The Gator Sprayer rides again

The GatorSprayer has been one of those good ideas which don't quite work in practice. Sort of like making feed pellets or publishing a blog.

Old John Deere Gators are the roughest riding and most underpowered RTV you can find. Painting them red does not help at all.

I have been having issues with my foam markers, the auto rate controller, and FarmerGPS communicating with my Novatel Smart6L antenna. 

Yesterday I sprayed black berries and wild carrot in a small hayfield and everything worked. The Foam, GPS, rate controller, all worked, but I hit a bump and broke the cab off its mounts.

I thought I would drive around and just hit the switch when I saw weeds. I basically sprayed it all.  It was only eight acres so I did two fill ups. I have a 55 gallon tank but since I bought it surplus somewhere because it was cheap, I managed to get one that the suction connects from the side and not a sump in the middle. When I am down to ten gallons I have to spray on a hillside to empty the tank.

The problem with the foam marker was solved by wiggling wires and air hoses. I have no idea what was wrong. The problem with FarmerGPS was solved by never closing the program so I didn't have to re-enter my program code. The antenna problem was solved by asking MicroSoft CoPilot what ports Getac tablets assign to internal GPS. (Port 2) or is it Port 1? Now I forgot.  

The FarmerGPS was connecting to the internal tablet GPS which was not as accurate as the Novatel Smart6.  Once I figured out the com port issue I had usable guidance. I was actually able to use contour mode and drive in circles. Usually, it is easier to make straight lines so if the GPS drifts you still have visual references.

And now the rain will start...

THE NEXT DAY...

I had ten gallons left. So I thought I would add another ten gallons and some Vastlan and oil and spray hillsides for black berries. 

As I pulled away from the water hose the gear shift became disconnected from the transaxle which is under the bed and there is a sprayer on the bed.

Fortunately I had Mr. Pettibone who was able to double as a vehicle lift!

The Gator is now elevated to where I can reach the offending gear shift rod!

I am not the best welder but sometimes it holds.

Useful Idiot Day

When I was in college there was an entire culture dedicated to hating Ronald Reagan.  I have always trended towards anti-establishment. I spent a lot of time moving irrigation with my clever college educated cousin. I listened to the Woodstock Album. I was a little susceptible to leftist doggrel.

The girls were cute but the guys were annoying and the aging hippie professors at Chemeketa Community College were the worst. Their life peaked at what ever 1960's protest where they first got laid and now they had students to look up to them. 

What really changed my mind was talking to ordinary people in Europe in 1984 who lived next to the USSR and felt Ronald Reagan was the only thing between them and the Communist Menace.

I have been watching the No Kings protest with bemusement and irritation. Mostly, it is the idiots I know who cheer it on that annoy me. They are all the same open minded (totally self righteous), loving and tolerant, (the most close minded and intolerant people I know), and believe the science. (These people would have executed Isaac Newton if that apple had Roundup on it)

I wonder what effect the protests are having on the attitudes of those who don't say much but seemingly voted Trump into office. Especially since I voted for Trump mostly because I disliked the people voting for Hooker Harris and Dumbass Walz.

When I look at the pictures and see the Facebook posts I realize these are the people who spent their teens hating Ronald Reagan, thinking they were edgy watching the Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight, and putting down anyone who worked for a living as rednecks and hicks.

The people at the No Kings protests are the same people putting boys in the girl's room, cutting their kids tits off, and they are the reason you can no longer buy a good gas can.

These idiots willfully championed a President who imported millions of illegal immigrants and is the reason something had to be done about the problem he created.

These are the idiots who supported wearing two cloth masks outside in the open air. They locked down athletic fields and made me wear a cloth mask while mowing a ten acre field, but balked at supplying an N95 when the air was filled with smoke.

They supported the continued shut down of the world even as it became more and more apparent that skepticism was needed. That it might not be what we feared. (to put it mildly)

These people will lock you up over thought crimes, using freon in your AC, they took away your three-wheelers and they want to take away Grandpa's .22 rifle. At the same time they pump your kids full of drugs and convince them to be freaks.

If you are a freak and live in Portland you are very comfortable with the other freaks. Keep Portland Weird is your religion. Because you are a liberal idiot and know you are absolutely right in every belief, you can laugh at other people who are disgusted by your behavior. Cause you are Normal...

Don't ever buy a manufactured home

We got our tax bill from Yamhill County. Somehow we have to come up with $900.

