Posts Tagged ‘tractor’
Sand Box
After work yesterday, I went outside to play in our sand box. It wasn’t pretty. There were a few expletives expressed in the execution of the task.
We had an extra load of lime screenings dumped beside the hay shed for use in filling low spots and rills in the paddock. The horses kick constantly in response to flies on their legs and their doing so digs out the area around their hay boxes. The rills on the slope are created by water runoff from heavy rains.
Both issues require trying to get the tractor up the incline to the barn, with a heavy bucket load of lime screenings. I have yet to acquire the skills and knowledge to efficiently navigate the 12 forward gears of the New Holland to get it to go where I want to go and do what I intend to achieve without spinning the wheels and creating almost as much damage as that which I am trying to mend.
It’s crazy-making.
It should be fun, playing in sand with my big tractor. Problem is, it is also a bit dangerous and can be costly.
Right off the bat, with the first scoop of screenings, I got stuck at the bump built up to divert water runoff at the gate into the paddock. I didn’t approach with enough momentum to get over it, and since it is downhill from the driveway, I suddenly couldn’t back up, either. The rear tires just spun when trying both directions, digging me deeper into being stuck with each attempt to coax out some progress of escape.
I ended up dumping the bucket right there and using the hydraulic loader to pry my way out of the predicament, as I have learned to do from my farmer neighbors. It would be nice if I took it as no big deal, but it pissed me off something fierce and set the negative tone for all my subsequent struggles of getting up the slopes to where I wanted to drop loads of screenings.
I couldn’t figure out the right combination of speed and power to make it up the hill with all the weight in the bucket. Halfway up the slope the rear wheels would start to lose grip and I would try to solve it with cursing.
Okay, cursing isn’t an attempt to solve the problem, it is a venting of frustration over having the problem and not succeeding in achieving a solution. But it feels like it helps.
Eventually, enough material was moved close enough to areas where it could be tossed by shovel to the spots most in need. The divots created by spinning tractor wheels were filled in and smoothed. The tractor didn’t tip over or smash into the fence, the barn posts, or the tree.
I got “back to grazing” pretty quickly and shed the negative vibe.
I suppose it’s not all that different from any kid playing in a sand box. Sometimes fun is mixed with frustration. The trick is learning how to deal with it constructively and come out ahead in the end.
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Rebalancing Act
We are checking off a string of spring chores this weekend, and it has given me a chance to replace the rock that months ago toppled from its delicately balanced perch atop another on the tall stump of a pine tree. It’s been on the ground so long that I’ve actually forgotten what it was that contributed to the fall, but I think it was high winds.
I never expect these balancing installations to last, but the two on that topped pine trunk had exceeded my expectations for so long that I was rather surprised when it finally did collapse.
I had the diesel tractor out to use the loader for pressing down a fence post that was being pushed up by the springtime thawing and freezing of the ground. It worked incredibly well for that purpose, by the way, quickly returning the post to the desired level. “Like butta,” as they say.
It won handily over the other method I tried, in two locations where the ground was way too saturated with water to support the weight of the tractor. Pounding the posts with a sledge only moved them a small amount, and required a great deal more effort.
When it came to my rebalancing act, I first tried hefting the fallen rock up the ladder, but that attempt only succeeded in knocking the lower rock to the ground, too. There is no way I can lift that lower rock, so that meant I needed the bucket. In a moment of inspiration, I deviated from the previous orientation and flipped the base rock over this time.
I don’t know if this orientation will last any longer, but I’m liking the new look. That’s what it’s really all about. I like to look at balanced rocks.
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Fortuitous Failure
The plan was to get one load of gravel, one load of sand for the round pen, and two loads of lime screenings —one to spread around in the paddock, and one to keep as backup to fill washouts as they occur. In order to receive all these deliveries in the time while weather is good for doing so, we plotted out the order and location for dumping the piles.
The primary concern was to avoid having the heavy truck drive into the paddock, because the previous time we allowed that, it led to problems from the extreme compression straining buried electric fence wires between gate posts. I was also concerned about collapsing the buried drain tube we had installed from the barn gutter downspout.
