Between the River Hills & the River Bottom

[cliftonbros89]

Its one thing to break a piece of borrowed equipment, things break.
Its another to return it in a condition other than how it was borrowed, ie fix it before returning it.

In my book, the guy now owns that and replacing it is his burden.

Looking @ that thing, whoever built it was pretty crafty.

Dad actually build it. I think I may have posted it at one time. It was on the front of an old electric company boom truck. We Bought the truck for the tires to put on our old GMC 2 ton truck and for the wench. Then we sold the truck.

Dad welded up the whole frame for it to sit on and mounted up the gearbox under it. Then he set it up with the PTO shaft and 3 point hook-up to use on the tractors. Then he added the box on the side to hold cables and and chains. Then I gave it a coat of paint.

He dreamt it all up in his head. I think there were a few measurement wrote down but that was about it. He bought some metal and went to work. It really was a pretty sweet set-up.

 

[pennsylvaniaboy]

So that’s where we’re at with that. Wench probably won’t be fixed or replaced anytime soon. Good thing it’s getting warmer.

You know it's a WINCH right?

 

[cliftonbros89]

You know it's a WINCH right?

That’s the phone talking. It likes to “correct” everything. Hay season is awful. It never wants to put rake or ted.

 

[Lotusnut]

You know it's a WINCH right?

I thought he was being rather generous loaning out his wench, or maybe she just had annoyed him.

 

[cliftonbros89]

So I made it back from Columbia...lots of meetings...lots of people...a lot of people to eager to talk and introduce themselves...I’m not really a people person. Met the Governor, saw the giant, expensive, Mizzou campus. Oh, and the hotel had a bar. So that helped.

I made it back yesterday evening. My b-i-l had checked on the cattle for me so I relaxed for the evening.

This morning I got up. I picked up Zack to accompany me for the day. First stop was the retirement farm. It was dry. But then the rain set it.

It rained while I was gone but it’s rained again today. We fed and calves and it rained more.

We had to put out some hay and it rained more.

We finally went to the shop for a bit cuzit started to pour down hard. Things finally slowed down a bit so we put out some more corn and a batch of feed for the big calves. Then strawed the barns for the calves. It’s supposed to dip down to the 20’s tonight. Quite a change from the 50’s we’ve had the last week.

I wanted to work on the 7230 but I’m not sure what the plans are for tomorrow and I didn’t have time to finish all the work on it today so I held off on working on it for now since we’ll need to Monday for hay. I also want to look at the 8760. But it won’t fit in the shop without keeping the doors open. I didn’t want to pull it in dripping wet and let more rain come in the shop. So I had to call it an early day today.

Zack managed to get pretty wet helping me in the rain but he was a good sport about it. He was definitely happy to dry off in the shop though.

River is still on the rise.

Definitely a change from a few days ago. It’s going to be up for awhile too.

 

[Farmall450]

Did they just bring it back without saying anything? Good grief.....

GGB

If so, dad needs some new "friends." WTF

 

[cliftonbros89]

So Sunday, slow. Still wet out from the rain. Dad ended up sick while gone for his tractor pull. So he’s not feeling too hot right now.


I fed all the calves and check on all the cattle this morning. Then I messed around at the shop for a few minutes.

It was a nice day, but real wet yet so I called it a day at the farm. I had some things to do at the house.

Mowed the yard already for the first time this year. I’m not going to lie my lawn looks like ****. I’m not one to have a flawless yard without weeds or **** like that. It’s uneven with about a dozen different things growing in it. But I do keep it mowed.

I also used my Stihl battery powered trimmer and leaf blower today. I have to say I was pretty impressed. They both worked really well. I can’t go quite as fast with the trimmer as I can our big Stihl gas trimmer we use on the fences. But the battery operated on still does a nice job and holds up well. I was pretty satisfied with it and the leaf blower.

So I took care of the yard and did a few other things around the house.

I framed and hung up some of my tool pictures in my bathroom I had developed awhile back. I think they look pretty good. I have some more pictures I’d like to add. I just have printed them yet.

Well it’s likely to be another really busy week this week. Temps are supposed to warm up and we’re supposed to get some sun again. We might get a little field work in before rain rolls in again. Supposed to be a chance by the end of the week again.

 

[1Garageman]

I can't believe that jackass broke your winch. What a f'en idiot!

