Foreverford

Rather than writing a long winded story I find it easier to post a couple of pictures.

Today I started to prepare the tomato beds in the back yard.

The seedlings all look the same , actually there are about ten kinds of interesting heirlooms & cherry tomatoes I am looking forward to.

Enjoy

Hi Soidog I believe from my fading memory you gave away a few seedlings last year and you were near Buriram. I would like to buy a few tomatoes (or trade some produce) possibly later on for seeds but will PM you if I get the time to try ( oh so many projects).

Well I used this reply to post an update on what's happening and have manage to keep the Ford doing amazing things with a few custom tools I've built and believe it or not I was able, in one day, to bring and dump and spread and compact 126 trucks of dirt to repair and upgrade the roads to and around the farm that was all in 8 hours and all with just one person and tractor. Yeah pretty impossible to believe but unfortunately I'm still feeling the pain of non-stop tractor work, almost flipped it twice but road out one into and out of the new lake I built then had to be pulled out of going 50 feet into the klong later in the day when I started to fatigue. I got it airborne once but that was just due to being pissed off from getting bad placement of my loads. I've been working towards getting the 14 rai plot nearly level and buildfing a complete road system around it (managing to do four things at once, building roads and creating levees with the dirt from digging a pond and klong ) along with a klong that will drain it into the pond that a I have built. Pond will have both the frogs and catfish and the road will also be at a height that will allow the growing of fruit trees out of the flood plain. Just disced into the ground the first crop of Pah Tueng (sun hemp) for green manure but it wasn't 50% of the plot due to lack of seeds but managed to buy 2 tons and got the entire plot planted last week and then unbelieveably it rained for a few days. The place looks like an emerald in the middle of all the other stubblefields that will eventually be burnt off. So now all the rice stubble has been cut and semi incorporated and a new crop of cover is in and will be turned in well before planting season and will probably go for a third planting before finally getting in the rice for this year. Building and making a functioning bio-char system (modifying jandtaa's info and drawings from the Philipines for rice husks) for the rice straw is the next high priority item and then i will attempt to mix all I can make with the 15 tons of chicken manure I was able to acquire and get it spread on this and the other farms that we are convertting to organic. Been pretty busy so not much time to write but things are moving forward and hoping to get 10 tons this year on much less land than we had this last year when we got 9 tons (it is unbelieveably delicious and fragrant). regardless how much we get, the land is and will continue to be much much more fertile than the dying mess we started with. Choke Dee

Off the farm in Hua Hin and the wife is very ill. We got some rain for two days but i was in Hua Hin for a cricket competition and the body finally pulled the plug and all the old maladies (basic old age and bad ears) put the whoop on me and I couldn't make the 7 hour sprint to the tractor and lost a real good opportunity to finish (well semi-sort-a) off my road and levee system. The entire 14 rai was planted with the Pah teung beans (sun hemp)and half we planted scientifically (I had my brother-in-law alone and a hand held over the shoulder broadcast seeder) and broadcast in two directions to prevent any missed areas and then the troops arrived and started flinging and winging the other half. Amazingly (??!#??) the "scientific" area popped up perfectly and was extremely lush. the other was okay some places and not so in others as you would expect. So now it gets really too cool and you have the place where we had originally "scientifically" planted one smaller area of our original plantings with the limited seed we had while waiting for the two ton shipment. I had staked it off in a square to represent a rai and then had the wife and sister-in -law plant it and it came out lush and full in the cut down stubble. Well before we planted this entire 14 I disced in all of the first crop of beans and the stubble. The place now really really looked like an emerald as we were irrigating the place now as there hasn't been even a hope for rain in a while, all of a sudden in a week or so the area where the first "scientific" square patch was planted goes wild and it is nearly twice as high as the bordering areas and very very almost military green in the darkness of leaf color just incredible as the locals and family are thinking that maybe i have some idea about what i am taklking about and there is some excitement in the anticipation of what the hel_l the rice is going to look like. Last year it started to take on the proportions of corn and was so seed heavy that the nearly half dozen typhoons that hit us after the phillipines knocked it all over. I am definitely going to over-seed and hope that might help in suppo0rt (again disease and iother things can be a oproblem then) so will plant sections slightly different to see what does best this year.

So I started getting into heavier clay as i was digging the pond and canals and roads and levees and started to do the math and realized the time had come to get a bigger piece of equipment. It cost me 20,000 baht to bring in the biggest brandy-new excavator I've worked with, computer and all. I know i couldn't have done the work that it accomplished with the Ford for 20,000 in diesel fuel alone. It came in a transport right to the farm so the old levee road that you used to be asble to bring only a motorcycle in on has improved slightly with the Ford really showing its worth. I had been working since before sunrise and they showed up with excavator at about 2pm and by the time they figured and tried to refigure my estimates (their's too) we agreed on a price and got down to it. I quit when it got dark but by then had managed to spread enough goo on the roads to bring them way up and start to dry out the goo so it could be worked. Final story on the excavator is I now have a pond that is the equivalent of 30x15x5 meters deep in a kidney bean sort of design and a klong that goes down the two long sides and the back of the semi-rectangular plot. It is two meters wide by two meters deep. It's dug straight and their will be definite sluffing of the inner side but let it be. So now the new small road/levee goes completely around the farm with the new small klong seperating it from the bottom land. the klong can facilitate moving water onto and off of the bottom land through the pond and pump systems. Oh yeah how many tilapia and catfish it will produce will be fun to see. The "small road levee" is really not going to be a road (my wife loves to drive her bike on it) as the partial purpose to building such a big and wide levee was to create space above flood levels for the avocado and limes and pomegranite and mangoes and coconuts that will be the main trees to be grown on it but if wife has her way she wants to plant one of everything there and so be it go baby go.

