Above 1200 Sq/FT Out on Quaker Road

[davo727]

What do those bales weigh?

 

[madison069]

What do those bales weigh?

Alot......




I do know they aren't easy to roll out when you're new to the task. But was a lot of fun rolling it out when it's placed on top of a hill to roll downward! Of course you had to worry about the cows chomping on your hands by accident!!

Speaking of cows chomping at your hands, they are also pretty aggressive when you're bringing a roll to the field on the tractor. Those cows would push the bale, walk in front of you while you're trying to deliver their dinner, and then they just try to walk all over you when you're just trying to serve their dinner out to everyone while rolling the bale. Ungrateful cows, but they sure did taste good on the dinner table.

 

[drivesitfar]

looks like you are busy as ever. I still need to get my big old Proto torque wrench in the mail and maybe a few bolts i found that might come in handy. any idea what VFM NICU means (i'm thinking some type of expensive stainless) and this bolt is huge cause one with condom on it is 3 inch and a 3/4 inch bolt.

have you received any packages from USPS lately cause i sent a package about the time i was going to wrap yours up to a friend in California and it took 2 days to get to California and another 3 months to get to his door?

keep up the great work and good to see you got your Soybeans seed. I bet when you move all that manure (****) around all you think of is how lucky you are to have it available for your crops instead of the smell?

cheers and keep up the great work!!

 

[jwith68]

looks like you are busy as ever. I still need to get my big old Proto torque wrench in the mail and maybe a few bolts i found that might come in handy. any idea what VFM NICU means (i'm thinking some type of expensive stainless) and this bolt is huge cause one with condom on it is 3 inch and a 3/4 inch bolt.

have you received any packages from USPS lately cause i sent a package about the time i was going to wrap yours up to a friend in California and it took 2 days to get to California and another 3 months to get to his door?

keep up the great work and good to see you got your Soybeans seed. I bet when you move all that manure (****) around all you think of is how lucky you are to have it available for your crops instead of the smell?

cheers and keep up the great work!!

drivesitfar, these are structural bolts instead of machine bolts. The first bolt marking you show is an ASTM 307 spec bolt from Portland Bolt Mfg. The other one is from Vegas Fastener Mfg., but I'm not 100% sure what the NICU designation means. Likely that its nickel (NI)- copper (CU) alloy for use in corrosive environments. Not likely to find SS bolts in applications like these. If so, highly specialized and costly.

 

[jblnut]

What do those bales weigh?

I've never weighed a corn stalk bale but I think they'd be in that 700-800lb range

Alot......




I do know they aren't easy to roll out when you're new to the task. But was a lot of fun rolling it out when it's placed on top of a hill to roll downward! Of course you had to worry about the cows chomping on your hands by accident!!

Speaking of cows chomping at your hands, they are also pretty aggressive when you're bringing a roll to the field on the tractor. Those cows would push the bale, walk in front of you while you're trying to deliver their dinner, and then they just try to walk all over you when you're just trying to serve their dinner out to everyone while rolling the bale. Ungrateful cows, but they sure did taste good on the dinner table.

They do indeed taste good

looks like you are busy as ever. I still need to get my big old Proto torque wrench in the mail and maybe a few bolts i found that might come in handy. any idea what VFM NICU means (I'm thinking some type of expensive stainless) and this bolt is huge cause one with condom on it is 3 inch and a 3/4 inch bolt.

have you received any packages from USPS lately cause i sent a package about the time i was going to wrap yours up to a friend in California and it took 2 days to get to California and another 3 months to get to his door?

keep up the great work and good to see you got your Soybeans seed. I bet when you move all that manure (****) around all you think of is how lucky you are to have it available for your crops instead of the smell?

cheers and keep up the great work!!

I haven't gotten anything from your direction of the woods lately ......

I didn't reply soon enough and jwith got in with the bolt info. The NICU is indeed a nickel-copper alloy for use in corrosive environments as well as areas where sparking is not the best thing to have. We use a few items with the NICU stamp on them at work in areas that have a lot of exposure to the wash chemicals used to keep milking equipment clean.