We live in a 1998 60x35ft Mobile home. Now it is not just your run of the mill 1967 El Car trailer house. This is a "Super Good Sense," energy efficient Redman manufactured home with 2x6" construction and lots of insulation. The nice fellow from Yamhill County Tax Assessor's office said it is a Class 5 and sort of gave me the idea that I was cream o the crop as far as manufactured home go.

I said we paid $40,000 over twenty years ago and it is so old insurance companies won't touch it and they have it listed as $140,000? Plus, we don't even own the land under it. (I think that was a mistake to say)

He quoted me recent sales in mobile home parks for similar square footage and features (class 5) that were older than 1998 that sold from $125,000 to $180,000. Plus, we had a $40,000 hardship exception that reduced our assessed value. (I assume this was from my father in law living with us and now we will probably lose that one. I was evasive on that)

I looked up manufactured homes on the local manufacturer's website. I could buy a brand new Manufactured Home for $150,000-$180,000! 

Of course the scam is this... Housing shortage locally. Manufactured homes are financed like automobiles with high interest rates and credit checks. Your local Mobile Home Park has the home in place and probably is hooked up with a finance company.

According to my handy calculator app from AgDirect the payments on a $180,000 manufactured home would be a measly $2,000 a month

And there you have it folks. $2,000 a month to the finance company plus space rent so you can hit the average cost of a house rental in this area. 

If you move or default on the payments the Mobile Home park repos the house and resells it to the next sucker.

I bet you can hardly give away a manufactured home out in the wild because you have to move it and you have to finance it. 

I think we would be money ahead to just quit paying taxes on this house. If someone bought the POS at a Sheriff's auction they would have to haul it off. I could buy a new smaller one for $75,000 and build a big garage on what was left of my slab.

Or I could buy it back for less than three years worth of taxes and be in the clear.

What a scam!!!

I could replace my $175,000 used Manufactured home with a new one for $148,000 and make $20,000. Or at least I could according to may tax assessment from Yamhill County

This is my backup plan for when the wife hears about my scheme to quit paying taxes. It is 10x20 and has a Catio. I am not fond of cats but it is a bonus. Plus I can pick it up with the forklift! I better move it before the assessor tries to hit me up with a tax bill for $100,000 tiny home... Taxation is theft...

A gallery of rogues or a sale bill lineup. The Minneapolis-Molines are lined up out front

If this was our lineup in 1979, we would be pretty darn proud... 

We have been cleaning up tractors and as they get ready for fall they get lined up out front. Or they don't get cleaned up but lined up anyway because no one knew where else to park them. The M670 Super is on a mower somewhere so missed this picture.

We should be given Museum status. Possibly a grant for the preservation of 1970's farming techniques.

The fall Minneapolis-Moline line up, G1355, UTS (2), Z, M670, G706, G1000 Vista. (Not pictured but running, M670 Super)

I make an excellent deal on a Technics SL1700 in fact it turns out to be one of the best deals I have ever made on stereo equipment.

I scored the eBay deal of my life last month. 

I haven't told anyone as it was an irresponsible purchase. 

My Technics SL1700 turntable is not working correctly. I have had it apart numerous times. The dustcover is broken and one channel drops out and you have to wiggle the cord.

I was on eBay while baling, and I found a listing of one from an estate sale in Idaho. The buyer had not tested it, but from the pictures it looked pretty good. The listing was for $250 I offered him $75. But he offered it to me for $149 with shipping.

I hit "Buy it Now!"

It showed up double boxed and with old DiscWasher accessories. Stylus brush and record brush, cables, and a good dustcover.

The bonus was a Stanton 681EEE cart in like new condition!

I plugged it in and it worked flawlessly.

The Stanton is a rugged cartridge that works really well on garage sale records. I have been listening to it in my shop. Very low noise from this setup. Good tracking, very tolerant of scratches and dirty records. I need to try it on some really good records.

Stanton 681EEE is excellent pairing with my Technics SL-1700

This is the second time I played this Technics SL1700. The is a garage sale find. You can see that the tonearm lowers gently, all the functions work. I have looked higher end/more popular turntables like the AR and Thorens. I really wanted a Micro Sieki a couple years ago when they were coming out of Japan really cheap. I would say the SL1300. SL1600, and SL1700 are seriously rugged and have a good price per performance ratio. They have a heavy enough tonearm to track well on affordable records and work well with a range of cartridges. If I was getting into vinyl I would look for a used 1700 (I see them locally under $400 with cartriges) and a preamp rather than a modern turntable. I would add that the series from Technics that SL1700 comes from usually are paired with very respectable cartridges like the Stanton or Shure V15, Pickering XV-15, or Audio-Technica AT-13/14.

In my humble opinion.

