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

jimmyj · Jan 28, 2010

I always find your posts interesting Spiveyman. Not always happy but you sure have a lot of experiences!!

Spiveyman · Jan 29, 2010

jimmyj said:
...Not always happy but you sure have a lot of experiences!!

That's a very delicate way to put that!

Thanks.

Yeah, I get into my share of "experiences" for sure. Reminds me of a few quotes. When I was running the beef buisness I would always look for fun western quotes to put at the bottom of recipe cards and other materials that we'd give out. A few of these really hit home with me:

"There are three kinds of people: The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. And the rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves."

I'll just let you all guess which kind of person I am.

But I suppose we all aspire to be that first kind of person - thus the draw of TBN. That could kind of be like the TBN motto - "We're here for those who are the third kind, but want to be the first."

Then there's the quote that's pretty much the antitheses of TBN:

"When youre tryin' somethin' new, the fewer people who know about it, the better."

Instead of heading this bit of wisdom not only do we share our new experiences with everyone on the internet, but we usually document our "fun" with pictures or video!

And lastly, about all of those "experiences" I seem to have, here's one that gives me hope, and I offer it to the rest of you:

"Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment."

At this rate, can you imagine the amount of good judgement I'm building up?!?!

Spiveyman

texasjohn · Jan 30, 2010

To mis-paraphrase an old saying..."Here come the judgment, here come the judgment!

Hang in there, spiveyman, you will soon be just as judge-full as the rest of us

sandman2234 · Jan 30, 2010

Rule number one, never, never, NEVER throw anything away that might even remotely fit a tractor!
Rule number two, if you run out of space, NEVER throw anything away that might fit a tractor.
As far as my $40 experience, I removed my right side steering cylinder, along with the WHOLE right side of the front axle. (two wheel drive model). I couldn't get the end of the cylinder loose, and didn't want to ruin a nut (or worse) removing it. I carried the entire unit up to a local hydraulics repair place that normall isn't open on Saturday, but the guy I talked to said he would be at the shop that morning, and come on down. I got there, and he laughed about me bringing the half axle, but took one look at my un-opened bag of John Deere parts and said that probably wouldn't fit anyway. (I agreed which is why the bag hadn't been opened, expecting to need to return them to JD.) He rummaged around a few minutes, brought out the right size parts, took 3 minutes to disasemble my cylinder (welded on end caps) and had it rebuilt in less time than it took for me to walk to the truck to get my walllet. He quoted me the price, I paid, and left. The next week the other side went out in exactly the same manner. Remembering the statement he had made about coming out to my house and rebuilding the other one if needed, I made a call and the following Saturday he came to my house, rebuilt it on the tractor, and charged me the same $40. I gave him a $10 tip, plus a case of beer. (I don't drink and a friend gets a case a month as a company benefit) so we use it for "trading materials)
Glad you got it back running!!!
After my last couple of days moving 5 truckloads of dirt to the back yard with a pond scoop, I considering coming out there and stealing that front end loader off your tractor!!!
David from jax

Spiveyman · Jan 31, 2010

sandman2234 said:
Rule number one, never, never, NEVER throw anything away that might even remotely fit a tractor!
Rule number two, if you run out of space, NEVER throw anything away that might fit a tractor...
David from jax

Uh oh. I am in SERIOUS violation of rule #1. My grandpa however must have chartered the rule. There was so much stuff in the barn that I could not even begin to identify when I bought that farm. I haven't gotten rid of all of it, but I did some major cleaning. I actually rented one of those huge dumpsters that is almost the size of a tractor trailer. I filled it up... TWICE

with old stuff from the house and the barn. Most of it was bona fide junk, although I'm sure there were some things the TBN faithful would have appreciated. I just didn't have the time or patience to sift through it all. HOWEVER, I plan to be moving back out to the farm in the next few months, and when I do will resume my cleaning up of the place to make it inhabitable. Since you were so kind as to enlighten me as to rules 1 and 2, if I find anything good, I'll set it aside with your FEL, and you can pick it all up when you come get that. Deal?