Those structural bolts are neat and raises the question of where did you run across those large bolts

drivesitfar, these are structural bolts instead of machine bolts. The first bolt marking you show is an ASTM 307 spec bolt from Portland Bolt Mfg. The other one is from Vegas Fastener Mfg., but I'm not 100% sure what the NICU designation means. Likely that its nickel (NI)- copper (CU) alloy for use in corrosive environments. Not likely to find SS bolts in applications like these. If so, highly specialized and costly.

A SS structural bolt .... yikes ... that'd be spendy !!!!!

 

[jblnut]

I told mini-me to go wash his hands and I came into the shoffice to find this


There is an awful lot of pounding and loud noises that come from upstairs when the little people are up there so I thought it'd be a good idea to put a set of eyes up there


I also tossed the UVC-MICRO up looking West in the shop, mostly because it was sitting on a shelf and partly because why not I guess ??


"Dad !!! Let's GO !!!!' Lolololol !!!


The seed treater is officially set-up and ready to use !!




Forklift trailer mover. I really like this thing


This cart was quite nice to use last year but the 12v battery operated pump sort of stinks. The battery always seems to go dead at the perfect wrong moment. So ... the solution is to take that stuff all out and convert it to be able to use tractor hydraulics.


Hoses are off, wires are unhooked and a mess is being made


VERY much switching gears .... the TCL 4K TV I put in the shoffice is very lacking on the audio side of things so I snagged a TCL Alto 6 on sale for it. There was no nice way to mount it directly to the bottom of the TV so I fixed that right up.


This picture of a 4K TV is not even close to 4K as blurry as that is


Looks pretty decent


Very much need an outlet behind the TV though .... those power cords hanging down look silly.


It came with a nifty little wireless sub that I put under my desk out of the way. This little soundbar and sub really sound quite good for the $$$$$.

 

[ripperd]

It is amazing how crappy some of the built in TV speakers are nowdays. My wife (who likes to listen to her phone at 100% volume, distorting like crazy) even mentioned how terrible our bedroom TV sounded after we swapped it with the TV in our screenporch (which is an older Sony with actually decent sound).

 

[jblnut]

It is amazing how crappy some of the built in TV speakers are nowadays. My wife (who likes to listen to her phone at 100% volume, distorting like crazy) even mentioned how terrible our bedroom TV sounded after we swapped it with the TV in our screen porch (which is an older Sony with actually decent sound).

I don't think I've ever used the TV speakers in my other TV which is a Sony 46HX700 circa 2010 which was the top of the line in 2010 without being a 3D TV. It's still a super nice unit !! I don't know how the speakers sound so bad in TV's other than to make you buy more stuff from that company

All I know is this $99 soundbar setup sounds pretty nice for being $99. I like to forget what I paid for the Cerwin Vega surround sound I purchased back in the day .... A pair of RE-30's, an RE-6c and 4 x RE-16's fed by a Sony STR-DN2010. It sounds amazing still but takes up a wild amount of space !!

 

[jblnut]

Time to put the quick attach plate on the forklift jib boom dealio.


Wizzy wheel off all the paint in the areas to be welded upon. This took a while as this was pretty decent paint !!


In an effort to speed up the metal bracing design I decided to mock it up using wood first. It actually worked very well !!


Once I had the odd angles created out of wood it was super easy to transfer them to the iron.


I changed it a bit so the braces would be directly centered with the quick attach plate mounts on the skiddy. It looks extra badass now


Whist staring at it I decided it needed a slightly off center brace in the center of the whole works


Flip it over to weld on it's belly. I think I could forever use this forklift as a welding table. This works very very well


Well ****. School called yesterday and said one of the teachers at the school the girls go to tested positive for the covid so off we went as a family to take our first test of this whole ordeal so far. The kiddos did well with the swab deal surprisingly


What better way to spend a quarantine than in the shop with the littles


The local baler repair guy picked the square baler up today to go through the entire knotter assembly. Pops and I started to tear into it and decided to let the baler experts do it. There are a lot of parts and pieces that need to be timed correctly so things do not smash into each other when the baler is in operation. I think we could have done it all but it'd have been a tremendously expensive deal if we got it wrong and everything got all messed up when it went to tie a bale !!!