I had to return to the US for a death in the family and basically missed the optimum time to incorporate the beans in for green manure and at this point their is nobody else able to operate the tractor as one brother bailed out so he could drink more whiskey and again I say go baby go and don't come back jack. When i got back i went straight to the farm and it was over a hundred degrees everyday and no wind to speak of and really was a blessing in some ways as i had to disc the beans in and if their was a lot of wind I would have lost a lot of tops soil as it was I would make a run and turn around and therir was the dust just hanging in the air to make ano9ther pass through it. Man with three air filters i was dumping pounds of dust out of the first couple but still the tractor never died. We are having three phase electricity brought to farm with something like 20 some poles so when it finally gets there (about 11 in so far) we will be able to do some significant testing of the five inch well that we put in and determine what size pump we will fit it with but our two inch exploratory well was almost artesian at times so it looks pretty good. It is bone dry all the klongs are looking like the sahara desert (still have a bit of water in the bottom of the new pond from when it was dug) and it keeps geting hotter. I was still working levees (dam-n near finished) after sunset and found my cowboy boots and overalls were soaked in hydraulic fluid so figured since it was dark and my fuse blew and the lights weren't coming on that i might as well call it a day a week and a end of a season and put the tractor away and head back to the condo in Hua Hin and get ready for a little international cricket competition. the old Ford limped to the barn with me sore everywhere and I decide to m09ve a couple pieces of equipment so I could get them welded up and dam_n if when i was bringing the last piece over to the uncle's place and 10 yards from it and i turn left it goes straight so i turn right and it goes right try left and straight again. Yeah the end of the hydraulic cylinder had come loose and after some fiddling and fooling got it back together and limped it back to pasture. I'm going wityh a new cylinder and then i'll rebuild the old for spare parts. Amazingly we ended up winning the Sixes and a great time was had by all with the gracious hosting of the Dusit Hotel. But nine games in four days along with sleep depravation and copious imbibements of cricket lubricant (this is sixes folks so tea isn't the norm at 95 degrees on the ocean) and I am still feeling the effects. I'll take the trophy and strap it on to the hood of the trator like Marlon Brando in Hollister and call myself the "Wild Bunch". As i write the news calls for some good rain so we wait in anticipation (for my new cyclinder and the rain). The previous forecasts talk of no significant rain until June. I plan on being in the Sierra Nevadas of California at 10,000 feet near Mono lake for the first day of summer and then off to Alaska to fill the freezer with halibut and salmon so if no rain by the end of May i will use an old trick that has never failed to make it rain but until then i guess I'll say mai pen rai or as we say in Mexico when it didn't rain for nearly 5 years in our village and my farm in the Baja desert, manana (tomorrow). Choke Dee Fords Forever

Tilapia spawn like mad and the offspring are an excellent feed source for predator fish.

That is the perfect answer thanks so much

Can anyone offer some advice in regards to a type of small fast reproducing fish that could be used in ponds as a food source for larger fish.

Got to agree with Foreverfords sentiments, the reason we used an excavator for our first pond was because it is within 10 metres of a Klong which gives us seepage to keep the pond at Klong level as a minimum.

We went down 3 and up 1 which put our levee walls 1 metre above the Klongs flood levees, alas ,twice in the last 2 years floods have exceeded even that so we surround the pond with 1 metre high mesh fencing to keep the farm fish in and wild fish out.

Our other 40 m x40 m ponds are 2 met down and 1 met up and we dug with a 6610 tractor , we had to introduce water to soften up the lower 60cm so the Ford could blade it.

The tractor blade glazes the base (unlike a macro ,that leaves fissures ) and the 4:1 angles allows the tractor to "walk " out. Cost for the tractor dug ponds 8000 baht each

Oz get 5 Cat motor Grader ripper teeth and mount them (removeable with pins) on the back of the blade pointing backwards and rip going backwards and forget about stopping ever or getting any water to work even without a box blade just remove the teeth in about a minute and you can blade it up like puddding. You can get in touch and I'll send you photos of the mounts for the teeth. They are about the size of a half gallon milk carton cut in half. Forever Fords

I have a good friend that supplies grass for all the playing fields and golf courses around Thailand and Asia. In this part of the world we don't use grass "seed" to grow turfgrass. What is used is "sprigging", it is a form of deep cutting the turf so you get viable cuttings that you then incorporate into the soil to create your turfgrass. I've built a couple of golf courses and only have used seed but this is the way they do it here. HOw much of an area are you going to need to plant? When i was playing and teaching in Kenya (over 20 years ago) I was able to get a hold of some Zoysia seeds amazingly but I really don't know now where they are available now. Zoysia would be my recommendation for here in Thailand as it is an indigenous grass that makes a beautifull surface and is very drought and disease tolerant. So how big of an area are you trying to grow in?