sandman2234 · Jan 31, 2010

I learned that rule one saves a bunch of money on a regular basis.
Before sending anymore of that "JUNK" to the scrapyard, you might seriously consider taking a few pictures and posting them, or better yet, send them to me. I come from a long line of junk collectors and some serious money has been made from objects found in purchased properties. My daughter still has a 1956 Daffey Duck comic book picked up out of a stack in an old house my Dad purchased. Mint condition, because when she asked for one, he reached down and grabbed one a few down so it wouldn't have the stains from sitting all those years. Mint condition and she is proud of it. Out of that same house came several neat items, such as a couple of kids "peddle cars" and ICE chests.
One mans junk is another mans treasures, so identify it before you send it to the scrap yard. (you did sell the junk, as opposed to paying somebody to haul it off, right!!)
David from jax

Spiveyman · Apr 6, 2010

Howdy all. I am slowly but surely getting to my project of removing those stumps. What I wouldn't give for a back hoe, but in the mead time... for a sneak preview here's a little thread I just started to pay tribute to Markham Welding:
How can you tell if your toothbar is made in KY?

So here's the project:

That's my front yard as it looks today. Sorry that I don't have great before/after shots. There's a "crown" to the yard as it goes out towards the road. One that is not comfortable mowing on. I have slid off my mower twice (thank goodness the mower never turned over) and am not real happy about that. So I decided to regrade the yard (inspired by 3RRL). The only problem is that there was about 8 trees planted randomly right on the crown. The roots have to come out before I can regrade the yard. I cut down the trees and now have to get the roots out.

In the absence of a back hoe I am using a mattox and my FED. The first rootball (maple tree) took me about 5 hours to dig out. Granted I'm not very good at this and didn't really know what I was doing, but I got it. The second took about 45 mins, but was a pretty wimpy rootball. Not really sure what the difference was.

By the way, the steering cylinder that I just replaced is leaking like crazy. Already had to put another whole bottle of power steering fluid in, but I'll deal with that when I get around to it.

Then I came to the mother of all root systems. I have no idea what kind of tree was there. Don't even remember what it looked like, but the roots are rediculous. The base of the tree didn't seem that big, but the roots are HUGE! I started digging around the thing and couldn't get anywhere. I was uncovering roots 12" in diameter, about 6 of them coming out of this stump and a million or so of every size smaller. I spent two days digging on that thing with my tractor and a mattox by hand. I broke off nearly every tooth on my bucket, but finally got it out of there. Here's the toothbar:

When I can afford it I'm going to replace it with a Markham. I've also decided that I'm only going to take out the stumps that I have to. The rest that are in the middle of the yard I'm just going to burry when I regrade the lawn. They have already been ground down, so it won't take much to cover them up.

It'll be a little while before I get to the actual grading part. I have a fence that I want to take out as well, and in the mean time we hope to be moving into the house soon, so I also have to do major renovations to the inside of the house. All in time...

EddieWalker · Apr 6, 2010

Sure sounds like you are keeping busy and have a list of things to do. I think it's better to have a bunch of stuff to do then nothing to do, but then I've never had nothing to do, and don't know what that's like.

It is crazy how two exact trees just a short distance apart can be night and day in how their roots are. I don't cut my trees down anymore because the rootball is so hard to get out. When I did do that, I really struggled with them on my backhoe, and never want to do that again. I know it's too late for you now, but if you ever have the choice, take the tree out wholeand let the weight of the tree take out the roots all at once.

Keep on plugging at it. One at a time is better then none.

Eddie

Spiveyman · Apr 6, 2010

Thanks Eddie. Your comments were some of the first I read on TBN about tree removal. I was thoroughly convinced that whole tree removal with a back hoe is the best way to do it. I just figured that without the back hoe there was no other way than cut and dig. However, I have two trees left on that stretch by the road and I'm going to try to get clever and see if I can get them out that way with the tools I have.

Speaking of the "tools I have" - this is for sale just down the road from my farm.

Sorry for the bad picture, I snapped that with my phone. It ain't much to look at, but I wish I could have taken it for a "test drive" to see if I wanted it. I bet I could have made short order of those stumps and remaining trees with this. Eddie, it reminded me of the bull dozer you used for your lake. Just curious, but how much of a nightmare do you think it would be to buy something really used like this one. I don't know how much they are asking or what kind of condition it is in. I'm not the mechanic most of you all are out there in TBN world. I can't even weld (yet). So it's a tad scary to me.

Have any of you had luck buying old stuff like this for projects, or is it just better to rent one each time you decide you want to start a project?