This is a video that shows how it all works inside. This is a Challenger branded baler but is actually manufactured by Hesston, just like our Case 8575.

 

[ambenz]

...... I think we could have done it all but it'd have been a tremendously expensive deal if we got it wrong and everything got all messed up when it went to tie a bale !!!

This is a video that shows how it all works inside. This is a Challenger branded baler but is actually manufactured by Hesston, just like our Case 8575.

Very interesting mechanical automation..."Awesome!" Thanks for sharing!
It would be cool to see a automated barn that cleans pens, lays new grass, feeds ....just sit in the barn office and watch it all work on a monitor, Kind of like a milking farm and carousel.

 

[ambenz]

Double post, please delete

 

[jblnut]

Very interesting mechanical automation..."Awesome!" Thanks for sharing!
It would be cool to see a automated barn that cleans pens, lays new grass, feeds ....just sit in the barn office and watch it all work on a monitor, Kind of like a milking farm and carousel.

Stop out sometime and I can show you a few barns that do exactly that !!

We have a ever growing number of farms that are installing a complete automation package with Lely equipment. A robot TMR feeder, robotic manure scrapers and robotic milkers. It is really something to see !!

Lely even has a robotic grass harvesting machine that cuts fresh grass daily and feeds it in the barn for a zero grazing grass fed type of operation.

Mind boggling stuff but it is soooooo neat to watch work !!

 

[drivesitfar]

I'd like to get a package sent to you, but i was waiting til i knew USPS was back to working 100% cause I had one go to California that was MIA for a few months that was supposed to be a 4 day delivery.

A few years ago some people I met were closing down their 130 year old steel business and I ended up buying almost everything that would fit in my trailer. I was there for a 2-3 months and nuts and bolts were just part of what they had. if I had a property like you and a big trailer I bet i would have bought all their huge I & H beams that they used to build bridges and building with too.

I like the idea of the camera in the LITTLE'S ROOM, but i'm guessing you still need to go in and check on them more than a little. cute pic of Leo (mini you) washing his hands. that boy of yours cracks me up. looks like the girls will be driving in no time and do you have ATV's for them to drive around yet?

Jwith: thanks for the 411 on my bolts!!

 

[Jayman17]

Mike, thanks for posting the animation of the baler. Another incredible farming machine, I always wondered what was going on internally, now it all makes sense.
Make sure you go over your new privacy policy with your kids now that they are being watched...

Jay

 

[jblnut]

I'd like to get a package sent to you, but i was waiting til i knew USPS was back to working 100% cause I had one go to California that was MIA for a few months that was supposed to be a 4 day delivery.

A few years ago some people I met were closing down their 130 year old steel business and I ended up buying almost everything that would fit in my trailer. I was there for a 2-3 months and nuts and bolts were just part of what they had. if I had a property like you and a big trailer I bet i would have bought all their huge I & H beams that they used to build bridges and building with too.

I like the idea of the camera in the LITTLE'S ROOM, but i'm guessing you still need to go in and check on them more than a little. cute pic of Leo (mini you) washing his hands. that boy of yours cracks me up. looks like the girls will be driving in no time and do you have ATV's for them to drive around yet?

Jwith: thanks for the 411 on my bolts!!

Oh my oh my oh my I'd love to have been around to go through what was left in that steel yard !!!! I passed on an opportunity to buy a MASSIVE amount of steel on a few LARGE piles at the same auction that I purchased my welding table simply because I did not know how to get it all home. I think we'd have spent a few days hauling with a few truck/trailers and still not have had it all home. It truly pained me to let it go as the value was probably 50x what it all sold for. Oh well.

