Wednesday, January 31, 2018

The wall is Out


this morning the wall was taken out


tomorrow the left robot will move out

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Winter Birds

Tomorrow they will come again to work in the barn
we currently have a break
so we post some birds


Cardinal Female quite colourful


woodpecker


Need to fill the feeder up


Black eyed Juno in the wind


We took the "owl sideroad" coming home from swimming
the owl was a bit far



zooming in helps


Saturday, January 27, 2018

Start of the A4


so many people, and there were even more then the vehicles suggest


everything looks so new


feed in the trough, the black rectangle that says Lely gave us grief
it is the tag reader, it worked some of the time

if it hadn't worked at all we would have replaced it right away.
now we tried for a few hours


first cow in the new robot


we were to optimistic, thinking our cows are used to a robot
but everything smelled new and different noises
we needed help


on Days like this you need friends 


at 3AM all our 62 cows went through once
we went to bed and 
at 7 AM there had been 91 milkings
that was better then I anticipated

here you can see a whole bunch of cows waiting to get in
they are not separated, they can walk through the whole barn

cows like to be milked by a robot, they line up for it

some need to get over the change, but they will learn too



Friday, January 26, 2018

The big day


Yesterday was the day of the switch from the A3next 
to the A4
making a dry access to the new robot room
(very noisy for the cows)


auger for the feed is hooked up



All the new neck ties grouped together 


locked the cows so we could put them on


not easy to get the old ties off



temporary platform it will be cemented later
after the second robot is installed 


moving exit gates into place

we stopped milking around 11 AM

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Classifier



we had the classifier


first Excellent


second Excellent
currently we have 6 in our barn

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Wires


See all the wires from the Center Unit going in the pipe


coming out in the new robot room


fitting all the pieces together


adding light fixtures and power outlets 

Monday, January 22, 2018

RVL comes to Drayton


RVL or Ray VanderLaan is scheduled to come to our church
in Drayton. RVL teaches the bible in it's Jewish cultural background
 and it just comes alive
If you can come even for part of the conference, do so
you will not be sorry

Frozen Falls


Beautiful frozen Balls Falls


some historic buildings


stairs at the beginning of our hike


a beautiful day


2 km road through vine country


Louth Falls


hiking off the trail towards frozen Rockway Falls

Saturday, January 20, 2018

laying some ground work


after 2 days of no activity
The A4 is moved to the edge
the day we switch we have to move some pipes


working on the positive air pressure, a requirement
Tyler and Alex


the new room looks roomy enough

Friday, January 19, 2018

Clean Freezer


cleaned out the freezer, organised it again
easy when it is freezing in the garage
we still have lots of juice, red beets and beans

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Another step


the robot room currently looks roomy
but that is going to change
The door frame is taken out, because according to our calculations
the central unit will just fit


the central unit needs to fit in the corner


a heavy part to move, but it fit

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Room done


the cows had a rough day


they have no problem getting used to the new building


they just don't like sudden noises 


we'll see what happens today