I take it that the backhoe you are referring to is actually a tracked excavator or Macro as they are referred to here in Los. Right !

50x20x6 = 6000 cubic metres

You will need about 4 x 10 m trucks if all the fill is to be moved away, otherwise your excavator is going to have a lot of down time waiting for a truck to dump into. You should also take into account that unless you have already dug a 6 metre test hole, you dont know what you are going to strike, most likely heavy clay past 2 metres.

Clay ,wet or dry is extremely hard to excavate.

You're right, it would make sense to dig a test hole.

Anyway, I'll be around when they dig the pond and if we hit a too hard layer, we may decide to stop there.

The last pond we had excavated this way ,was 40 x 40 x 4m , quote was 150k 5 years ago. The job ended up taking 16 days and the contractor sneaked off one night with his gear as he figured it would cost him far more than the 30k left owing to him to finish the job as per his quote.

The same happened to us 3 month ago for an other job, the contractor said he won't come back the next day because he already promised someone else to do an other job but would be back soon. We're still waiting for him .

My advise is to get a quote per cubic metre to excavate and remove the fill ,dont forget to stipulate at least 4:1 bank angles (to help prevent erosion), site clean-up and levelling before final payment.

My guesstimate would be close to 250k.

Remember ,6000cub met @ (if its a 10 wheel truck ) at 7 cub met per load ,is almost 70k for the truck alone.

Thanks for those good advises. We will probably do like this.... and go for a 4m deep pond that should be enough for our needs and more within our budget.

So Ozzzydom got you dialed in with all the facts. You obviously know that you can get a lake for free in Issan and if 1/4 million baht is a bit out of your budget to get a big dry hole may i sugest my method where you may get something that you can have that will accomplish all you have suggested you need.

Here goes and I'm going to try to make this brief (yeah right says everyione who has read any of my other posts) but it does work cause i did it. Get a 6610 Ford tractor with a one cubic meter box on the back and Cat 14 motor grader ripper teeth on the front blade. Spend about 3000 baht on fuel and rip and excavate all your top soil to where you want to level your growing areas. If you need some clay for roads, levees or building sites that can be purchased seperately from your excavator ("backhoe" in thai) operator.

My lake was a free form kidney shaped kind of thing but I now recall I estimated it at 30x15x5 (3 meters down and two meters up) I have large well to keep the pond topped up and the top of the pond leevee is the highest point for miles to keep my organic pond from being contaminated during any 100 - 500 year floods (important to have thetop of your pond where you won't loose what you have inside if that becomes and issue. We have other ponds that have low levee on other farms and they all go under water in the 100 year floods (we had a couple recently)).

Soooo we'll call your pond now 30x30x5 (go 4 down 1 up or 3 meters down and two up). I'm pretty sure it was 15,000 by bid so we could double that and it could cost you about 30,000 to just get the dirt out of the ground and dumped in big blobs (you will have plenty of blobs of goo if you are going to be down 5-6 meters as Oz said) amongst some better heavy clay soil.

Still your cost was 33,000 baht and you have a war zone. So back to the 3,000 baht for fuel to get your Super Ford to spend a few days moving some topsoil and then the backhoe operator brings in a half a dozen to a dozen 10 wheelers (depending on the distance to his off-haul dump site) and digs the entire thing for free and sells the dirt to the whoever at about 150-200 baht a load. Done deal a big beautiful pond for 3 grand if yoiu have an extra Ford 6610 laying around.

Now to do it right you should negotiate with your operator that when he gets down to about a meter or so deep he will use the spoils to build you your 1-2 meter high levee around the pond (hel_l never be able to really compact the levee to make a proper dam but one good year of rain and it will meld into a homogeneous entity and be water-tight I'm sure. So negotiate for him to put a levee around it and he can still sell a bunch of truckloads too.

If it works out okay and you are pleased, do the same thing again next year and in the end you will have in essence the near equivalence of the pond that you originally spec'd in your first post. If there ain't no water you haven't spent much and you only have one hole in the ground. AND if in fact you really do need a bunch of goo for fill somewhere better to get it from your second dig when you know for sure all the goo that you are getting out of the ground is going for another pond just a fine as the one you are satisfied nwith next to it.

Got to go man go can't beat these letters no more hope this helps but I don't want to see ya paying more than 50 grand to gamble on a hole in the ground so see if it makes sense for you and alwauys a big bunch of chokje dee can't have enough of that. fords are Forever

Planting tomatoes; illustrated!

This link will show you the seedlings at about two weeks. :

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/post-a103479-.html

#1, The same seedlings today, before I planted them.

# 2, Prepared the sunscreen ( better fruit set and protection from the midday sun )

# 3, Prepared the spacing, a little tighter than recommended. I do it like that because some will not make it.

# 4 Planted & watered.

Growing update, a month later, almost all the plants already flowered!

