I love it when a plan comes together.
New projects, they are abundant. So check back in a month or so, and see if I survived.
ray...
The NADA FARMER.
There seems no end in sight, now that I have the means!
The good thing is I got the tractor, the bad thing, I got no excuses now, well at least I lost my main one. And as soon as that sinks in, I'm sunk. Well I'm spending my good days in the garage, making things for the machines or fixing and correcting what I can with a minimum of monetary investment. And trying to get ahead of the seasons, by having the attachments I can make, ready before I need them. After the wild ride down the hill with the brush hog, when I realized the brakes weren't working very well, if at all, I got out my torch and adjusted the rear brakes. They hadn't moved for quite a while, at least not the adjuster screws. But a hot enough flame and a big enough hammer and anything, or everything will move. But you have to use common sense, oh Yeah, that ain't that common anymore..
I went on a nature walk with The Farm Wife the other day , and we each had a camera, and we took lotsa pictures. But my camera, the old Sony, got goofy again, and about half the pictures were the same "one third" confused picture of some trees. I was laying in the snow taking pictures of stuff and they didn't even come out! I'm going back to the garage, where I belong! But the pictures that did work out are weird in the total lack of colors, they look like black and whites, but that's what it looks like, just black and white. A little golden from the hay, or the frozen blossom remnants in the tulip trees, or the myriad of seed pods still hanging in the Alanthis. An obvious threat to be met head on, those seed pods. But as far as the pictures go, they are cool.
Below is a gate through the barbed wire of the upper field. we were checking for any sign of deer running around in this weather, and it appeared we may have scared a couple out of the area. Or something did recently, as there were "fresh" tracks that showed something had been running for the deeper woods.
We even found what appeared to be a rabbit hole under some brush. And not far away, a few places where the hawk (probably) was catching something, or maybe it was another large bird but all we saw were tracks, and areas where struggles had occurred. Makes me think there are many tales in the forest of NADA FARM. Below is my version of proof that the pictures are really color, as you can see that the FARM WIFE is blue, which of course should surprise no one who knows her.
I went out and snagged the carb off the Bobcat, and took it back to the garage to slap a hillbilly rebuild on it. Meaning I took it apart. Blew it out with an air hose. Loosened up everything that was stuck, and put it back together with no new parts. No cost, but it worked when I was finished, at least well enough to get the Bobcat to the Garage, where I can work on it with a little heat now. The weird part of this little caper was the effect of critters, I'm constantly surprised by what wildlife will do. Last month I started the Cub Cadet, to move some trees I was cutting off the fences. As the engine roared to life, (not accurate but sounds better than huffed, chugged and spit) I saw a handful of corn kernels puff out of the exhaust pipe, I sort of laughed, and wondered what little critter is going to be disappointed to find its hoard laying on the floor in the machine shed.
I thought at that time, I better start stuffing any openings with something to keep the little monsters out of my pipes. It took me back to the earwig caper with the Bobcat, where I spent a couple days trying to correct a problem caused by the rear end of an earwig being stuck in the float valve of the carburetor bowl. Days, of run down battery, burned up starter, multiple carb rebuilds (hillbilly variety), and a lot of cussing, because of a bug butt. And where it was, inaccessible and invisible, and what it did, alternately flood and starve the engine. And how it got there, I became convinced it had been in the new fuel line I installed to make it run safer, were enough to make me insane for a month.
Because of that little experience, the Cub Cadet Corn Hole game. I actually packed the intake and exhaust of the Case tractor before I rolled it out to remove the tire. But when I went to get the Bobcat running, I never thought of the possibilities there. As the engine roared to life (Ok putt putt rattle rattle ppfffiittt bang chugga chugga, low rumble) and then there was a weird pinging noise and fortunately I was kneeling behind the machine holding the choke, rather than being in direct line with the exhaust, as I often am. Something hit the snow and ice behind me and rattled away down the slope from the front of the barn. I turned to look, and heard, and then saw, two more hickory nuts pop out of the exhaust, and roll down the slope. A bigger varmint had been violating my Bobcat! In all, 8 hickory nuts were in the exhaust pipe/muffler of the loader. I don't think anything bigger than a chipmunk could actually get in the pipe. And I don't think it could get the hickory nuts back out, if it did get in, due to the construction of the muffler. But it makes me think there is a reason most farm tractors have flappers on their exhaust pipes. Another mystery solved.
Well I have to get back to the garage and get the Bobcat running properly so I can move some of the snow around, from where I don't want it. So maybe I can get back in my driveway, without getting launched from the seat. The use of road graders for snowplows has good, and not so good, results. The roads are generally clear as they never get overwhelmed. And actually pretty smooth, noticeable because ours is a gravel road and sorta rough much of the year. But the down side is the interface between driveway and roadway, it is often deep and sharp, though the last run was clearly better for the mailman, as it was within inches of the mailbox. Which, of course, made my road/driveway interface even worse, hence the Bobcat gets a quick rehab, and put to work.
Immediate update:
As wild as it may sound I actually got the Bobcat to do what I wanted in a couple hours. Although, as I have just about every other time, I lost the connector for the choke. So I set the choke, stand outside the cab, start it, and open the choke, try to close the rear deck lid which is a design weakness that really surprises me for this machine, and then try to jump in before it runs far enough to get away from me. My next trick will be setting the neutral position, for the drive controls, so it doesn't automatically creep, when I start it. My brother seems to think it can be done, mainly because he's done it before. The Bobcat needs a pretty good going over and I think it will probably get it this summer. Though it "most" needs new tires, they are pretty pricey. I got spoiled, it had foam filled tires when I bought it about 25 years ago. it had an engine problem that turned out to be a blown piston so I rebuilt the engine. And well like everything it has a long story, but I'm working on some "long drawn out story pages", so YOU don't have to read them if you don't want to. Why is nothing simple? Except maybe me? Oh well!
Immediate immediate update: Man this is terrible news! Curtis, my brother in law, had a fire in his "barn" yesterday Wednesday the 4th, no people were hurt but the damage was, as always, extensive and an important calamity was his home built "Suit of Armor". A couple years ago a Ford pickup truck, burned my brothers garage down, across the street from Curtis's. Chris mentioned that the weirdest conglomerations of collective "stuff" was housed in the garages of the McCune klan. And basically never properly insured. Yet I know several of the regular readers of this site are also in the "strange collection" business. Point being, you probably need to check to see if your treasures are truly protected as you think they ought to be. Though I hope nobody else I know needs to find out. Investigators are expecting to get a better idea of "cause" as things thaw out.
