I intend to post about this farm one in-game day’s activity at a time. A reminder that each in-game day equates to approximately 10 days in the Seasons Year and that the actual playing time for around 15 hours of ‘daylight’ is approximately 3 hours of irl time. Posts about Boundary Farm will be interspersed – time there is 1 to 1 with irl time although each day also equates to 10 days of whatever month we are playing.
Day 1 – March 1st-10th.
I get a late start because the game starts us at 08:00 rather than at first light. I already have a plan of action and as suggested in my previous post from the Bessy Beneath map, I know that I will be taking out a bank loan. First step was to purchase the Sheep Farm…
I should show you the farm – here’s the Farmhouse with the machinery barn and the bales barn beyond…
…The field behind the house is my grass field and opposite the buildings is my sheep pasture…
To work this I only really need a small tractor with 80-100 HP. I visited the local dealer – conveniently located at the end of the lane from the farm. The dealer is an AGCO / Massey-Ferguson dealer and I intend to be as brand loyal at possible on this play through. Other brands specifically advertised are Kuhn, Vaderstadt and Krone, so expect to see the products of those companies represented too.
In-game there is the Massey-Ferguson 5600 series tractor which would meet my 100HP needs well, but I can also get the newer 5700 series as it is available as a mod. So that is what I chose to do – this is the 5710S…
…And I also bought a front lifter and pallet fork by Stoll and a trailer from FarmTech. Some of my first jobs will be transport and I will need a trailer to carry bales as and when I get my sheep 🙂 In fact a couple of my first jobs were transporting and I had an amusing incident with the ai on the main road…
…It seems they all drove into each other when I slowed to turn off at my delivery point – they were still there when I came out 😉
Next purchase was a Spreader for Fertilizer or Lime – I need to fertilize the grass to promote strong growth. With luck I’ll be able to get a Silage harvest from field 19 before I have to turn it to Hay production for my Sheep – the ones I don’t own yet! I’m also buying field 15 from that map I’ve shown above because I want to have a crop as a means of getting some income in the period when the sheep are just eating and not producing wool.
Owning field 15 automatically means a second tractor – one that can pull a plough. Again we’re going Massey-Ferguson and once more it’s a mod. The base game offers the 5600 in the small tractors. The next tractor available is the 7700 – which is bordering on a large tractor but creeps into medium. The price reflects that status. So I need something in between – something with around 180HP. That is the Massey-Ferguson 6600 and the 6616 version gives me 185HP for £133K…
…A nice comparison shot of the tractors together in my barn. Here’s the 5710S returning home from another delivery job…
…The roadsigns will give you an idea of where we are in the UK 🙂
I took out a loan for £150k to facilitate my second tractor purchase and also to buy a plough. Again, I’m sticking with manufacturers that the local dealer sells. So I bought a Kuhn 153 4+1. To translate, that is a 5 blade plough which cuts 2.5m. If you’ve been following and read my notes about ploughs and required horsepower, you may be wondering why I’ve gone with a plough that only needs 125HP (game claims 150HP) when I could go with the 153 5+1 which probably needs 150HP (in-game rating 180HP). One word – testing! While testing I found that the 6 bladed plough caused the tractor to lose traction so badly, even on the flat, that every row was being cut at 4-5mph. When I checked the soil moisture figures I found them to be significantly higher than on Boundary Farm. The Seasons mod claims to include adhesion changes according to ground conditions and here I’ve seen it in action. With the 5-bladed plough the tractor achieves 6-7mph consistently and so the speed more than makes up for the loss of width on a medium-large field. Here’s some business at the sharp end…
…as I work on into the night at the end of March 10th, ploughing field 15. I need to get it ready for liming in the morning. It was 23:00 when I finished. I put the tractor to bed and then went to turn in myself…
Images from Finchley 