The truck driver always seems more than willing to drive anywhere, leaving the responsibility on us to restrain the choices in protection of property. He long ago demonstrated complete disdain for the well-being of our asphalt driveway.
By my figuring, if we got gravel first and spread it out before the next delivery, the truck could drive on the new gravel and dump the lime screenings at the entrance of the paddock. I would spread them inside the paddock. The sand could then get dumped beside the barn, where I could move it by loader scoops, driving over the new lime screenings through the paddock to the round pen.
That would be a lot of tractor hours, but it was worth it to me to protect the paddock from the heavy truck.
Then Cyndie received word that they currently had no stock of lime screenings. The driver delivered gravel on Thursday with a plan to bring the sand on Friday morning. I had a short window of time after work on Thursday to spread the gravel, so he could drop the pile of sand the following morning in the spot where we wanted it.
In the middle of that task, as I tried to back up in order to spread the scoop of gravel I just dropped, the tractor lurched forward. I shifted again. This time it wouldn’t go backward, or forward. Tractor fail!
That wasn’t in my plan.
I struggled to remove a cover plate to see the mechanism of the gear shift lever. That didn’t help much, because even though I could then see it, I didn’t actually understand what I was looking at.
The options rattled through my mind. Call my very knowledgeable neighbor? It was getting late. Call the implement dealer? That would have to wait until morning. What about the sand delivery? Where would I put that?
Well, this failure caused me to rethink the possibilities and opened up a new willingness to have the truck drive through the hay-field. He would only need to pass through gates in which there was enough turf to limit the compression that happens from the weight of the load.
In the end, I have a new appreciation for the inconvenience of that shifting failure, because it has saved me a lot of work. The dump truck placed the sand in the center of the round pen. The hay-field held up well under the load, but the driveway has some new wrinkles where he made the turn on and off it.
The service man from the implement dealer made short work of the tractor repair by afternoon, replacing a pin and snap ring at the base of the shift lever, and I finished spreading the gravel.
That shifting failure is one I will remember fondly for the better outcome that came as a result.
There may be a life lesson available in all this.
Ya think?!
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Wish Granted
Pretty much from the very first day that we assembled the fence panels of the round panel, Cyndie has been wanting sand on the ground in there. We are darn close now. She’s got sand, finally, just not quite enough.
Our source of lime screenings for our paddock, and sand for the round pen, is an excavating company that delivers by dump truck. Yes, that’s the very same company that did the initial damage to our paved driveway over 2 years ago with their heavy truck.
We’ve gotten over that, and the driveway, intentionally neglected ever since, has reached a point where further heavy traffic on it doesn’t seem to make any significant difference. The paddock, on the other hand, suffers quite an impression from the heavily loaded truck.
To save money, and because the excavators don’t have time, we opted to do the spreading ourselves. Their truck can fit through two of our gates to get close to the round pen, but not through the last one, so he dumps it just short of the target.
I was able to leave the day-job early yesterday and quickly jumped onto the tractor seat for my exercise in frustration. It isn’t quite as bad as I make it out to be, because I do move a lot of sand in a reasonable amount of time, but I just haven’t mastered the art of getting that big machine to do exactly what I want, when I want.
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There’s a lot of physics involved when you add a full load in the bucket on the front, which causes the tractor to handle in mysterious ways sometimes. I have a penchant for spinning my wheels more than I like. That ends up creating divots of my own, which I then repeatedly roll into in the process of scooping up subsequent loads. That complicates my attempts to adjust the height of the bucket when approaching to pick up a load, as the up and down of the front wheels alters the level of the bucket.
Repeatedly, in my attempts to scrape the bottom of the pile off the top of the ground, I ended up digging down into the paddock dirt, when all I wanted was sand from the pile. It wreaks havoc on a person’s perfectionism, I tell ya.
With Cyndie’s help on some ground work, I got the bulk of the pile moved inside the pen. It still needs to be spread out better in there, but the pile has been cleared out enough that there is room for them to drop another load that is needed to finish the job.