I'd be happy/excited to receive anything from you !!! I've had great luck lately sending stuff with USPS so maybe it's "fixed" or maybe you just got unlucky last time

Little Man is quite a riot of a good time. I think he's going to cause plenty of "WTF did you do that for?!?!" moments for us in the future but that's what keeps life interesting I guess

We've talked about getting the littles mini-4wheelers a few times but we'd almost have to get them each one so they don't kill each other trying to decide who gets to drive it. At around $1,200/ea it's not a ton of money but it is something to think about I guess ....

Mike, thanks for posting the animation of the baler. Another incredible farming machine, I always wondered what was going on internally, now it all makes sense.
Make sure you go over your new privacy policy with your kids now that they are being watched...

Jay

I know how balers work and I am confident I could fix/repair one without issue but they still seem like voo-doo machines with all the parts and pieces working together in harmony !!!

I told them I was watching them and the response was "Yeah, because you have eyes in the back of your head". Haha. Yup. Kind of

 

[jblnut]

We got our Covid tests back and everyone was negative but me. Go figure. Mama Bear and I discussed it at length and we decided that we all had tons of contact with each other so distancing ourselves within our own family would probably do more harm than good so the littles and I will be spending time in the shop distance learning and cleaning things up whilst Mama Bear continues to work in the house at her workstation. We also plan to get things ready for spring planting and possibly haul some corn to town. School says since I tested positive the littles have to be out until the 12th. Fingers crossed that we'll all stay healthy and things can resume after this brief hiatus from the "normal" world.

I purchased a few storage cabinets on an online sale before I tested positive and once I told the auction people what was going on they kindly palletized them, wrapped them all up and loaded them into the farm truck for me. Once I got them home Little Man and I unwrapped them.


I'm not sure what they are "worth" but I paid around $150/ea for them. I feel they were worth that and am excited to transfer stuff out of pails and boxes into these cabinets.


The first trailer full of stuff to go into the new cabinets.


What a nice place to put all the Lawson and Fastenal cabinets and drawers.


Load #2


Ahhhh the important things are in the shop now. Now we can begin doing actual work that we have some tunes !!! For being 20yrs old this JVC shelf system still kicks pretty well


They wanted something to do so I had them sort one of my many misc bolt/screw bins. They loved it and I told them there are a few more and they got all kind of excited


Lazy cat.


Lily wanted to sweep the feed alley and make it look pretty. I can't say no to something like that !!!

 

[drivesitfar]

JBL: I mentioned your COVID situation to my bride that keeps up with all the latest on this BS and she said there are tons of FALSE POSITIVES. it sounds like you don't have the symptoms either so if I were you i'd go to a different testing station and get another test to see for certain.

those cabinets you picked up were a good deal if the drawers all work like they should cause they were built to hold hundreds of pounds of paper and hold tools and parts just as well.

here's a metal cabinet thread I started years ago that you can post pictures of yours on and take a peek at some of the others we've posted over the years. here's the link:

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=305350&highlight=metal+cabinet

 

[jblnut]

JBL: I mentioned your COVID situation to my bride that keeps up with all the latest on this BS and she said there are tons of FALSE POSITIVES. it sounds like you don't have the symptoms either so if I were you i'd go to a different testing station and get another test to see for certain.

those cabinets you picked up were a good deal if the drawers all work like they should cause they were built to hold hundreds of pounds of paper and hold tools and parts just as well.

here's a metal cabinet thread I started years ago that you can post pictures of yours on and take a peek at some of the others we've posted over the years. here's the link:

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=305350&highlight=metal+cabinet

Oh I definitely have it, no false positive here. I didn't think I did until the morning after the test and I woke up feeling like someone was beating my head in with a hammer and my bacon tasted like cardboard

It took a few days to get results back (apparently we didn't go to a "rapid" test location, who knew) and after a few days I was already feeling better. I know this thing affects everyone differently but so far it's been on par with some of the worse colds I've had. I usually get a cold in the spring that lasts a few weeks, sometimes a few times, and than I'm good for the year. When it's 24F in the morning and 72F in the afternoon like it is today it's hard on me.