I pulled a couple that showed early signs of disease .

Final update. About 3.5 month from planting to picking

Typical heirloom tomato shape, now easily recognizable.

Considering the extreme weather we had this year, it's a miracle !

Enjoy !

Super-star that's who you are. You know you are the envy of us all!!! real tomatoes. They are next on my list but still way too too much to do. No time for computers but lot's going on. Didn't get a chance to actually read everything here but Jandtaa asked about rice husks and they have an enormously humongously big like power plant that has been built next to Prachon Chai in Buri Ram that they make electricioty out of the husks so there are none to be had anymore as 18 wheelers by the hundreds roll in frequently. I have failed a few times in trying to make bio-char out of the rice straw, a real bummer, as i resorted to buying it from the sugar cane growers by the ten wheel truck loads but can't put it in the farm as it would blow my organic back to day one so I am resigned using it in a mix with Chicken manure (sold as organic, all you can buy, bagged in pellets or by bulk on 18 wheelers, near Buri Ram/Korat border) and earth to use for newly planted trees around the perimeter of the main farm that won't be producing for the next three years. It may be a bit of an around the corner move but by law it is all I can do now as anyone could question the bio-char source as being non-organic and I doubt there is an organic sugar cane farm in Thailand that sells bio-char. Though we do know that the snow on the arctic circle has DDT in it but that is another story. So sourcing of quantities is still moving forward but the chicken manure source is a fantastic one and I brought in truck loads. I've got lots of new stuff happening but no time to put it in words as I promised earlier (was it really months ago???). I'll figure out the bio-char with the rice straw and we'll all be heroes, I working on your Phillipine version Jandtaa but definitely a bit modified for straw. got to go to much to do the Ford just broke a hydraulic cylinder so it's mechanicing time but it has been unbelieveable, on one stretch for 15 days I averaged over a dozen hours a day basically non-stop and it just screamed like an eagle and never even hiccupped. peace and love Fords Forever

Paw tuang (Crotalaria juncea)is a great cover crop... several threads here previously. Spread some cow manure into the soil to make sure your have the bacteria present for inoculation. Seeds readily available in the Chiang Mai area, sometimes free from the government agencies but cheap enough from private seed companies.

Soya beans will add nitrogen to the soil as well, if the correct bacteria are present, if that's what you're looking for.

Atch is in Thai but gives you some idea of the suitability of the plant.

Thanks for your information.

I think Crotalaria juncea is the Latin name for Sunn Hemp. As I'm not able to read the menu in restaurant, I will ask my wife to read the document.

I heard that charcoal from rice husk can improve the quality of the ground did you tried it? I read some interesting info about "terra pretta".

For Soya bean I don't know if it really improve de soil when we harvest it. Is Soya bean used for cover crop the same as the Soya bean used for cash crop?

Start with the Pah teung (sun hemp) available through your local ag advisers and through comercial sources around. If you soak in warm water it will sprout in a few hours (be careful because you must plant it immediately, have fun experiment with it and see) . It is by far the simplest thing in the world to grow and should be growing anywhere there is earth witih moisture. Any form of manure must be incorprorated into the soil to make the magic of nitrogen fixing work with beans such as these but once you introduce the bacteria from it you are set for life. Go to the organic section at the top of this farming section and you will be able to get on the sub-forum for organic farming and there is a plethora of info on green manures and organic fertilizers and a good and healty life for all. choke Dee

Well, it's me back again posting to me only it seems, but I found a website where a guy made his own Box Blade and I thought it should be included in this post for future reference. I'll post it in the "Links" forum too so that I can read it there all by myself.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/homebuiltequ...er%20for%203pt/

finner

welllllllll hey low there you old finner you. I did send out photos to someone other than Jandtaa (howdee) and he said he would post them but he never did I guess. I'm a computer neophyte so i have no clue how to do this from an internet cafe where I do most of my computer stuff. Better than the box i built is the big Cat 14 motor-grader rippers that i reverse mounted (detachable and installable in about a minute) (though i have come up with a design for retractable on spring loads also) on the front blade so i rip in reverse and just drop the bucket and pick it up going to site. I have never anywhere on earth seen anybody that can move more earth faster than this method it has to be illegal but they ain't got me yet. In the right conditions i think i could handle ....... forget it.... anyway PM me and I'll make you copies of the photos on a CD and send you them. Send your phone so we can talk because my fingers don't move too fast on these buttons. choke dee Fords Forever

Backhoes charge about 1500 baht per hour. A 10 hour day is 15,000 baht throw in a truck for moving dirt and I'm guessing 5 days plus truck (5m truck) = 100,000 baht. Happy Digging.

First why 6 meters? Second what is the dirt for and do you need it all. You can go down three meters up two meters and have what you want if you can live with 5 meters. I built a pond about 15 x 35 x 5 for about 15,000. No trucks and I may have slowed the operator slightly because only 65% of the perimeter needed to be raised two meters due to previous work I had finished so I handled all the rest of his spoils (I had already scraped off all the top soil and he started on clay) building roads and levees around the farm with a very big box scraper I built for a Ford 6610.