I am curious....... How much money do you think it will cost if you have to replace that Winch???

 

[cliftonbros89]

I can't believe that jackass broke your winch. What a f'en idiot!

I am curious....... How much money do you think it will cost if you have to replace that Winch???

I honestly have no idea. I’m not sure where to go to even find parts for it. Or if parts can be found for it. Especially housing for a gear case. It’s been a while since I’ve looked but I’m not even for sure if there’s any sort of a tag with any sort of a model number on it or not. I don’t remember ever seeing a brand of any kind on it.

 

[XJSuperman]

You can buy ex-military winches on govdeals or craigslist sometimes. Theyre usually a few hundred bucks. Im sure yours has a stamping somewhere even if a tag is long gone. You can keep the rain, its finally kinda dry up here.

 

[cliftonbros89]

You can buy ex-military winches on govdeals or craigslist sometimes. Theyre usually a few hundred bucks. Im sure yours has a stamping somewhere even if a tag is long gone. You can keep the rain, its finally kinda dry up here.

Yeah I’ll have to look on it again to see if I can find anything

 

[cliftonbros89]

Not a very eventful day today. Started the day doing the daily cattle check and calf feeding.

This morning we went to go look for a new bull. Same guy we bought one from a few years ago. Another black angus. To replace the one we put down weekend before last.

We went around and fed hay everywhere.

Still plenty wet out. So we were trying to take care of a bunch of other jobs.

I was having problems with the trailer light hook up on my truck.

So we fixed that problem and put a whole new set up on it.

One of the projects dad wants to get done is making that metal water tank he bought last month mobile. We had a wagon gear to use. But we had to get everything that was on it off first.

The wagon gear has an auger tank on we used to use for fertilizer. Over the years the fertilizer ate it up to the point where it was just falling apart. So a couple years ago we filled it up with scrap metal. We had already had the tank loose from the wagon gear. It was loaded down pretty heavy. So dad was on one side with the 7230 and pallet forks and I was on the other side with the 4020 and pallet forks.

We lifted it up with both loaders and rolled the gear out from under it.

We rolled it in to the shop.

Dad took things apart so we can have the length set for the tank and the braces so it’s set for the proper width. While we did that I repacked and reset all the wheel bearings.

Dad is still not feeling 100% and also had a meeting this evening. I had to go to town to pick up a few things for the shop this evening too before the store closed.

So not a very eventful day. But there are plenty of jobs lined out for the rest of the week. Just a matter of getting everything done in a timely manner.

I also loaded up my lawn mower this evening so I can take it to the shop. Hopefully this week I can find some time to do a little maintenance to it too. Look everything over. Plus I need to plug a tire on it.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Between the River Hills & the River Bottom

Been waiting on things to dry the last few days. So we’ve been working on several things. The river should finally be cresting too.


Aside from everything else that needs worked on I put my lawn mower in the shop. Just needs a good general service and blade sharpening before the grass really starts taking off.

Yet another shop project.

Yesterday we extended the length of the wagon gear a bit and then mounted up the water tank.

We also mounted up some side boxes to carry things too. The next step is getting dad to figure out how he wants to mount up the pump and run the water hoses.

While I had some time I started sticking monitors in things so they’re ready to go. I stared with the sprayer.

Then the Loup monitor in the 4440 for the planter.


Then the Raven monitor in the 8400 for the anhydrous toolbar

The pastures are really starting green up with the warmer temperatures and the rain fall we’ve had. So I loaded up the fencing supplies in the Kubota.

We’re sure to check all the fences before we let the cattle back out. There are always places where trees fell on the fence or deer broke a wire in places over the winter or sometime in early fall when we didn’t have as much time to check fences.

A few requiring some assistance from the loader to remove for ease.

So we started on fences yesterday afternoon and the pretty much wrapped up the rest of the day.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Today started with the regular chores.

I had to help my uncle with a few small things this morning. But the rest of the day was mainly working on fences.

I worked on them by myself this afternoon while dad attempted to work on drilling some more of those water ways in the field we worked. It was just barely dry enough but he wanted to get in done before we get more rain.

I found several spots in the fences that needed to be fixed.

Especially, down in the woods.

So I worked the rest of the day checking fences.

I quit a little after dark since it’s not exactly the ideal time to check on fended.

But I did drive out to the retirement farm to check on a cow on the way home.

