Breaking in my new toys... from Yeehaw! to Uh oh!

[Spiveyman]

Hey y'all, I've had a couple of people ask me about the cattle, so I thought I'd mention here what happened to them in case others were curious. Pretty much stuff happens, and to me it's like stuff on steroids happens. I had a buddy tell me one time the he never believed in luck until he met me, and he still doesn't believe in good luck, but now he believes in back luck. (I might have mentioned that in this thread already, sorry if so...) Anyway, a series of unfortunate events led to the death of I think the final count was 15 or so of my cattle.

2007 was a pretty bad drought year here in KY. I had the heard at my partner's farm on 30 acres. Way too many cattle for that small of a farm. Throw the drought on top of that, with thin grass and makes for a pretty thin herd of Texas Longhorns, which are known for being lean already. I had planned to move them to my 170 acres sometime in Aug of that year but had a hard time getting my partner motivated to actually get it done, so it was October before we moved them. Heading into the colder months the herd was very lean. They started dying on December 25, 2007 and the vet was dumbfounded. He could not figure out what was killing them. After a handfull had passed we had one taken to the UK Animal Diagnostic center. They tested positive for coccidia (sp?) but not at a level that should have been high enough to cause death. They died of adema ultimately, and my vet explained that when the wether turns cold cattle use up their fat reserves to stay warm. My cattle basically had no fat reserves, so the vet said that their bodies would start to attack the muscle mass and when that happens it introduces fluid in the blood that gets deposited in the lungs. The wether was very wet that fall/winter, and would get warm then freeze over and over again. He said that was perfect for the coccidia to grow in the wet ground where we were feeding hay. The cattle would lay on the hay to stay dry/warm and then turn around and eat that hay. The coccidia feed off of the protein in the blood, which caused their bodies to attack the muscle mass even more aggressively speeding up the adema process. The answer was pretty simple, some medicine to kill the coccidia and protein tubs to keep their bodies from robbing the muscle of protein. As soon as I did that, we never lost another one. Guess that 100% grass fed deal has some draw backs when you get in a situation like this. The vet said that if any of those situations had been different, the drought, the wet fall, the varrying winter temp, the leanness of the breed... etc. that I probably would not have lost the cattle. I'll file that on in the memory banks for when I get back to being a rancher.

 

[Spiveyman]

Hey, I do have a question for those who stumble across this thread... last fall I cut down about a dozen trees in the yard at the farm because I wanted to regrade the yard with my box blade and couldn't do it with the trees as they were. I planned to come back and get the stumps out, but then my life turned upside down and it may be a while before I can get to that. My question: Is it a bad idea to cut the stumps down low? There are stumps all over the yard now, which I'd left to help me as I started trying to get the roots out, but they look stupid since I haven't been able to get back to that project. I was thinking about cutting them down even with the ground so that it wouldn't look so stupid in the interim, but is that going to make it really hard to get the stumps out later? It doesn't look like that back hoe is in my future any time soon now, so when I get to it I'll be using a mattox and whatever I can with my existing equipment (FEL/BB - to rip the roots up that are on the surface... etc.). Not the best tools for the job, but I'm inspired by 3RRL's automatic remote control chicken coop deal. Surely I can figure out a clever way to get these stumps out. I'll get a picture next time I'm at the farm so that you all can all laugh at the state of the yard. It seemed like such a great idea when I was standing in the yard with a new Stihl chainsaw! Oh, and another question, since cutting down the trees, the roots have now sent up about 2,000 shoots all over the yard. Does anyone have any idea how to kill the stump and prevent all the new shoots? When I cut down the trees I drilled holes in the stump and saturated them with Roundup thinking I'd read that somewhere, but it might as well have been miracle grow.

 

[Guywire]

Don't know what trees you have (or how it would work anyway), but my eucalyptus stumps are killed with Roundup, however it has to be sprayed on the freshly cut (like within 10 minutes of cut time) cambium (outer most living) layer, and sometimes takes two or three treatments.

I have a neighbor who is going the "hand dig" route on some of his stumps (he's a harder worker than I am - and younger). I've tried to use my little TC-30 with a FEL to dig out my trees, but you end up with an enourmous hole and difficulties if other trees are too close.

I just found an affordable 30+ yr old tractor & backhoe that I'll be eventually using on my stumps. I've tried it on a couple of stumps (4-5' diameter) and found that I'm really sorry that they were cut nearly to ground level.