I shared the covid deal because I guess I share most things on here and I don't intend to start a fight with anyone over it for any reason (not saying you were by any means DRIVES, just heading off anything I may have accidently started). I am on both sides of the fence with it being silly and then seeing how it has affected some people I know in a really bad way I just don't know. What I do know is that for being a medical issue it has been way to political from both sides. No need to let politics affect medicine. Leave it alone and let the experts do their jobs.

The cabinets seem solid and I've already gotten a ton of stuff crammed into them. I don't know how happy they'd be about hundreds of pounds per drawer but I know the ones with the plumbing stuff have to be well over 50lbs I'd say

The littles and I will read through the thread (or some of the 120+ pages lol) the coming days and we'll throw some pics up at the end. Thanks for the link !!

 

[drivesitfar]

Not trying to start a war here from my end just thought it might be worth a second opinion since your family seems ok. Yep a lot of sadness and a TON of BS about this.

Have fun with the metal cabinet thread and maybe you’ll see how some of use the ones you have and I’m sure you’ll see more types you’d like to buy if you get the chance.

Take care and hope you and your family breeze thru this.

 

[jblnut]

Not trying to start a war here from my end just thought it might be worth a second opinion since your family seems ok. Yep a lot of sadness and a TON of BS about this.

Have fun with the metal cabinet thread and maybe you’ll see how some of use the ones you have and I’m sure you’ll see more types you’d like to buy if you get the chance.

Take care and hope you and your family breeze thru this.

I know you're not so no worries on my end !!

 

[drivesitfar]

good luck and hope you feel better real soon AND i hope your family doesn't get it or gets a mild case.

 

[jblnut]

good luck and hope you feel better real soon AND i hope your family doesn't get it or gets a mild case.

I'm 6 days in from the "positive" test and other than my tastebuds packing their **** and leaving town it's been a run of mill average cold for me so far. So far so good with the rest of the family. Although we haven't been "quarantining" from each other I've been trying to avoid lap sitting and hugging with the littles. Turns out they like to sit on laps and at least for Little Man it's been tough. He sits on my lap in the evenings when we have time to watch things on YouTube and has been quite vocal in his dislike of having to sit on the couch without me.

I talked with the bossman yesterday at work and told him that by the time my "leave" from work was through it'd be time to put tile in the ground and then spring tillage and planting and first pass of in-season herbicide and first crop hay and .......... All I got was a BIG SIGH and a "I guess we'll see you in June then"

 

[jblnut]

It was 73F on Monday so we opened the big doors and the littles ran all over the place in and outside the shop


We all got distracted on the way to the house in the afternoon and decided to play in the "WORLDS LARGEST SANDBOX DAD !!!!!" They're going to be angry when we start to put a house here


I mixed up three loads of feed for the steers and watched the feed flow nicely over the new auger and into the first feed bin. I think it still needs to be lowered a bit though. Once we get high moisture corn to feed in the fall I think it's going to be too tight to flow nicely and may plug up.


Leo and Missy found the only hole I've opened up so far and decided to clean it out.


"Missy is being too nosy Dad !!" He kept pushing the cat out of the way and of course, the cat came right back with his nose in the hole


Yay tile cart hoses are here !! Something to do again !!


Miss Alyssa wanted to help make the hose holder and I couldn't say no to her cute little "Please Dad !!" face.


A simple piece of 3/8" 316SS rod welded to a bolt will make a nice hose guide/holder deal. It is going to be nice to not have to worry about the battery running dead when we're tiling. We removed the 12v pump and all it's stuff so it can be used as a portable hydraulic power source as needed now. I'm not sure what we'll use it for but now that we have one maybe we'll find somehting

 

[jollygreengiant]

That ***** about about getting Covid. Hopefully your the only one who gets it and the rest of the family doesn't get it too.

I can't remember, are you guys planning to build a house this year or next?

 

[jblnut]

That ***** about about getting Covid. Hopefully your the only one who gets it and the rest of the family doesn't get it too.