This morning it looked like she may be getting close to having a calf. Possibly in the next few days. So I want keep an eye on her.

Well things are just starting to get drier again and now the weather man is talking about another high chance of rain coming tomorrow. Then more by Sunday and Monday. I guess it’s a good thing there are a ton of things to work on in the shop. Because it doesn’t look like we’re going to be getting a start in the field any time soon. Between the rain and the river it’s looking to be a tough spring.

 

[tab2]

I think you might be "too old" for the competition, but check out the video. You might want to look at his other videos too, I imagine you and others here will like his stuff.

What Farming Means to Me

 

[cliftonbros89]

Between the River Hills & the River Bottom

I think you might be "too old" for the competition, but check out the video. You might want to look at his other videos too, I imagine you and others here will like his stuff.



What Farming Means to Me

I’ll have to check that out

Especially, with being tied in with 4-H. That’s all tied in with the MU Extension Council that I’m on.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Well really not a whole lot to tell from today. The rain arrived as expected. So I did the daily chores. Did some work in the shop on a few things, which included the lawn mower and the water tank. I plan to get them out of there so I can start on something else next.

Big highlight of the day. Today dad bought something big that I wasn’t really expecting him to. But it was on sale last week and my b-i-l had found out about it and to him. I wasn’t sure dad would go through with it but he got it today.

A brand new Snap-On welder. Fresh off the truck. Little different from our ole Lincoln stick welder. My b-i-l has an older one just like it that he bought used several years ago. Dad really likes it. Especially for smaller, thinner material. So he pulled the trigger on it. It’ll be interesting to see how he does with it. But I think he’s wanting me to kind of learn to take the wheel on it so he can stick to the Lincoln. We’ll see. I’m going to need some practice.

 

[lis2323]

Nice. I wonder who makes that welder for Snap-on??

Years ago when I didn’t know better I was looking into a tig from my SO dealer. Not only was it underpowered and overpriced, but it was of poor quality. Can’t recall who made it.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[cliftonbros89]

Nice. I wonder who makes that welder for Snap-on??

Years ago when I didn’t know better I was looking into a tig from my SO dealer. Not only was it underpowered and overpriced, but it was of poor quality. Can’t recall who made it.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I was wondering that myself. I’m not really sure. It’d be interesting to know.

My b-i-l has been really satisfied with his, even being used. I think that’s what sold my dad on it.

 

[Farmall450]

Those are supposed to be pretty good.

Personally, I'd stick with a Millermatic -- but you didn't ask.

I'm sure it will give you decades of good service.

 

[NKlamerus]

Well I suppose when it comes time to paint the farm truck you could also do a green and yellow snap-on welder!

 

[XJSuperman]

Get any more rain down there?

 

[cliftonbros89]

Well I know I’ve fallen behind on updates this week. But it’s been a busy one. I just finished up for the day so the update on everything will probably have to wait til tomorrow.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Get any more rain down there?

We had just a few tenths Sunday and early Monday but it didn’t take long to dry up. Warm temperatures, quite a bit of wind and some sun for the majority of this week. We were finally able to start getting some stuff done.

But we are at this very moment getting a shower. Luckily I finished everything up before it got here. Sounds like a bit more rain tonight then a good chance for more of a round over the weekend.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Well it’s been a long week, long weekend too. But last night we had some rain roll in and it hasn’t stopped. It’s supposed to continue through the morning. So an update of the last week will likely finally be posted today.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Ok so here we go!

Friday before last I set back to getting some of the fences checked out.

A good stretch of the fence goes into the woods so I walked a lot of it.


On spot that needed to be fixed was along the edge of the lake. With all the rain we’ve had the lake was pretty high. I actually out on my fishing waders to work on it. The deepest part went up above my knees.


I had finished with my lawn mower that day so I loaded it back up to take home.


Dad and my brother in law welded a few things on to the newer water tank. A few hangers for water hoses and a handle to use to climb up on the wagon.



That Saturday was a pretty busy day. My b-i-l helped us out and we ran all the calves through the chute for shots, worming and to cut the bulls.

After that we weened just a few more calves and then we readied things to let all the cattle out on the pastures.



They were all definitely happy to be out of the lots, done eating hay and ready to be out on some fresh grass.

Since we had the calves taken care of we moved the ones we worked with that morning over to lot at dad’s with the other big calves.

They all received a fresh batch of feed too.


