Texas Spring/Summer Thread

bindian · Jul 21, 2013

8/10ths of rain here again today. It woke me up again. Too wet to mow here today, after my $800 fix to my zero turn mower yesterday. 3 inches total for the last 8 days.
hugs, Brandi

robbyr · Jul 21, 2013

bindian said:
8/10ths of rain here again today. It woke me up again. Too wet to mow here today, after my $800 fix to my zero turn mower yesterday. 3 inches total for the last 8 days.
hugs, Brandi

What happened to your mower?

robbyr · Jul 21, 2013

Jinman, thanks for the recipe. Gonna try it out. I've always done my picante sauce by pulsing in a blender. Probably little over a quart at a time. Wife got one of those magic bullets last weekend so I used it instead. Imagine I'll need to halve or third your amounts. Thanks again.

Western · Jul 22, 2013

Brandi, it will probably rain for the next few days there too, since I will be trying to work in Seabrook:mur: Might as well take the time and wax the zero turn.

I bought a new Thermal Dynamics cutmaster 42 plasma cutter almost 2 weeks ago and haven't even taken it out of the box!! It is either raining, work or sleep..grrrrrrr. even ordered me a nice filter too! Still need to get a few air hose connections, but that is a short trip to the hardware store.

bindian · Jul 22, 2013

robbyr said:
What happened to your mower?

The left pump/motor transmission has been getting weaker over the last two years and had a seep. Best price I found online was $1082. My dealer had installed one on another customer's mower and he did not pick up the mower with a $1400 repair bill on it. So to recoup some cost, my dealer said I could have it for $800 or a new one for $925 plus tax. I chose the $800 route and used his shop's lift and air (and fan) to remove the transmission that was installed last September and has just sat.

I cut some donuts Saturday, just before dark, after getting all the linkages adjusted and tuned just right. I spun so fast to the left I felt being thrown off. It's like a new $6,000 mower now!

So with the rain, I was rained out. My son will mow this afternoon with it.
hugs, Brandi

CowboyRon · Jul 22, 2013

bindian said:
The left pump/motor transmission has been getting weaker over the last two years and had a seep. Best price I found online was $1082. My dealer had installed one on another customer's mower and he did not pick up the mower with a $1400 repair bill on it. So to recoup some cost, my dealer said I could have it for $800 or a new one for $925 plus tax. I chose the $800 route and used his shop's lift and air (and fan) to remove the transmission that was installed last September and has just sat.

I cut some donuts Saturday, just before dark, after getting all the linkages adjusted and tuned just right. I spun so fast to the left I felt being thrown off. It's like a new $6,000 mower now!

So with the rain, I was rained out. My son will mow this afternoon with it.
hugs, Brandi

I got rained out too, now the grass is too tall at my work for the zero turn. I will have to haul my mahindra to cut the field.
What kind of zero turn do you have Brandi?

jinman · Jul 22, 2013

robbyr said:
Jinman, thanks for the recipe. Gonna try it out. I've always done my picante sauce by pulsing in a blender. Probably little over a quart at a time. Wife got one of those magic bullets last weekend so I used it instead. Imagine I'll need to halve or third your amounts. Thanks again.

I forgot the most important thing even after all my edits.:confused2: You have to cook the sauce s-l-o-w-l-y until it is reduced in volume by 1/3 to 1/2. That takes a long time. In my case, 5 to 6 hours. If you don't do that, your sauce will be watery and have no body. That's why a lot of people opt for canned sauce and tomato paste with a can of diced tomatoes to make chunks. Cooking from raw tomatoes is a slow and tedious process. Salsa or pico de gallo can be quick, but spaghetti sauce is slow and low on the heat, letting it simmer for hours. Even with all my "rules" for sauce, I don't think I've ever made sauce twice that it wasn't different in taste. My recipe is not tight in its contents.

It's been dry long enough that I have to start watering my garden and yard again today. By the middle of the week, we are supposed to be in triple digits again. Hot has returned.

bindian · Jul 22, 2013

CowboyRon said:
I got rained out too, now the grass is too tall at my work for the zero turn. I will have to haul my mahindra to cut the field.
What kind of zero turn do you have Brandi?

Ron,
It's a 52 inch Hustler Fastrac with an 18 hp Honda engine.
hugs, Brandi

C4Ranch · Jul 22, 2013

Wow, just got back from checking out our place to see how much rain we got and was shocked to see all 3 tanks totally full. Up 6-9'!!! Yep feet. GOD sure answered a lot of prayers!

jinman · Jul 23, 2013

Brandi, I think you got a darn good deal on that transmission. Did the dealer indicate that they are problematic? HST type transmissions are usually very reliable. Approximately how many hours were on your old one? It sounds like many other HSTs as far as repair. They don't sell replacement parts, only the whole unit as an assembly. Still, a whole HST for under $1k ain't bad. Even high-dollar things fail. . . like nose gears on 737s.

I gotta get to the garden before it gets too hot. I promised my brother I'd bring him a goody bag of veggies today, so I have to go pick some fresh stuff for him and water anything that's gasping in this heat.

C4Ranch: Indeed! Your prayers and many others have been answered by this rain. We have more predicted this coming weekend. I put down a load of gravel on my dams and cleaned out a drainage ditch yesterday. I had not started my New Holland LB75B TLB in over a month. I put the key in and it instantly fired off. I sure love this big ol' machine, and it has been and is serving me well.