After that, I moved on to distribute a pile of lime screenings that had been dumped right inside the gate of the paddock. We needed additional lime screenings to fill in the rills that the rain has created on the slope beyond the barn roof. I had to get that pile moved to make room for the dump truck to back in again toward the round pen with a second load of sand.
If we can get that to happen, Cyndie will have the rest of her wish finally granted, and the horses will finally have a layer of sand to do laps on in the round pen. It’s turning out just like we planned!
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Tractor Time
Yesterday I put in a double shift, first working the day-job and then immediately after getting home, hopping on the tractor to knock down weeds in our north pasture with the brush cutter. No rest for the weary.
Fortunately, time on the tractor can be meditative, especially if I am on a task that doesn’t require my full attention. Unfortunately, yesterday’s task was not one of those times. The fence around the north pasture is a temporary one of t-posts with webbed poly-tape fencing strung between them. It is not something I want to touch with the tractor or mower.
I made contact twice. Oops. Luckily, only minor, repairable damage. The second time, though, I needed to stop and climb down to pull the post out of the way so I could get moving again, without doing further damage.
In addition to needing to be careful of the fence, I also had to navigate a significant slope next to the driveway, as well as many pine trees throughout the field.
I honestly didn’t get much in the way of meditating done during yesterday’s tractor time. At least the field looks much better now without all the giant weed growth sprouting every which way.
I took Delilah for a walk in the field after I was done and in no time she located a small critter that had lost its hiding place. Speaking of hiding places, there were a couple of flattened spots that looked like a few deer had been napping near the middle of the field. With how tall the grass and weeds had grown, I’m sure the deer were well hidden while they were doing some meditations of their own.
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Custom Workout
A while back we spread a thin base layer of gravel in the round pen and I drove on it with the 4-wheeler, hoping to pack it down. I’m not sure it helped. The turn radius that was required seemed to disturb the surface about as much as it packed it. I’d call it a draw. We let it set for a week or so, walked the horses on it some, then decided it was good enough. Time to move on to putting down layer-two: lime screenings.
It has been dry enough lately that the dump truck was able to back all the way through the paddocks up to the gate that opens to the round pen. I made a couple of test runs with our wheelbarrow to move material in, quickly deducing the tractor would be the more effective method. That meant I needed to remove a panel from the round pen, but that can be accomplished with a reasonable amount of effort. Tasks like that are why I don’t need to go to a gym and lift weights to maintain my chiseled physique.
Trying to maneuver an object that is too tall and almost too heavy to lift, while being careful to protect myself from exacerbating problems with degenerating discs in the lumbar region of my back, is an amazing workout on the rest of the body.
To be successful, there is a point when the too-tall object slowly begins to lean in an undesired direction that a person needs to give up trying to hold it upright, and let it gravity have its way. I pick my battles. It is a way to survive, allowing me to pick it back up and finish moving it where I want.
Strangely, I find the effort of moving the pile using the loader on the tractor almost as tedious as, and much less satisfying than, using the wheelbarrow. I suppose my unskilled technique with the machine is a primary reason. I expect I’d enjoy it more if I was proficient at it, but I don’t enjoy using it enough to spend the time necessary to master the nuances that currently evade me. Maybe in time…
When the entire round pen was covered with a thick layer of lime screenings, I experimented with a few methods of packing it. The tamper worked really well, and it was another great workout for the arms and shoulder, but I couldn’t justify spending the time necessary to do the entire surface by hand like that.
Dezirea made a gesture toward assisting me as I worked, but then chose to pack only a very small area by standing still for the majority of her visit.
I switched my energy to dragging a metal fence section across the surface, which gave it a nice appearance, but didn’t contribute a whole lot to packing it. Today I will bring in the 4-wheeler again to gently drive around, and drag that fence section. We’ll let time pass to help the surface settle and then order the delivery of sand to finish off the surface.
I’m mulling over how I will spread the sand with the tractor without disrupting the lime screenings at the same time. It will be a chance to practice taking my machine skills to a new level.
