Last few days

[Aaron]

Worked on getting rubber mats installed on the sales barn scale in town on Saturday. Made a poor cut around the one barrier, but I think I can make it work with a chunk and a little glue. Should stop the slipping and sliding of cattle on the checker plate floor as they enter and exit the ring. Have to fit a 3 more pieces around barriers and then start gluing corner junctions.

Well drillers finally showed up this morning to hydrofrack the well for the house. Aquifer pressure has dropped in the last number of years and has been starting to precipitate calcium into the water. Figured maybe it had blocked the old fractures and dropped the recovery to less than half gallon/minute. Blew the fractures back open at 1200 psi in less than 1/2 hour. Recovery was around 2.5 gallons initially and we'll see what the morning brings after pumping all night. Was an impressive convoy this morning as two guys brought 3 trucks here. Helper driving the water truck pulling the cargo truck and the driller driving the 35 ton drill rig. I actually started running out of room in the driveway.

 

[plumber_greg]

Does it ever thaw out there?????????. Just kidding, got a classmate in the upper penusila and always kidding him.
How many people have invested in the sale barn and has it always been owned by local farmers? Just wondering. gs

 

[hillbilly beef man]

Made a poor cut around the one barrier, but I think I can make it work with a chunk and a little glue.

By the time it gets covered in crap no one will ever be able to tell. That is why I am a good barn carpenter, but not worth a darn at finish work.

 

[cowboy43]

How is hydro fracing done on a water we'll, here we have water sands that let the water flow into the well bore naturally.
Oil wells are hydraulically fraced using water, sand and acid pumped under pressure back into the oil bearing formation, it is expensive to do on an oil well, I had never heard of fracing a water we'll for house hold use. How expensive is the process?

 

[Aaron]

Does it ever thaw out there?????????. Just kidding, got a classmate in the upper penusila and always kidding him.
How many people have invested in the sale barn and has it always been owned by local farmers? Just wondering. gs

Built in 1960 by the local farmers at the time, all volunteer work and is to this day. Still have a few of the original builders left living. Initially consisted of the big barn and the long lean-to on the north side and cattle were loaded onto rail cars (until 1985 or so). The smaller barn and all the outdoor pens were built in 1981. Anybody who has consigned cattle to the barn in the last 5 years is an owner of the barn's assets in the case of a dissolution. I am not 100% on consignor numbers, but I think we have around 80-100 each year. We replaced all outdoor wood pens in 2007? with steel. Have the capacity to handle about 2500 head, although 2000 starts to get pretty full (we want a few empty pens for buyers). Biggest single sale was in the mid-80's with around 3000 head. Lately we average around 1000-1200 head for each of 4 sales a year - 1 in spring/3 in fall.

 

[Aaron]

How is hydro fracing done on a water we'll, here we have water sands that let the water flow into the well bore naturally.
Oil wells are hydraulically fraced using water, sand and acid pumped under pressure back into the oil bearing formation, it is expensive to do on an oil well, I had never heard of fracing a water we'll for house hold use. How expensive is the process?

That is the unit they use. It's a Perkins motor out of an old MF tractor. They can pressurize the water up to 4000 psi. They put a rubber packer down ahead of the drill rod which isolates the area to frack. They fracked here at 280 feet. Took about 1/2 hour pressurizing until they broke through the rock at 1200 psi. It's a pricey venture, got the bill the other day for $4k. This is the 3rd time we have fracked this well in 25 years. We have issues with rock flour coming out of the rock, so over time it seals up the fractures.

 

[wbvs58]

Aaron, that's a lot of infrastructure lying around for just 4 sales a year. Has it been used more than that in the past?

Ken

 

[Aaron]

Aaron, that's a lot of infrastructure lying around for just 4 sales a year. Has it been used more than that in the past?

Ken

Actually just the opposite. Up until the late 80's, only one fall sale was held beginning of October. Then an April sale was started, followed by an August sale and just in the last 10 years, a 2nd late October sale was started. The August sale has fallen heavy in numbers as it is pegged as a yearling sale and the number of backgrounded yearlings around here has dropped dramatically. Last year it only had 435 head and didn't cover our costs to run the sale, so it may eventually be eliminated.

In the last couple of years, our barn manager has been organizing potloads of culls cows outside of the normal sale dates. Usually send about one pot of cows out every 2nd month. Buyer is very good to us and pays top dollar compared to other barns, so consignors do very well because they don't have the freight bill on those cows.