The Excavator was new and had a computer in it, I had chosen them to build by the job not the hour and with the computer and their hourly rate it would have been almost exactly the same total. Rate was 1500 an hour so if newer they will have a computer on board and you will pay for what you get.

I needed dirt to re-build a road and do some levelling on another farm so I got a smaller excavator and 6 10 wheelers and it was 160 per truck and if you averaged the hauls you could say it was 200 meters travelling on the average. You can do the math but I am missing the most important number but someone will help you with it in a later post and that is the number of meters per 10 wheeler. I would just guess maybe 7 as 10 wheelers come in all sizes and shapes. I didn't get any short loads and that is always a concern when buying work this way.

If in fact you are going to try to dig six meters below ground level you are going to probbly get into some wet and heavy and sticky earth. Choke Dee Forever Fords

Has anybody here received a breeding pair of frogs from Fruity? By reading this thread I got the impression that they were a superior type than the overage ones we see around the markets. But alas, all my attempts to contact Fruity have gone unanswered. I have no idea why, other then he is mad about other people taking advantage of him as he stated in his last post. Maybe my PM's didn't work, who knows?

Anyhow, I would like to get some frogs from Fruity's farm, so if there is anyone here that has some, preferable a breeding pair, please pm me.

Hi There,

Sorry, if I've somehow missed your pm's. I rarely sign in to the site! To be honest, we haven't done a great deal with our frogs of late, due to other commitments. We have a pool full of tadpoles; literally thousands at present, their parents, having been allowed to do things as nature intended, with no management from us whatsoever. How these will proceed, remains to be seen?

If anyone wants any breeders, pm me & I will sign in more frequently; likewise, if you want a booklet, pm me your postage address.

I have the PDF article saved in docs; so if anyone wants it, I'll email it to you; providing my feeble connection allows!

Cheers

Fruity

Why Fruity you old so and so. How you been old buddy. Just responded to Issan Aussie about Ford Tractors (I know you remember seeing me doing about 35 kph in reverse and ripping at the same time) and hopefully we can all get together soon (before or after these rains). The Ford and I went sideways off that big levee road I built between the klong and the new lake I was digging out when you came by (road's twice as wide there now) and managed to hold on and with luck and a full throtle that dam_n thing didn't flip and the water wasn't a meter deep (over 5 meters deep now) so was able to ride it out and handle the nearly 150 trucks of dirt that were coming that morning to assist in the frog raising project that you suckered me into. a yuk yuk

Nothing like seeing the sun come up after that and knowing that if it weren't for Ford tractors I'd be nothing but fertilizer and compost. The truck drivers loved it and really did a good job for me after that. I can now bring big transport trucks in to where you parked. Put in a two meter by two meter klong completely around 3 sides of the farm (you saw the start of that also, with the smaller levee road next to it) so that's nearly a kilometer more for frog condo water-front sites. I'm going to make a lot of fat frenchmen with them eating organic frog legs til they are sick of them. To tell you the truth a good cat fish on a stick is mighty dang hard to beat for flavor too and this year I'm going to try to find some time to try to raise a few million of them. I'll need to build a railroad line out here just to haul it all. Wish me luck.

OOPPs did someone ask about raising Fruity's frogs? This will be our first anniversary of Fruity frogs (other info in the organic section on frog condo (nicknamed "the Hilton" by Fruity) construction and tons of other frog stuff). My sister-in-law and other ner-do-wells managed to murder thousands upon thousands of poor defenseless tadpoles with love, food (way too much at times), dirt (they like it someone said, they ate it they're dead---hey that rhymed see there is poetry in raising frogs) and who knows what all else. We started with a dozen breeding pairs (In Fruity count that is about 15 females and 20 males) and i bought another dozen males for the pot that night. Well by my sister-in-laws counting methods we consumed about 8 and the rest were snug in their condos. Simply delicious. We may have about 50-100 miscreant offspring from the bunch and the breeders are still happy and fat (some of the females are an easy half kilo). The truth be said, I haven't spent over 2 minutes with them (probably two more than you have spent Fruity) since the first two weeks. It's a daily job and very intensive to try to make a good paying business of it. we are completely set up for it and I'm looking at two to three years and a bunch of luck before i think we could make it a full time job for one person. It would be great but not an easy one to accomplish.

Like so many things luck and experience are key factors. I think Fruity would tell you his frogs aren't anything too special just a net in a pond and at the right time of the year during breeding time you are going to have the young to keep segregated so the big don't eat the small to get less loss. As he did this year (sounds like nothing) he got 20 times the yield we did for the same amount of breeders in a completely uncontrolled situation (sis-in-law really did a good job getting us the ones she did and spendt a good amount of time and research doing it). So future frog farmer of the world I would recommend, as I think Fruity would, that you can start with any good source of bullfrogs (his didn't come imported from Paris) and have a go at it as you may end up with better stock than he has and then we can all buy and trade back and forth and start to try to create some super-breeders in the future. Forever Fords

Oh a little PS I ate one of the smaller (of the big) males a while ago and it tasted like cardboard. So don't think you are going to be eating any 1/2 kilo frogs. The younger and smaller frogs are juice dripping sweet and if you have been enjoying the ones you get at the market get there early in the morning and start buying the bigger ones and throw them in your water and see what happens when the rains come. Soon you can start to sex them and seperate them and get them together at the correct times for breeding ... or as Fruity says let nature do what it does best. Choke Dee gope gope

This should yield a lot of posts as this type of question always has. There are many expats here that have experienced all the pitfalls.

