me some info on what you have, maybe
we can get something going. please include a dotted address, as this
machine has poor maps and to many times i can't get mail out). so what do
you grow? do you row crop or just grow silage? what kinds og tillage methods
do you use? how many / what kinds of studs do you have? do you farm out the
ferilization of your cattle? do you have or are you planning on having a vet
on site? is this a family farm (as in do any of you have children who would be
interested in taking over when you retire) or is this a corporate farm (when
you all retire will you just sell out and move to hawaii?) so whats 
computerized? only the feeding? do you have a method of determining what cow
is producing the most milkfat or do you wait for the tests (do you do them
once a month or biweekly?) so of all those cows how many are you milking?
of the new ones how old are they? hefiers? or productive? do you support
the 4h kids when they are trying to buy milk cows to raise? are your
kids in 4h? ffa? what other livestock do you raise? what kinds and what application rates do you use for pesticides /herbicides? pre emergent? post emergent?
do you do mechanical weed control? how many passes over the fields do you
make during the course of a year? what kind of yeilds do you get? how many
crops of hay per season? oh and how many times a day do you milk? what times?
have you tried other times of the day to determine when the optimum production
occurs? have you tried serving warmed water in the winter (to the cows)?

ummm. i think that will cover all the questions i have for now. yes i too would
like to sit back and learn from a thread like this. glad to have someone with
your background available to learn from.


dear marym@devnull.mpd.tandem.com:
i tried to email to you in responce to your ?'s but my mail bounced.

>OK so how much *is* alot? :-)
>Any thumbnail rules about how big a pressure tank one needs? This well
>has a tiny, maybe 20 gal sized air tank on it. It never did anything
>but water cattle before.

well what you need to determine is: at the end of the farthest opening (ie
faucet, hose, whatever) how long does it take to fill a gallon jug?
you probably won't be happy delivering less than 1.5 - 2 gal/minute (if
you are used to city water services) on a farm where you are watering 
livestock (and if you can't deliver enough water in august they won't be:-(
you better be aiming for 5-20 gal / minute again depending. so whats
this got to do with pressure tank size as opposed to well delivery rate?
well :-) glad you asked that. you should not 'see' the pumping action of the 
pump. it s/b a steady flow or you are not making effecent use of the pump.
no we are not talking an industrial pump, i'm assuming a submerged well
pump. you will also probably not care much for a shower where the water
temp varies with the flow of cold water (the heater will tend to maintain
a steady flow of hot, but the cold flow will rise and fall making the temp
do the same. def' not much fun :-(  again if its only a stock tank then
you will only need enough of a pressure tank to provide back pressure 
as required for the pump. some require no back pressure, others do.
if the outside water and the inside water are feed from the same well
and you are having a warm shower, and someone turns on the water outside
will you get burned due to the cold water pressure drop?????
thats the 1 biggest concern! period! (for inside water supplies, obv. if 
the outside water is a separate feed / well you will not notice this. unless
the out side well can dewater the well point for the inside supply :-(

>Why does the pump kick in? One assumes pressure is leaking off somewhere?

see the other post concerning the short cycling pump problems another
person was/is having.

oh yes one more thing:
og   Organic Gardening
men  Mother Earth News
cj   Country Journal
joat Jack Of All Trades (and i am the master of at least one, journyman 
                         ironworker. i paid for my own school :-)

men jan/feb 1984 #85 pg 104 'moms own composting toilet' 3 pages
they sell the plans (at least they did 8 years ago) they also mention
'Compost Toilets: A Guide for Owner-Builders'
pub by The National Center for Appropriate Technology
Mother Bookshelf
105 Stoney Mountain Rd.
Hendersonville NC 28791

ref also men #80 pg 172

again remember this is from a magazine thats 8 years old and men is not the 
same now as it was then. hey when i can pu an issue and we are disscussing the 
merits of $15,000 lawn mower, $25,000 4wd trsuburbans ... well it's not quite
what i had in mind. if you have any old issues that you want to get rid of,
well let me know and i'll take them off your hands:-))

there i think i've caught up again :-)
l8ter (as a freind of mine would say)

bill pociengel
--
bill@chaos.cs.umn.edu