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Big Strides
Today we have reached a milestone of 2-years since the day we stood in the suburban Verizon store making a purchase of a mobile device to provide internet access at our new home. I know that because our 2-year contract ends on the 17th. That step was the first of many we would be making to transfer our lives from Eden Prairie, MN to rural Beldenville, WI. For some reason, I have a solid memory of that Verizon event, probably because it was the first. Most of my other memories are much more vague.
With the daytime temperature yesterday soaring into the 70s, it was a banner day to get things done around here. I finally finished getting the bird feeder re-built and re-installed in its old location outside the sunroom. It feels great to have that off my list.
I spread out just enough of the pile of gravel in our driveway to see there would be enough to put some down as a base in the round pen. That is another goal we have wanted to achieve for a long, long time. Cyndie is home from work for a couple of days and she was able to help distribute the gravel that I was bringing with the tractor.
She also asked for my camera and took some action shots while I was manning the controls. You can see I left the wood chipper attached to the back, to serve as a counter-balance, but that was a nuisance because it inhibited my maneuverability inside the limited space of the round pen.
Luckily, she didn’t get pictures of me panicking at the start when I realized I left a gate open and the horses were getting into the area I intended to work. I had removed a panel from the round pen and laid it down, and then propped open the gate into that pasture area. Then I headed off to get the tractor. As I was driving over to get access to the gravel pile from behind the barn, I spotted the horses milling about in the area I was planning to work.
I stopped the tractor and rushed over to remedy the situation, but did not check my energy. They picked up on my anxiety right away and started their own mini-panic. Two of them reacted correctly and rushed back into the paddock. The other two turned the opposite direction, extending my problem. I didn’t know which way to go, back to close the perimeter gate I had propped open which would give them a complete escape, or to the paddock to contain the two who had moved inside where I wanted them.
My hesitation allowed the two in the paddock to come rushing back out where I didn’t want them. In their hasty flight, they cut right through an area of composted manure I had spread to create a viewing plateau. Legacy slipped in it and smeared his entire right flank with a huge tattoo of blackness, but kept his momentum going and continued on with the rest of them.
I eventually restored order and got on with my task, but they were all amped up and continued to sprint around the hay-field and back into the paddock a few times before finally settling down again. Cyndie said that they were getting some good exercise out of it.
Between their energized running and our finally accomplishing the goal of getting a base layer down in the round pen, it was a day of truly big strides.
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Rain Delivered
They promised snow, but we received freezing rain for most of the day yesterday. I really dislike rain in the winter. The day will not go down in our history as one of the better ones around here. On top of the weather being lousy, Cyndie is suffering greatly from a sinus infection that has walloped her a good one. When momma’s not happy, nobody’s happy.
The horses are being good sports about the lousy weather. We put them in the barn on Tuesday night, and decided to leave them inside, sheltered from the freezing rain, for the entire day yesterday. This is the longest we have yet to confine them in those stalls. It seems like a bit much to ask of them, but I think maybe they sense the benefit and are accepting the situation without complaint.
Delilah didn’t seem to mind the wetness one bit, and ran all over the place, playing in the slushy mess. I let her roam off-leash for a bit, and she stayed in contact with me for the entire distance down the driveway to get the mail, and back again. I hadn’t intended to stay out and get wet, but once you are wet, you don’t really get any wetter, so I scraped the freezing slush off the upper part of the driveway. While I was out, our tractor was delivered on a flatbed truck from the local dealer who performed a full set of routine maintenance steps. Yep, I got out of having to change the oil this time.
The driver dropped it off at the flat spot of the driveway near the barn. Since it doesn’t have chains on yet (the weather was nice when they picked it up last week), I worried I might not get it up the hill to the shop garage. Well, I made it up the hill, no problem, but then spun my wheels when I tried to back it up the tiniest of an incline into the garage. No worry, I have a loader on the front, and people tell me to use that to push myself whenever I get stuck. It worked like a charm. The tractor was a frozen mess of ice, but it is back in the garage with all new fluids, a repaired leaking front tire, and no more dripping from the hydraulic line quick-connect fitting.