Ford 6610 tractors were about all there was ten years ago and can still be purchased 2nd hand here. Best option is to get one in Bangkok from the importer/rebuilders. They are imported CKD and then rebuilt using some local components such as wheels and tyres. About 400K finished, if you can build it yourself the kit cost was about 150K upwards.

I bought a preloved 28HP Iseki fitted with a front end loader, also bought a plough, rotary hoe and row maker. It's a 4WD which has proven invaluable here in Sisaket. The combination of muddy ground and light weight make smaller tractors (small wheels) a poor choice here. Often a small Kubotas here are fitted with paddle wheels on the rear wheels to avoid bogging and improve traction.

You mentioned being tied to Kubota service. Not such a bad idea if you have thai operators planned. Maintenance to most, means just keep going until something breaks.

As a side thought. With the numbers of tractors around now and the decrease in charge rates resulting from mounting competition, have you considered the relative cost of hiring a contractor instead of owning your own machine?

"As a side thought. With the numbers of tractors around now and the decrease in charge rates resulting from mounting competition, have you considered the relative cost of hiring a contractor instead of owning your own machine?"

There's no need for anyone else to respond to this. Well said old buddy. Any novice will get returns in dollars for pennies to sit and watch different operators with the same and different tractors attempt their projects.

Yes we all know the thrill of having a "new" old tractor but if you haven't had hydraulic fluid hitting you in the eye with busted hydraulics in the middle of the night just after the fuse went then you haven't really gotten the full "thrill". I just finished renting two different excavators "thai backhoes" for two completely different jobs. One a giant monster, the other a rather large excavator, one job needed trucks the other didn't if I reversed the use of the excavators it would have taken 3-4 times as long to finish and cost that much more. Usually the biggest is the best for most jobs with equipment, or better said, you won't accomplish anything if you don't have a tractor big enough for the job. That said many times too big can be useless on a small job.

Where am I going with this?? Right back to my ol' buddy Issan Aussie. If you are a novice spend an entire year hiring people to do the kind of jobs with the kind of equipment you are thinking of purchasing. The rental costs will be less than what your repair bills would be if you try to do it without the right kind and size of equipment. Try spliting the same task in two and hire out two different types of tractor. If you buy Kubota you know you';ll end up paying a fortune in parts when needed. Just got everything to completely rebuild my large hydraulic power steering cylinder including both brand new ends for my Ford 6610 and it was just over a couple thousand baht. I consider that free as I burn that in diesel in one day. Realiability, dependability, resale, repair parts availability and Thai border-to-border knowledge of repairs makes it the reason the world has been fed by Ford tractors forever. Now unfortunately farmers are getting hoodwinked by inferior Kubotas, sorry to say.

If anyone finds any rain send some our way. Khap Choke Dee

Just finished doing 8 rai used a backhoe. Works great and no chemical after effects.

Definitely the best way. Try to cut up the pieces immediately before the wood (roots) gets dry it will cut very easily and be a great resource and help pay for the backhoe. If you let it dry it will get as hard as steel and only be good for pop art or fish cover in the bottom of a lake. Choke Dee

Majority decisions, Bt46 BILLION WILL BE SEIZED ALONG WITH INTERESTS.

keep em coming Georgie buddy we like what we are seeing and rather insightful by another saying Samak lost the PM due to a cooking show I think this may show a bunch of intellectuals and a good military can cause a coup that truly benefits all in the short (well not quite) and long run. couldn't be better news

The court says money from sale of Shin Corp to Temasek was ill-gotten wealth.

-- The Nation

that's the major decision in this as far as money now time to get some judgements that prove with the evidence that he in fact abused the constitution in his role as PM. The loan to Burma as an example and obviously all the other decisions that he made that directly benefitted his family's businesses.

So that is exactly one down with so so many more to be ruled on. I await the day he fears to return to these shores to tell us exactly what he meant when he made the statement and i won't use quote marks as I don't have the recording available, but he told the press to stop questioning about the lawyer Somchai that went missing because it is known he is dead and 5 police officers were involved in it. He was right in part but in fact there is no proof that Somchai is in fact dead he is the only person that has stated that. we all know of the police involvement but still te body and the smoking gun have not appeared. taksin knows something and when someone finally figured out what he said and what it meant thaksin failed to elaborate or discuss how he got his information. It is critical when the PM has info in a disappearance and potential murder case to not refuse to answer questions about his knowledge of such but to stand up and shout what he has. Of course he was a cop before so maybe we should understand where he is comin g from. As they say Choke Dee but this man has quaranteed that all his will be MAI.

Rather than writing a long winded story I find it easier to post a couple of pictures.

Today I started to prepare the tomato beds in the back yard.

The seedlings all look the same , actually there are about ten kinds of interesting heirlooms & cherry tomatoes I am looking forward to.

