With all the workings going on around the farm – one of the things that still needs to get taken care of is mowing the grass.  The only consideration is – do you really want to keep that 60″ deck on the tractor when you are trying to get over piles of dirt and rock as you dig the holes for the leanto posts…  while you plow the garden plots to turn the green manure in…   when you are generally NOT mowing…

Well – I’m telling you – these little 3 wheel dollies from Lowes are just the trick to drop the mower deck down onto for easy maneuvering of the heavy implement under the tractor – making on and off activities easy and pain-free (for a change).  I had thought about these before – but decided to take the plunge on the total $21 investment with all the activities this spring – in an effort to literally “buy me some time”.  Short answer is – they work in spades!  Just a quick broom sweeping of the way so no little stone catches the little wheels…  drop the deck on them, pull the pins connecting to the tractor, disconnect the PTO shaft – and the deck rolls right out.  Putting it back on is a revers of the actions – and equally as simple.  Who would have thought that a set of 4 – 3 wheel dollies would be one of my favorite Kubota implements!

This Christmas (hard to really fathom it was two months ago) Kelli gave me one of those gifts that you always knew you wanted – but never got around to buying yourself… In this case – it was detachable bucket forks for the tractor. Not the kind of thing you use every day – but the EXACT kind of thing that when you don’t have them – you really – really wish you did.
Right after Christmas I had put them to “test” them by moving a stack of pallets I use to heat the barn as free firewood from the front (where Kelli referred to it as an eyesore) to the side of the barn. With the bucket forks the job took 3 minutes – without… the pallets would STILL be sitting in front of the barn… so not only do they make light work – they are also good for relationships.
At any rate – I had a chance to throw them on Sunday to unload my latest acquisition of farming tool goodness… I’ll reveal that tomorrow.

This weekend brought our first real snow – about 3 to 4″ of the stuff. Which was great – since I had finally come up with a plan to fix the chute rotate arm on the old Ford 715 snow blower. After scouring the web for small u-joints, needed to make the bend in the shaft work regardless of the blower being up or down – I decided that the $35 price tag was a little steep and there had to be a better way to do it.
Enter the $4.45 3/4″ socket u-joint and the welder. There was a reason we got that welder – and this is one of them.
The photo shows how nice the final product looks – and I figure that since this was engineered to withstand the torque of a rusted nut and a 3/4″ drive socket – the crank shaft for the snow blower should be nothin’.
I have to also say – the convenience of this drive up to the barn, open the door, roll out the welder and weld setup is awesome! Granted the barn is still far from done – and a bit cool on days like this (18 degrees out). Still – there is something to be said about being able to easily fix a thing like this!And here she is – all set up, welded up, and ready for the long driveway… Now the only question is – will it actually blow snow? Stay tuned – I already have the answer… and the forecast for 12/3 is up to 12″.
If you are wondering about the plow truck – every degree under 80 seems to make it about 10% less likely to start… so at 18 degrees, it’s about 620% less likely to start than the highly unlikely state it exists in on the best of days… read – scrap metal.

Not that I needed to be more annoyed with the situation… but I am…
I was able to get a 5 pack of the small fuses the BX24 uses and replace the used spare 15A that blew the other night… things start up, run fine, and after a tour around the field with Watson riding along last night – the tractor is fine… so I’m hoping that the blown fuse was just a fluke and I’m not looking at hours of hunting for a short in the miles of wiring harnesses that enshroud the little tractor.
That’s not where my frustration lies – that’s the good news… the frustration comes from the observation I made when backing the tractor into the barn… see, the whole ride around the field I had the Bush Hog in tow and noticed it was pulling sorta strange – but since it wasn’t running I was more interested in looking up at the trees for a stand location… Anyhow, as I’m backing into the barn I notice the fact that the upright on the left side of the hog, right at the lower link pin, is split all the way through… and floating in mid-air… immediately explaining the fact that it won’t pull straight.
So – now – even though I have been putting it off for a while – looks like it’s time to go buy that welder – because I’m in need of the hog to do more of the field – immediately.
Guess that’s why they say “ever farmer needs a welder”… first it was the purchase of the snow thrower that I KNEW needed a welder – now to that list I have to add the bush hog.

Tools… important things… work with them for a while and you really start to appreciate their complexities and nuance… you also start to appreciate quality vs, well, this:
Frustrating when a cheap tool (or any tool) betrays you. But – in this case I expected the 3/8″ shaft on a 3/4″ drill – going against steel – to be an issue… but this bend was nothing me, a hammer, a block of wood and a vice couldn’t “straighten out”…

Anyhow – the point here – this is hopefully the second to last post in this vein… the plow is now category 1 compliant – all dimensions are to spec… The only 2 questions remaining is how well will she plow – and how well will the plow hold up.
Here’s my 18″ top link spacing from the center of the bottom link pins.
A future mod with the welder will be some braces from the top link back down to the plow… here’s to hoping I don’t need them for my sandy soil the first time out this weekend.Stay tuned to see if all the mods really worked!

It’s a little hard to see in this picture – but the torrential rain storm that rolled in tonight is what kept me from getting more than the sides of the driveway and the area at the bend mowed. I knew I was in a race against mother nature – but I just couldn’t pull it off! So I drove the tractor back to the barn and I headed into the garage – the temporary home of my makeshift wood shop (until the barn floor gets done) – and finished setting up my table saw… just as the sky opened up. Every job like this – putting something back together from our old house – feels good!
Since adding the new PVC trim to the back door – I now need something a little more “aggressive” than the belt sander to get the cheap Lowes wooden screen to fit… now that the table saw is good to go – I would image we are about 24 hours – on the outside – away from having a fly proof home again. And that’s significant – because we grow LOTS of flies out here on the farm!