I can't remember, are you guys planning to build a house this year or next?

Thanks dude. I hope I'm the only one that gets it as well. I think the littles will be fine if they do as they're pretty resilient but it'd reset the "quarantine clock" again if they do. They do not need to be here, they need to be in school with all their little friends !! Although I enjoy spending time with them I think it's better for them to be around other kids their age so they can all be little kids together.

We're planning on starting construction in a few months. Just waiting on the formal thumbs up from the bank at this point.

 

[jblnut]

Time to put the little people squad to work and label all these drawers


The girls took turns typing and printing the labels.


Leo squashed them onto the drawers once I had them started


Er'ma'gawsh I am SOOOOO excited to have these labeled !! No more hunting through pails and boxes to find stuff anymore. You may notice not all of them are spelled correctly. I'll blame that on poor supervision of a typist that knows how to spell most things under four letters so far

 

[XJSuperman]

It must be the hats or something....you and the Little People Squad are really working the "Despicable Me" image. (After googling, I realized the movie is 3 girls, not 2 girls and a boy, whoops.) They're all minions though anyways, right?

Good thing you are labeling them, with that many drawers it'd take a year to find the right piece every time you need one.

 

[cvairwerks]

Time to put the little people squad to work and label all these drawers


You may notice not all of them are spelled correctly. I'll blame that on poor supervision of a typist that knows how to spell most things under four letters so far

Ah, just gives them a little family panache....

 

[loganb]

Good luck with COVID, glad to hear you've got what sounds like a mild case.

And thanks for again reminding me that farming where we may need to irrigate ground and artificially make it rain on certain fields isn't the end of the world....as we don't have to worry one bit about tiling! I think there are 3 tile drains total across the acreage where the low spots in the terraces needed it!

 

[Sifan]

Locally, lot of planters going to hit the field on Monday, first day to plant with crop insurance

 

[jblnut]

It must be the hats or something....you and the Little People Squad are really working the "Despicable Me" image. (After googling, I realized the movie is 3 girls, not 2 girls and a boy, whoops.) They're all minions though anyways, right?

Good thing you are labeling them, with that many drawers it'd take a year to find the right piece every time you need one.

That made me laugh

I tried to group things as well. Plumbing in one, electricial in another, and junk in the other three

Ah, just gives them a little family panache....

There is a fair bit of that around here already so these new additions will fit in nicely

Good luck with COVID, glad to hear you've got what sounds like a mild case.

And thanks for again reminding me that farming where we may need to irrigate ground and artificially make it rain on certain fields isn't the end of the world....as we don't have to worry one bit about tiling! I think there are 3 tile drains total across the acreage where the low spots in the terraces needed it!

I think it's a mild case .... I'm not in the hospital I guess so that's good !!!

Tiling is so much fun though !! You don't know what you're missing

Maintaining irrigators seems like such a hassle

Locally, lot of planters going to hit the field on Monday, first day to plant with crop insurance

I'm hoping to hand seed some oats/wheat on Monday around the shop. That's as good as we can do around here right now

 

[jblnut]

Yesterday Mama Bear kept the littles in the house so I could get a few things done without them tagging along. They're a frustratingly wonderful slowdown but there are things that still need to be done that they can't really help with so the "alone" time was nice.

One of those things was welding the new braking system to the tile cart. I attached a piece of cable to it and ran it to the front of the cart. Pretty simple concept


Two neighbors wanted some square bales so I loaded up 8 bales of straw for one ....


And three loads of 18 bales of nice grass hay for another.


Next up was to level the new shavings out in the chicken barn. Pops and I built this bucket to aid with getting a consistent depth throughout the entire barn.


It all blends together in the picture but the bucket fills up and the rest spill over the front and slide under the bucket when there is a low spot. It works very well !!


Nice and level and fresh looking again

 

[jollygreengiant]

That shavings bucket is slick!

What is your builder telling you for lumber prices on the house? One of my coworkers is looking into building a house and the prices are wild. And they won't guarantee prices for more than 2 weeks.