I've heard that if you have the time, rotting of a dead stump can be hastened by adding a high nitrogen fertilizer to the holes you drilled into the stump and covering it with a layer of soil.

 

[EddieWalker]

Stumps are always a pain to get out. With them being taller, you have some leverage to help get them out just a bit easier. It's still a pain, but not nearly as bad as it will be if you cut them down short. Since you are not living there and they are not hurting anything, I'd leave them tall and be thankful for it when you get the time to take them out.

Eddie

 

[/pine]

if time is not an immediate factor...there are some compounds available a home stores that can be used to "rot" stumps...bore some holes and add the compound (following the instructions)...

...an old tried and true way to rot "some" stumps is to bore some holes and fill most of the way up with soured buttermilk...then seal the holes with wax...in about a year you can just kick what is left into the dirt...(does not work on pines/ firs etc)...

 

[gordyy]

I vote with eddie, if your not there looking at em every day leave them be
every foot you leave up on a stump makes them a lot easier to get out
3 ft of stump is a lot of leverage
and 5 ft is a lot more
we used to take old shelter belt rows out by digging a little with the hoe
then lift the loader and shove the whole tree over if they were cut then there could be a lot of digging involved instead of a little scraping

 

[Spiveyman]

Well, after reading the suggestions here, I decided to take the advice of the wise souls who offered it up. That does make sense to leave the stumps for later on.

So tonight I went over to mow the lawn for my granny who is living on the farm now. Last week I bent one of the blades really badly because I hit a root by one of the stumps. I guess that made granny a little upset because when I drove up tonight, there were piles of mulch all over the yard. Granny paid someone to come out with a stump grinder and go to town on all those stumps and roots sticking up! So I guess that kind of took care of itself. That is until I decide to re-grade the yard and still have to deal with the rest of the tree that was left just under the surface. That will be a fun day!

 

[sandman2234]

Stumps are always a lot of fun. I got a call from my neighbor, who had rented a backhoe for the weekend, only to remember that he had a meeting with a couple of customers on Saturday and another full day Sunday. He called me and asked if I could come over Saturday and pull the stumps from in front of his new barn while the hoe was there. I wandered over Friday and it only took a few minutes to get them out. Took longer to haul enough dirt to fill the holes then it did to make the holes. Still fun though,
David from jax

 

[jake98]

Granny paid someone to come out with a stump grinder and go to town on all those stumps and roots sticking up!

That's 'real' leverage on a stump, the green type. Glad to see you back.

 

[Scotty370]

Tim- Consider a new friend found, and praying for your life's stability to return in earnest! I don't know how I stumbled across this thread, but have spent the last three nights reading it end to end. At first I said " This guy should write a book, Patrick McMannus style" (You guys know who I mean?) Humor abound! Then I got to the 'dark-side'! With my son ranching (Charolais) in VA, abeit, without the maritial strife, guess it sort of struck home. Guess they say, "It's alway darkest, before the dawn" Hope 'Daybreaks' in your immediate future! Seems like you've built quite a fan-base here! Best Regards! ~Scotty

 

[Spiveyman]

...So I guess that kind of took care of itself. That is until I decide to re-grade the yard and still have to deal with the rest of the tree that was left just under the surface. That will be a fun day!

"Fun" as it turns out is completely determined by your point of view.

For those who need success to be an element of "Fun," this would fail the test.

For those TBN'ers who only need seat time to be an element of "Fun," well I had a doozie of a day.

One of these days my life is going to settle down and I'm going to get tons of seat time and I'll break lots of stuff and get to post on here to figure out how to fix it. I'm not quite there, but I still get my rear in the seat every now and then.

The last I left it with you all, I had a yard full of ground down stumps. Not sure if I had mentioned this but ever since I saw 3RRL's threads and the amazing work he does with his box blade I have had this vision in my mind of completely regrading that yard at the farm. I don't like the lay of the yard and they way it was buit up when the house was built. There is a section up by the road that is very dangerous to mow. I have to lean half off the mower to keep it from turning over and I have slid off of the thing while mowing more than once. So - what does an inexperienced, but motivated man do when he has access to a 6610 with a FED (that's a Front End Digger for those who may have missed that explanation earlier - sorry Sandman, but I have to use the tools I have - I'll be careful) and a good box blade? He reads up on TBN for a couple of days then heads out to tackle the lawn. Hee Hee. (insert humilty here -> <- )