Enjoy

Hi Soidog I believe from my fading memory you gave away a few seedlings last year and you were near Buriram. I would like to buy a few tomatoes (or trade some produce) possibly later on for seeds but will PM you if I get the time to try ( oh so many projects).

Well I used this reply to post an update on what's happening and have manage to keep the Ford doing amazing things with a few custom tools I've built and believe it or not I was able, in one day, to bring and dump and spread and compact 126 trucks of dirt to repair and upgrade the roads to and around the farm that was all in 8 hours and all with just one person and tractor. Yeah pretty impossible to believe but unfortunately I'm still feeling the pain of non-stop tractor work, almost flipped it twice but road out one into and out of the new lake I built then had to be pulled out of going 50 feet into the klong later in the day when I started to fatigue. I got it airborne once but that was just due to being pissed off from getting bad placement of my loads. I've been working towards getting the 14 rai plot nearly level and buildfing a complete road system around it (managing to do four things at once, building roads and creating levees with the dirt from digging a pond and klong ) along with a klong that will drain it into the pond that a I have built. Pond will have both the frogs and catfish and the road will also be at a height that will allow the growing of fruit trees out of the flood plain. Just disced into the ground the first crop of Pah Tueng (sun hemp) for green manure but it wasn't 50% of the plot due to lack of seeds but managed to buy 2 tons and got the entire plot planted last week and then unbelieveably it rained for a few days. The place looks like an emerald in the middle of all the other stubblefields that will eventually be burnt off. So now all the rice stubble has been cut and semi incorporated and a new crop of cover is in and will be turned in well before planting season and will probably go for a third planting before finally getting in the rice for this year. Building and making a functioning bio-char system (modifying jandtaa's info and drawings from the Philipines for rice husks) for the rice straw is the next high priority item and then i will attempt to mix all I can make with the 15 tons of chicken manure I was able to acquire and get it spread on this and the other farms that we are convertting to organic. Been pretty busy so not much time to write but things are moving forward and hoping to get 10 tons this year on much less land than we had this last year when we got 9 tons (it is unbelieveably delicious and fragrant). regardless how much we get, the land is and will continue to be much much more fertile than the dying mess we started with. Choke Dee

Can anyone tell me who I would fly with and where the closest Airport to Buri Ram is? Thanks

Anyone know where I could fly to that would be the closest to

Buri Ram from Chiang Mai. Nok Air or Thai Airways? Thanks

This truck was built in Australia so all the metal is a much heavier gauge than they use for

Thai specs. Fully loaded with options and a bunch of exterior trim add ons (bumpers, tie downs etc). 86,000 original kilometers with original light blue paint and no accidents or lifetime of heavy work. 5 speed transmission. Pioneer CD with power booster amp.

No, the market in Surin on the road that crosses the railroad tracks.....west side of the market by the RR station [not Terrapin station].

I'll be heading down "The Golden Road of Unlimited Devotion" and try to give that a look. Thanks for the help and I'l keep an eye peeled for Jack Straw until then I'll just beat it on down the line. peace and love me

I think people found this interesting and helpful last year. State the type of rice (Hom Mali or Glutinous etc) where you are and the price. thanks

Aha, found it.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Buying-Tract....html&st=25

Page 2

well done Pond Life definitely required reading before buying a tractor. Anthoma I believe might want to consider another implement purchase and it would probably pay for itself many times over in the long run. I think the purchase of a two wheel buffalo with the accompanying pump attachments may prove to be a better investment in the long run as the cost to deliver water and the wear and tear on the equipment would justify the buffalo (trying to find a suitable PTO pump for his small hp Kubota in Thailand, the high price it would require for this specialty item along with some form of hard suction will be either troubleome or costly or both).

I just notice that Anthoma just wrote agian that he is looking for a remote pump for the tractor at 3-4000 baht and Kubutoa was clueless in helping him find a pump suitable for his small tractor.

Anthoma i would reccomend that you seriously and serious is the reasion I'm taking my time to pass this on to you, consider looking at a complete pump set up with a two wheel "buffalo". Your capacity to pump water may be slightly less but just run the thing a few extra hours to make up for it. You will have thousands of people able to operate and asssist you in operating it and repairs can be made by the blind in the dark or on a sunny day. You were able to purchase a new tractor and it wil have a much longer life and you will have the versatility of using the buffalo for other jobs which might save your Kubota a bunch more. The "buffalo" is ubiquitous and you are up and running immediately and SAFELY as there are no unknown factors due to their use and popularity. It appears that you are going to be ;learning a lot about grease and oil and wrenches and nuts and bolts along with micro-biotic life and i am extremely nervous think of you trying to "create" a pump that will suffice for your horsepower, structure of set up, and and source of water. Obviously an nice Cat diesel pump is the way to go and MF had some nice photos of PTO pumps for 100 hp tractors but in general I think you would have to create your own pump set up or have someone else do it for you with belts and steel structures. It may be a bit more costly to go my route but in the end when you are not pumping water you still have a nice "hardly" used Kubota ready for what you want to do and the ability to use the buffalo to help pull it out when you eventually get it stuck somewhere (and you will everybody does, I have my story of the the Cat D-6 dozer that we were able to get out after two days of tree cutting and cribbing and backhoes. It's not uncommon to see two D-8's in tandem spinning and stuck in the lettuce fields of the Salina Valley of California trying to get out that last trailer of "green gold", lettuce, in the dead of winter. They can stay there for over a month until the ground dries a bit and then they'll try to get them out).