 

[XJSuperman]

Funniest looking bucket I've ever seen....coulters on it lol....but I have no doubt it works slicker than snot.

 

[jblnut]

That shavings bucket is slick!

What is your builder telling you for lumber prices on the house? One of my coworkers is looking into building a house and the prices are wild. And they won't guarantee prices for more than 2 weeks.

The shavings bucket works very well !!

We're supposed to get the "most up-to-datest" number to bring to the bank in the next few days. I know things have gone up but we need to do something or we'll have to stick a fair bit of money to get our current house through another winter. This one was a bit rough at times with lots of siding falling off and all, literally all, the windows needing to have plastic over them so they didn't have cold air blowing through them. The foundation has moved a fair bit the last few years and so far I've just stacked stuff in front of the problem areas but that can't be ignored forever !!!

Funniest looking bucket I've ever seen....coulters on it lol....but I have no doubt it works slicker than snot.

It is a strange looking bucket but it works pretty good for what it is. I'd feel MUCH better if the coulters would be a little more "solid" to the bucket as they feel as if they're going to spread out and twist up at any time !!!

 

[jblnut]

The littles and I went around and checked all our tile outlets to make sure they weren't plugged up and were flowing nicely. No one fell in the mud or water and it was a nice break to get out again.

I stirred the water up a bit to see if I could see it flowing when it was cloudy and it sure was. Just a little bit but there is stuff coming out. This particular tile outlet is draining some spots that we haven't been able to get into nicely for quite a while. I'm pretty stoked to see how this helps this year !!!

After a looooooooooooooooong morning of checking tile outlets and field conditions we had the ultimate little people meal .... Mac'n'Cheese and pickles

We decided to get the Crary tile cart hitch fixed up. Someone left it extended and tried to load tile last year and bent it all to ****. We cut some off and drilled a new hole and it'll work just fine.

Next up was to see if I can cut AR400 steel with this already pretty worn out bandsaw blade. Nope. It went in just a tad and just sat there. I was hoping to use this worn down tile plow shear to plate a few areas on the plow that are wearing quite a bit.

The girls decided that my screwdriver drawer was messy so they volunteered to clean it up and organize things.

The steer we sent off a few weeks back was done being processed and it about filled a freezer with wieners and bologna

Time to sort beans and get them in the shed to be treated before it rains for the forecasted 4 days.

Looks like 89,600,000 soybeans are in the shop now !! 16 Qbits X 40 units each X 140,000 seeds/unit = 89,600,000 soybean seeds

The kiddos noticed the tile plow and thought it was a "huge digger monster Dad!!"

The new floats for the septic pump came in so we decided to put them on. The 48" pipe wrench is tied the 4-wheeler with a string just in case I drop it

Hindsight is always 20-20 right .... the bottom float that controls the pump isn't positioned correctly and doesn't activate. Grrrrr. I think I need to switch the brackets that hold the wires to the pipe so the bottom float wire can be pointed vertical instead of horizontal so when the float is all the way up the cord isn't keeping it at a slight angle still.

These pictures are taken over roughly a week and may be out of order. Don't know. Things have been rather foggy the last few weeks. This Covid deal is messing with my memory and the ability to do simple stuff. It's quite strange really.

Little man and I cleaned up a bunch of the remaining concrete and debris from the floor that was under the little bin we moved. The idea was to fill this area in with nice black dirt and get it seeded but I was tuckered out and we both went in the house and took a nap

The hopper by my place is almost empty so I loaded up a few loads of corn to bring over and fill it again. It's been SUPER nice not having to run up and down the road 3 times a week or more since the hopper has been at my place.

Loading up some oats to get cleaned with the neighbors "new" fanning mill. I don't have any pictures of it in operation but it was quite the sight to see. A really neat machine !!

Roughly enough seed for 50 acres in there

I figured while I was low on energy that knocking a few oil changes out would be a nice easy deal to do. First up was the 7630. 27.5qts flowed real nice into the new oil hopper deal.

Next up was the 4WD. 29qts for this bad boy.