I won't post pictures of my perfectly graded yard here 'cause that ain't what I got just yet. I knew that I would have to deal with lots o' roots just under the surface so I cranked the scarifers down and tilted the box forward to rip them up. I had a blast running around the yard popping them out. I tried to get one of the stumps out by running around it, getting all of the side roots out, then trying to yank it out with the BB. Didn't work. So I dug under it a bit with the FED. Didn't work. I repeated both steps many times. Didn't work. So I smoothed out the dirt and went on working on the other roots in the yard. Then I hit the first of what turned out to be a whole bunch of rocks. I started just kind of "trolling" for rocks. (yes I'm tearing the dickins out of my yard, but that's another story) You would not believe the pile of rocks I dug out of the yard! Most just popped up when the scarifers hit them, but I had to dig one out with the FED that was the size of a small Honda. After getting most of the larger (football sized and bigger) rocks out of the yard I started working on the crest of the yard where it dips down to the road. I was thinking I could grade down the top to make the slope a little more friendly. Several swipes back and forth made me appreciate the massive amount of work 3RRL did with his. Wow. But my appreciation for his work was just about to take a significant turn upwards. I was running down a fence line and all of a sudden my tractor turned into the fence, and I couldn't steer it out. The steering was locked up. I managed to slam on the brakes before I went through the fence, when I looked down there was hydraulic fluid spraying out all over the fence....

For anyone that may stumble across this thread new... don't be alarmed. This is pretty much to be expected for me. Thus the title of my thread. There are usually more "Uh oh's" than "Yeehaw's" when I'm in the seat.

I DO however have some pictures to show of this beauty, but I have to get them uploaded and remember how to post the thumbs again. I'll work on that tomorrow. That will give some of my buddies time to find this thread and see that I'm still alive.

Spiveyman

 

[JC-jetro]

Spive,

Glad to see you alive and kicking. keep it safe. I always enjoy reading your adventures.

JC,

 

[Spiveyman]

...and so the story begins. Not sure if anyone remembers, but a while back I kept having trouble with my steering. The solution seemed to be:
1.) Buy some power steering fluid.
2.) Pour it in.

A buddy of mine told me to put in a little brake fluid and if there was a leak that might fix it. I never figured out how that could work, and in fact, it didn't, so I kept a bottle of power steering fluid handy to top off the reservoir. Actually, I had to sell my 30-30 that I used to keep in the rifle sling on my role bar, so I kept a bottle of PS fluid in the sling. It's not as effective against coyotes as the 30-30, but kept me rolling. I always figured that some day I'd get motivated and find that leak.

Some day found me.

The good thing is that even someone as mechanically declined as me could find this leak. It was very impressive. The slightest turn of the steering wheel and fluid would spray out of the cylinder that controls the wheels.

Well, I grabbed my handy dandy bottle of fluid, and poured it in the pump. It took the whole bottle to fill it up. I started her up and headed back towards the barn. Most of the fluid sprayed out just turning around. I made it about half way back before I had no ability to turn. Funny thing about the steering on my 6610 is that if there's no fluid, there's no steering. You can spin the steering wheel to your heart's content, but she just goes straight. I walked back to the barn and got another bottle of fluid, filled it up, and tried again. The furthest I could get was the barn lot, that took two more bottles of fluid, but that was close enough for me to do what I needed to do. Here's where the fluid was spraying from:



Right around the piston as it comes out of the cylinder.

Right about here is where I really wished that we had a "phone a friend" feature on TBN. But, then 3RRL would probably get tired of me calling him up. I looked it over and decided that I could pretty much remove the entire thing and take it to someone to fix.

I realize this is pretty elementary to most of you folk, but it's all intimidating to me. (I'm saying that because at the end of this story I'm going to be very proud of myself even though it might not impress the average TBN'er, just humor me. )

First I had to disconnect the fluid hoses:


I didn't have a full set of tools, so I had to do what I could, which meant taking the hose brace off the tractor too rather than just unscrewing the hoses:


Then came the fun part. There were these HUGE nuts on either end of the cylinder. (No wise cracks there, this is still a family show.) I figured that they had to come off, and then it looked like the remaining bolt and ball joint should just slide right out, right?


Wrong. This is a 1991 tractor, and it looked like this was all original stuff. In this picture, doesn't it look like you could just lightly tap the end of that bolt and the thing would just drop out?