It was a full day of working with the cattle. There was a lot to do but it wrapped up Saturday for me.

I insisted on starting several jobs on Sunday. But dad insisted we take a day off.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Monday arrived and started with a trip to check the cattle at the retirement farm.

I also checked all the other cattle to see how they were doing with the first few days on the pasture and made sure no calves ran off anywhere.

I’d found dad did do one project on Sunday and he had painted the new water tank up.

It definitely made it look a lot better.

I was set to work on the sprayer but I ran in to difficulty with the 7510 having dead batteries and also found the batteries in the sprayer were no good.

So that required some battery cables.

I put new batteries in the sprayer and got it going and pulled it in the shop.

While I started looking it over dad picked up some chemicals and stuff for spraying and got both water tanks ready to go.


Most everything on the sprayer was good. It only had a little over 100 hours put on it last year so it didn’t need much as far as service goes. But I discovered some oil around the brake on the right side.

Turned out the seal for the caliper was totally blown apart and was leaking oil out everywhere. But it turned out one of the pads was broke too.

They were wore from the caliper piston not staying in the proper place due to the worn seal. The mounting holes and pins were all very worn as well.

I had to stop on the project as dad had picked up a load of anhydrous and was anxious to make sure the system on the applicator.

We had a problem with a valve.

But we fixed it and things were ready to roll.

The new water tank was all setup and ready to go too.

 

[Farmall450]

The tank looks good. That's the first time I've seen a brake failure like that.

 

[cliftonbros89]

By Tuesday things started to pick up a bit.

I started the day checking on all the cattle.

That Sunday I wasn’t working a guy dropped off the bull we bought to replace the one was lost at my uncle’s.

He’s got a few years on him. I haven’t had a chance to be around him much but he seems to be doing pretty good so far.


We had warm temps and sun so it was time to get some things done.

The river started gradually dropping a bit too.


So dad decided to start with anhydrous. He ran the tractor while my uncle hauled wagons for him.

While they did that I started spreading fertilizer.

Since we wanted to no till the corn in the hills we just put the anhydrous and fertilizer straight on. But that old applicator leaves so pretty rough knife tracks so we like to level everything up with the harrow.

The only pain in the *** was the harrow was in the bottom...across the flooded road. Which can turn a 6 mile trip into an over 40 mile trip, one way.


There was still a decent amount of water across the road. I knew the 8760 would make it across no problem. But the bad thing was the brush hog and the grain cart were in front of the harrow. I can’t hook to the brush hog with the 8760.

So I headed out with 7230. Luckily, it was no problem. The water only came to about the top of the front axle at the deepest part.

So I moved things out of way and hooked to the harrow.


I had to move the barricades MoDOT had in the way too.


So everything was good to go.

I got the harrow to the shop and checked the tires and a few other things real quick and unhooked the cultivator and hooked the harrow up to the 8760.

So I headed up the road and to the field I went.

So I went back and forth between the harrow and the spreader while I was waiting for fertilizer to be delivered.

 

[cliftonbros89]

The tank looks good. That's the first time I've seen a brake failure like that.

I though the tank looked pretty good too.
I haven’t seen a brake set up like this on anything else. I know the newer, larger sprayers have a brake set up too but no quite like this. I’m not really a fan of the way they designed and mounted this caliper.

 

[rixtrix1]

Seems like it's always something. I spent a lot of weekends at my FIL's farm when I lived in western Nebraska back in the 80's Being a mechanic, I almost always found something to help him with. I was a town kid, but had 6 uncles who farmed and my dad ran a farm store and worked for the IH dealer, so I pretty much could do most anything around the farm. It made for a pretty interesting pastime, but I don't think I would want to do it for a a living( it was all irrigated farmland,400 acres, so that's a ton of work in itself). I do still find it interesting to read about. Thanks for sharing!

 

[rixtrix1]

How many acres do you have?

 

[cliftonbros89]

Wednesday was more of the same.

Between the harrow and the spreading fertilizer I stayed busy. My uncle was able to keep dad rolling ahead of me so we were able to get some ground covered.

Thursday was more of the same.


But it was also very windy. But Thursday we were at the last farm in the hills where we planned to plant corn. But they were also calling for rain by nightfall.

Of corse since we were in a bit of a rush it had to be at the farm that is a little inconvenient. The our neighbors we just started farming a few years ago. Old pasture ground. They never had and large equipment. Lots of poorly setup fences and pain in the *** places to move through.