Pops got one with an electric pump to empty itself. It's quite convenient but doesn't pump very quickly. Still better than dumping pails out though !!

The next morning I put both VERY full wagons into the hopper bin at my place.

The "add-a-grapple" attachment for the skiddy has a busted quick attach so I tackled that next.

The pin is out and it is rather yucky looking in there. I ran a rag though a bunch of times to clean the gunk out and it cleaned up pretty well.

The pin was frozen into the sleeve it slides in and whilst trying to free it last summer we busted the handle off on top. It is all full of rust and junk so I wire wheeled it nice and shiny again !!

Grease it up real well and stick it all back together. I fell asleep leaning on a tractor tire around this picture. Mama Bear called and woke me up to ask if I was going to be home for supper and I said "it's only like 2pm so no not for a while yet" I guess it was 5:30pm already

I had the forklift guys out to go through the new lifter and they said it was in really good condition for the amount of hours on it. Yay !!

It ran like a champ the entire time we were using it to put treatment on the soybeans !!

Putting a tote that weighs 2,600lbs on my extended beams caused them to deflect more than I was okay with so I installed some engineered supports.

The soybeans and treatment products are both metered on the way into the treater so just the right amount goes on.

Once they're in the treater they tumble around for a few minutes and come out coated nicely

I lined them up in rows for each customer as we were done treating them so it'd be easy to grab one order at a time.

Miss Lily helped clean up the mess we made when we ran the treater too slow and ran the hopper over once. I plan to plant these "floor sweepings" somewhere in the yard this year just for funsies as there are a few different varieties in that pile so cleaning them and putting them in the field probably wouldn't work out well.

We had one extra full tub for stock so if anyone needs some 1.0 maturity Enlist beans I can hook you up !! I also put the two empty totes we own up there for storage. Seemed like a good place for it all.

 

[drivesitfar]

WOW that's a huge update and even when you have COVID you still get more work done in a week than we do in a month. BTW are you feeling better or just ok? did your bride and the littles or anybody else you know get it?

I had to laugh when I saw the rope on the big pipe wrench and did you learn to tie it from your own mistake or another person's? great idea.

keep up the great work and hope you feel 100% again soon!!

i'm not sure what to tell you about lumber prices, but do you have any areas where there are good size trees and anybody with a mill to cut you up the boards?

 

[jblnut]

WOW that's a huge update and even when you have COVID you still get more work done in a week than we do in a month. BTW are you feeling better or just ok? did your bride and the littles or anybody else you know get it?

I had to laugh when I saw the rope on the big pipe wrench and did you learn to tie it from your own mistake or another person's? great idea.

keep up the great work and hope you feel 100% again soon!!

i'm not sure what to tell you about lumber prices, but do you have any areas where there are good size trees and anybody with a mill to cut you up the boards?

Just like a turtle I keep plodding along. Not real fast but a fairly steady pace lol. Kiddos/Mama Bear are fine so far. I'm still coughing like I'm getting paid to do it and feel tired by noonish and absolutely shot by mid afternoon but the stuff needs to get done so off I go !!!

I haven't dropped it in yet but it seemed like a good idea. I tie ropes to all kinds of tools when I work in the grain bins because I don't want to drop and lose anything in the corn. I certainly do not want to drop something down that ****** hole

The house won't have that much actual lumber in it since it's a SIP home but it's still going to be spendy.

I just keep chanting "Happy wife, happy life. Happy wife, happy life. Happy wife, happy life. Happy wife, happy life. Happy wife, happy life. Happy wife, happy life. Happy wife, happy life. Happy wife, happy life. Happy wife, happy life."

 

[drivesitfar]

OR Happy Wife, happy family, happy life AND ultimately happier you cause you are working your **** off for something.

Get well soon!!

 

[Jayman17]

Mike, you sure have been keeping busy. Glad you are able to power through when not feeling 100%. Hope you get back to full strength soon.
I will defer to your experience as to the soybean count although to me that doesn’t look like a bean over 89,599,980.

Jay