Rent a man and his buffalo for a few days to pump water for you and see what you think. The reason i write this is because i was a fireman (Yeah I had my share of hot rod water pumps) while farming in California and everybody thoguht at the tine that fighting fire was the most dangerous job at the time (coal minig had dropped off a bunch and so had the related fatalities, sorry about China) in the US but it wasn't as farming topped the list then. This is the reason i went thru this convoluted mess because I am very concerned about your physical weel being and it scares me to death to think of a novice operator using a PTO on a non attacched pump that is belt driven AND home made. It's too big a task that you are taking on with out the proper experience. Good luck and remember nobody should be within at least 10 yards of the tractor when the PTO drive shaft is spinning (obviously that doesn't pertain to the operator who is about 1.5 away and looking at it right between the eyes. I hope you may have heard this before but it is the most important thing for a novice operator SAFETY SAFETY SAFETY. Alsways put safety first and don't try anything new if there is any chance that it might not be safe. Choke Dee and give your two wheel buffalo a kiss for me.

I have seen baby chicks & ducks near the main market in a small shop on the west side of mkt. It may be seasonable availability.

thanks Jaideeguy. Are you talking about the market in BuriRam? I'll definitely check it out as i could use some ducks also. thanks and "keep on truckin' "

The nurses did tell my wife...I will try and post the location later. They lost a bunch of nurses from San Paolo as they all went to Bkk to get further certification so they will be able to work at the new hospital.

9000b a night sounds expensive...My Mom is paying about 30,000 a day at Bumrungrad at the moment...her last bout there cost about 5 million. The 9000b would most likley be for the room only and not nursing meds or DR fee's.

I tried to have my Mom managed in the local hospitals but they cannot really do everything or have the right blood types and or meds. The local hospitals all wanted to refer after about 7 days....They have a real solid reputation for doing more harm then good.

The most important thing to have is good insurance period. I have friends that have been living here for years and actually place there faith in the local medical establishment....Fine for band-aid care or for food poisoning but a death sentance for most serious ailments.....The bigger hospitals are the only places that will be able to save mostlives.

The local Dr taking careof her worked 18hrs a day . lived at the hospital and never had a day off. He saw her 3 min in the morn and 3 min at night. Thats all the time the poor guy had. In Bumrungrad she has 7 doctors and each one speaks perfect english.

I looked into an ex-pat insurance pakage and for me at 47 it was 23.000b a year...compared to what I pay for my BLUE CROSS at 85.000b a year a real deal.

It will be located almost across from the Condochain on Petchkasem Rd about 1/4 kilometer south of Market Village on the west side of the road. They have started clearing the parcel (a friend of mine sold them the property) and have gotten their approval to build with i believe 45 beds.

If you can find a very cheap one OK as it is fun to tinker. If your use is only occasional, rent.

I recently priced a full sized excavator for construction I was told 28,000 per day.

Wheeled tractors are not recommended for gradients of more than 20%

However there are very small tracked ones available if your jobs are small. But I would caution against using them on slopes if you have no experience.

One the positive side it sounds like a fun project if money is not the driving force. My father once bought a drag line excavator to dredge some ponds, tinkered with it for a few years and then sold it for more than he paid.

Hi David.Try and find someone in the area and watch them operate the equipment you might wish to purchase. I believe when you say cattapillar base you mean a track laying piece of equipment. A backhoe usually refers to a wheel tractor with a loader bucket on the front and an articulating arm on the back for digging. In Thailand what people call a "backhoe" is usually an "excavator". It has a track laying form of transport with an articulating digging arm that can be rotated 360 degrees.

I would have to recommend that you should be EXTREMELY cautious as a first time operator to even attempt to rent and operate any type of equipment on a slope. If you want to try out some type of equipment your best bet would be to hire someone to operate their machine (that is similar to the one you may be interested in) on your property and see how he is able to use it and if any difficulties are encountered.

Generally it is much more cost effective to pay someone to operate machinery when you need it than it is to purchase and fix and maintain a used piece of equipment. That being said, there is always the desire to own and operate your own tractor that seems to drive many first time farmers to invest in a piece of equipment. AGAIN be extremely cautious operating any equipment on any kind of slope as it is amazing how easy it is to have a roll over on nearly level ground. Unfortunately i have almost done it a time or two and I guess I was lucky. Luck should never be a factor when operating as skill and experience should be the determining factors.

If you were going to be using this equipment on level ground i would try to recommend a few different types of things for you and tell you to give it a try, but with you being a first time operator I have to definitely try to make you understand that what you want to do is extremely dangerous due to the slope that you would be working on. Good luck and I'll think you will find that if you look around it is very inexpensive to have people work for you with their equipment. Let them teach you what you need to know by watching them work for you. Choke Dee