Like poorly drained and washed out roads.

It was by no means made for the likes of an 8760 and a 40 foot harrow. We have places were we have to go through gaps in the fences that we made and several spots that I had to carefully wiggle around and go forwards and backwards few times to get by.


So I kept rolling. My lights on the top of the 8760 decided not to work either. So between lack of lights, and the windy making things extra dusty I had to slow things down a bit to make sure I didn’t create any problems for myself.

I managed to finish up and get back to the shop a little after 10. Luckily the storm had split at the county line and went around us on both sides up until right when I left the shop.

So we had the hill corn ground all ready to go. Roughly 340 acres that we go all the fertilizer and anhydrous on and harrowed in basically 2 and a half days. So not bad. It was a good run.

 

[cliftonbros89]

How many acres do you have?

Thanks for following along.

All together we row crop about 1,500 acres between what we own and what we rent. Majority of it is rent/share cropped.

 

[cliftonbros89]

So we ended up with only about 2-3 tenths of rain Thursday night. There was a bit of a delay on getting the parts for the sprayer so I wasn’t able to get them until Wednesday. I was pretty sure I was just going to need a new seal kit and new brake pads.

Oh and by the way that’s a $400 set up brake pads you’re looking at! Yep, I didn’t accidentally add another zero on there. I could even feel the parts guy cringe when he told me over the phone.

Dad set to getting things ready to spray and he also left to get a load of anhydrous so he could do about 25 acres for my b-i-l’s brother on Saturday.

So I was going to get the brake back together. Now since I knew the seal was shot I figured it was all I needed. I assumed the piston was fine. Plus, between the rest of the rush through the week I didn’t look at it any further. But as I stated putting things together I realized there was no was for the boot seal to stay attached to the piston. It would immediately leak. So I started looking at parts book again and looked up the repair manual too. It kept saying and showing there was supposed to be a groove in the piston for the boot. My piston had no groove.

So I looked at the other side. But I didn’t want to tear the boot while trying to inspect the groove that was supposed to be there. So I ordered a new piston and told dad it was down. He was not happy. He was for sure I was wrong and should have it together.

But I checked on other things.

Ben is doing well.


The river went down more. But there was still a touch on the road.

I did some other jobs around the shop and moved so things around. Since we are going to be planting the no till hill ground first instead of the bottom ground I put the no till coulters on the planter.


So I wrapped things up at the shop.

 

[Farmall450]

Yeah, that's not your fault. I love when people second guess me, waste their time trying to verify, and learn I was right. It generally only happens once.

 

[cliftonbros89]

So Friday evening we got a call from the Deere parts department. Deere had a massive system failure and the order for parts didn’t go through. So that meant no caliper piston for Saturday morning.

But luckily Saturday morning I received a call from the parts department that it was in. The guy put the order in right way before the system failure because he said the computer showed Deere only had 2 of those pistons available in the country apparently.

So I took off to pick it up. Got to the shop and sure enough it needed to be replaced.

It seems as though this one was worn down and likely caused the failure of the seal.


But I got things back together.

So I got it out the door and it looked like everything was good to go.

But I go it ready but had to quit as the girl and I had a wedding to attend. Then we ended up with rain. A lot of rain.

We’ll see how the week goes now.

 

[BORING HOP YARD]

Great updates!
Thank you.

 

[cliftonbros89]

I don’t know where the week went. Another whole week gone and I didn’t keep up again. A whole lot going on and I still feel like I didn’t accomplish anything.

 

[BORING HOP YARD]

I can relate. I have been working on a truck project that has taken longer than I wanted it to. I have to put electric steering in our racecar that will be dropped off in about a week. The sun has finally showed itself out here in Oregon so now its building burn piles and try to get the wet crud that came down over the winter to burn "before burn seasons closes, got a bunch of Johnson grass trying to take over one of my fields but its too wet to get the tractor into. Our hop beds were being overran by clover and we needed to deal with that before we can run twine for the bines to climb up. Were going to pull about 400 old arborvitaes shrubs that ring part of the property while the ground is wet and the sky is blue. "narrow window"
These and many more projects will get done.......in due time............not overwhelmed just riding the wave.

I'm sure you got more accomplished than you feel you did. From what you have shared, you get way more done in a day than the typical peep.