Since I was out in the garage, already wet, I decided it was a good time to get the plow re-attached to the Grizzly ATV. Knowing we will have frigid Arctic air settling in for a few days, I figured I should try to clear as much of the slush off the driveway as possible before it gets locked in place for good. I can’t call my first try at plowing with the Griz a smashing success, but I was able to do a fair job and I completed it in a fraction of the time I spent last year trying to use the big diesel tractor. I feel optimistic about my chances of becoming proficient at maneuvering the ATV and moving snow to clear the pavement to a degree that meets my exacting standards. I think it will be a bit easier to plow snow in the future when it isn’t raining at the same time.
Just to top off this first significant, and lousy, snow event day, I needed to reattach the mailbox after the township plow went by. We are picking up right where we left off last year, in that regard.
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Oil Averse
Those of you who know me are likely aware of my past aversions to gas-powered engines. My favorite tool of all time has been my trusty Scotts 20-inch reel mower. I couldn’t part with it when we moved, and now we have found it to be the perfect tool for mowing the path of our labyrinth. But, alas, a 20 acre ranch with horses, that has a quarter-mile-long driveway, in a region that gets significant snow accumulations, calls for the power of an engine.
We do have some engines here. We bought the New Holland diesel tractor with a front loader and a back blade, plus the brush cutter. Then we have a Craftsman riding lawn mower tractor. We even added a back up generator that has a motor that requires periodic oil changes. It came with a spare filter, thank you very much. The classic reminder that I have another device that will require occasional oil changes.
Long, long ago, I gave up changing the oil in my cars. I pay someone else to do that for me, and I find it worth every penny, …oops, make that dollar. But how do you get someone to change the oil/fluids in your tractor? Drive it to a Jiffy Lube? That might be possible for the diesel. It’s got a gear for driving on the highway. But the lawn mower? I think not. And our generator is a permanent installation here, so that’s not going anywhere. I’m going to have to start servicing my own engines.
So, as long as I’ve got to start servicing fuel-burning engines, what’s one more?
That Craftsman lawn mower is the machine Cyndie has taken to for all manner of bushwhacking our fields, doing heavy mowing, and hauling with our pull-behind trailer. It has performed admirably, but she is frequently trying to coerce it to do things beyond the scope of its intended use. If she hadn’t gotten that pickup, I think she would be driving the lawn mower to Fleet Farm to fill the trailer with merchandise.
Well, now she won’t have a reason to get that tractor stuck in our fields anymore. Last night we made a deal on a used ATV with a plow blade. It will become the primary workhorse for navigating the far reaches of our woods and fields, hauling firewood, raking the paddocks, dragging the round pen, and even plowing snow in winter.
Now the poor old Craftsman can go back to just being a lawn mower for our yard.
Luckily, our new ATV came with an aftermarket service manual, so I can learn how to do all of the maintenance myself. Is changing oil anything like doing a software update? The time is coming for me to make peace with getting my hands dirty with oil.
Banner Day
We had a banner day of progress at Wintervale yesterday. I got home from the day-job early and immediately changed into grubby clothes to go out and work. We have had enough days in a row without new rainfall that I felt emboldened to bring out the big tractor and try knocking down the overgrown grass in and around the paddocks. It went as well as I could expect, only getting into a bit of a muddy mess, two times.
I had enough success that I decided to try cutting a path around the back toward the location of our labyrinth. If that was dry enough, I could take a shot at moving the boulders that have resisted all previous attempts. Cyndie was quick to join me there. She has been wishing for these rocks to be moved everyday since we gave up the last time. Yesterday turned out to be our day.
It took a lot of tries, but we ultimately triumphed over the task. We got the keepers stood up and positioned, and the discards have been removed. This opens up the door for us to finish laying out the path from the entrance to the center.
Here’s hoping the progress of finally getting the boulders where we want them, will motivate us to get the rest of it done without allowing too many interruptions to interfere.
Relative Something 