The Useful Duck!

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Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Some photos and my birthday

Happy birthday to me...
Several people have complemented me on the outstanding job I have done on the soccer field. My supervisor is the one who insisted on overwatering it and that is why it is green during the driest summer in years.
I am the one who drives straight and who has not sprayed out the fence rows, cleaned the bark dust beds, or sprayed the weeds in the gravel parking lots.

I talked my brother into buying a combine. The diesel fuel injector pump promptly failed after two days of use. It sat for another three week. It has an odd pump. There are a million International DT-466 based engines and only a few of them have a not usually stocked injector pump.

I have 300 acres to plant and on the last field of straw the PTO catastrophically failed on my planter tractor and it is stranded in a field not that close to home. No hydraulics, no PTO, no brakes, no steering and a painful grinding noise. Hopefully it is just the coupler between the engine and PTO shaft. Whatever it is the minimum is one day to pull engine and three days to put it back in.

Yesterday I discovered the irrigation manager didn't turn off the irrigation on the practice field and golf green like I suggested Friday before the rain. The supervisor didn't tell him to do it. I turned it off  yesterday at quitting time. Today i didn't get stuck.

I was going to have a birthday party as Flying Pig Fiddle and Banjo is somewhere in Oregon and I have a work-study student that plays old time fiddle. I decided to just work on tractors instead. Probably for the best...

I made these barn door roller hinge things for my wife. She is building something.

My daughter found Isaac Asimov's "The Robots of Dawn" at a second hand book store and gave it to me for my birthday present. I can't read it as the print is too small.
My lovely and gracious wife got me some SK brand metric tubing wrenches. They are very nice.
Starbucks gave me a free cup of coffee. It was also nice. The barista gave me a smile and several kind words. I gave her a tip.
I suppose it was a good day...

6 comments:

  1. Its way past my bed time but I had to stay up a bit longer to read a new post from the lazy farmer. Your wife has good taste in tools. My flare nut wrenches are made in Taiwan or somewhere and I have already broken one. That combine should be a good one. (Its much like mine.) Except for the fuel pump issue. Happy Birthday.

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  2. Happy birthday, Budd. Some are more memorable than others; aren't they?

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  3. The rare injector pump might be one of the reasons it was at a price you could afford.

    Grace and peace.

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  4. Darn! I forgot. I'll try to remember next year. Happy late birthday!

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  5. Heard Flying Pig Fiddle & Banjo got waylaid by a gang of Ukelele babes and spent a night that went into tomorrow drinking adult beverages and playing evil old-time tunes somewhere in McMinnville...pretty sure it will happen again next year. Bring tractor parts and candles.

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  6. i have one of those page size print enlargers.
    ask for one for Christmas. a bit awkward to use but more relaxing than squinting.
    i have noticed that library books' printing grows smaller as the books sit on the shelf. possible age-related shrinkage.
    read one published in 1950 the other day and almost needed a microscope to read it.

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