Well the tapping turned into full fledge sledge hammering. From previous such instances, though, I have learned, don't mess with things that have threads. I'm sure that is in some mechanical handbook somewhere. I've managed to destroy lots of stuff with threads in my day, and it's never easy to recover from. So I did phone a friend. He told me to put the nut back on the bolt and hit the nut. That would help keep from destroying that bolt. He also said to put a piece of wood between the hammer and nut to try to keep from damaging the nut. That didn't work at all. I couldn't get the bolt to budge. Finally I decided to sacrifice the nut and just beat the tar out of it. And that worked. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the nut, but it was quite funny looking. I used the same nut on both ends so I only had to replace one of them.

I took the cylinder to the local Ford/NH place and they said that the cylinder was pretty much shot. They found a rebuilt one for a couple hundred dollars and ordered it for me. Next I got to take this:

and turn it into this:


(Pat on back.)

I put the newly rebuilt cylinder back on the tractor, filled up the pump, and I was back in the saddle! To my amazement everything worked just fine. While it's not exactly like I retooled the cylinder in my garage, I did feel good that I'd found the problem, got a replacement part, and put it all back together.

So I'm off to log some more hours, and see what I can get into next. Now I don't have to keep the bottle of fluid handy, hopefully I'll have another rifle to put in the sling soon. Happy tractoring.

 

[sandman2234]

Sorry for the leak, but they happen. I can't tell from the picture just where it is leaking, but it could be the hose, or the cylinder. You will have to let us know on that. If it is a hose, just remove it and stop by a hydraulic shop (or send it to Waynecountyhydraulic) for an exact duplicate. Reinstall, add fluid, work it back and forth to get fluid/air to the right places and your back in the stump digging business. If it is the cylinder, remove it and stop by the hydraulic place and get them to give you an estimate before they start. Some places think they are worth gold, others silver. After getting the second mortgage to pay for the cylinder rebuild, reinstall and go back to digging stumps.
(Rebuild from a local shop for my steering cylinders on my JD was $40)
David from jax

 

[Spiveyman]

Hey Sandman, you snuck that post in there on me. Sorry about that. I went ahead and submitted my post when I attached the first picture to make sure that I'd done it right, then went back and finished the story. Looks like you only saw part of the post, now you can read the rest of the story. I am curious though what you got for $40???? Mine was a couple hundred!

Spiveyman

 

[texasjohn]

Hi, Spiveyman!

Good to hear of your latest adventures... always fun to hear what you are doing!

My most recent hydraulic adventure was with my back hoe... leaking at an end cap on the cylinder. Put one end in a vice and put 2 foot pipe wrench on the end cap and unscrewed the end cap... I was afraid that it would be almost impossible to unscrew but actually it was not extremely tight. The whole thing came apart rather easily.

There was a single O ring right there that was obviously busted.

I took all the parts personally to a hydraulic repair shop... fellow took one look at it, I "good 'ol boyed" with him a while and we agreed that all that seemed wrong was the busted O ring, he disappeared to the rear of the shop and was back in about 3 minutes... entire cylinder reassembled and tightened down...... "no charge, just come back when you have a hydraulic problem you need some "real" help with".

I had previously called a different repair shop and their cost was just under $200 for a repair..... while best I could determine a new one on the net was barely over that.

So, I went away very happy... and any of you Central Texas TBN'ERS... if you need hydraulic work, I can recommend a great place!!

 

[Spiveyman]

Hey texasjohn, it's been a while. How's your end of the beef business?

I was hoping it was an O ring kind of deal on mine, but the guy at the shop said that the inside of my cylinder was damaged. I suspect this had something to do with my, "buy more fluid, put it in" strategy for covering up the problem. If the cylinder walls had been in decent shape it would not have been that much to rebuild the cylinder, but they said replacing the seals would not really fix the problem. All in all it seemed like a pretty decent deal to get this other one that was already rebuilt. It was cheaper than what they quoted me to actually fix mine. Oh well, live and learn. Either way, at least my tractor is working again.

Spiveyman

 

[texasjohn]

Have put some of my beef in the freezer lately. Calving season is starting.

Yep, if walls damaged, gotta get a different one.

 

[radioman]

Well - I am not an expert, but you could try to fix it anyway for a hail mary save me part? The crack in the cylinder, do you think you could spend a few hours sanding it smooth? then get new rings for it? it might be exactly what you need to keep working for a few days if ever blows again or you need to rebuild your "new" part before it gets too bad like before ? might motivate you to save bucks in the future.

 

[Spiveyman]

You know, that is actually a really good point. However, I already tossed the old cylider. Being less "handy" than the typical TBN'er I don't really think in terms like that, as if I could take that old part and do something useful with it in the future. I guess I just kind of looked at it as worn out.