Friday update, ten acres left to go! No-tilling Wheat

I have ten acres to go and I am setting in my easy chair at 7 a.m. drinking another cup of coffee.

I miss the coffee from my old job. And my friends from my old job. I also miss parts of the job. Mostly the part of being able to make mistakes and since no one actually knew what I was doing, I would still get congratulated because I accomplished a task.

If one of my openers was plugged yesterday when I was planting wheat, the farmer will see it for a year. Probably won't say anything as he is a nice guy. If half the drill wasn't planting then I will be the butt of jokes for the next five years.

I was once told to replant the soccer field because of some priority. I ran out of seed and it was almost quitting time. So I bumped up a gear and left tracks. There was so much POA that no one even noticed that I only planted half the field.

But, I digress...

I no-tilled 60 acres yesterday. Wheat into silage corn stubble. The first field was mellow and I had to be careful not to plant too deep. The second field went from mellow to concrete to mellow and then back again. I tired matching the front coulters to the conditions but then just put them down and went. I adjusted the openers down a notch to plant deeper. The second field must have been harvested in the rain and has serious compaction.

In other random news:

The tractor below showed up on my facebook feed. Only 9 were made. I wanted one of those American 80 tractors so bad back in the day. What is insane is that we would have bought two of those brand new and paid them off and made money! 

In 1989 we should have bought that tractor and a Freeman 370 baler with the Deutz engine. In 1993 we should have bought the second one and another 370. In 1998 we should have bought a New Holland 1095 balewagon.

But, hindsight is 20-20...

Farm GPS guidance was invented out of frustration with Foam Markers, also because Super Mario Cart is fun

Today was a beautiful day. It started out with frost on the windshield, was shirt sleeves by noon, and ended with it just cool enough for a fire. Of course I will not sleep tonight as the house will be too darned hot...

But, that is just a little negativity slipping in.

I ran the venerable GatorSprayer today. Old John Deere Gators are really kind of crap. No suspension and gutless. But, you think you can use it for real work because it is such a good idea.

Turning my University surplus Gator into a sprayer was very handy. Using it for a sprayer always ends badly. Using it to haul my toolbox around or give rides to Rosco usually ends well. As my dear departed mother used to say, "poor people have poor ways..."

My goal today was to spray two small hay fields and move my grain drill to my planting job. The two hay fields, which probably total ten acres, and are five miles apart are plagued with black berries. Our policy of just ignoring the black berries and hoping they will disappear on their own did not work. Trying to give the hay fields to someone else did not work. Pulling black berries in the spring is not fun and doesn't really solve the problem.

Of course the foam maker quit. I have a Salvarani Foam marker which worked really well for a year. It now buzzes and the tank pressurizes but no foam comes out. I need to disassemble it but lack the motivation.

Instead I worked on my GPS. I have a Novatel Smart 6L and the FarmerGPS bluetooth boom sensor paired with a MicroTrak MT3405F which I bought surplus and has been discontinued. It has dual displays so you can read flow rate and speed or acres or gallons at the same time.

I have a Getac tablet to run FarmerGPS and I screwed up by clicking Transfer License instead of Enter Registration. Easy to do, if you are a moron. I have to enter the registration number every time I start the program which is annoying. I have another working tablet and a Novatel SmartAg but they are paired with a different controller and I want to leave them in the grain drill tractor. It is a pain in the but to change antennas and computers and comports and USB to serial adapters in bright sunlight when you can't see what you are doing.

I loaded up the Gator and a tank of water and went to work. I am using a product called Vastlan which is a Triclopyr and not volatile like Crossbow. Is good on blackberries and broadleaf weeds. There are two many filberts and grapes to use Crossbow in my neighborhood. Of course Vastlan is really expensive...

The GPS would not work. This is a decent antenna. I laid out AB lines going East to West. I would get on a line and then the line would jump ten foot North or South and then maybe jump back or maybe just wander. I could see my track and it is only a 15 foot boom but it was quite annoying. Then I discovered my rate was off. It was stuck at high flow and trying to drive 10 mph resulted in me hitting a rut so hard I busted the cab mounts on one side. Of course the field is fertilized and cut in circles and I was going back and forth. 

My Getac tablet running FarmerGPS with my home built mount. My cab is a mess.

Finally I discovered that I had the controller set at 20 gallons per acre instead of 10 and I was overlapping. The overlap was ok because the outside spray tip kept plugging.

Then the neighbor lady wanted advice on farming her ten acres. This was ok as she is a feed customer and generally nice. I wouldn't mind redoing her pastures but it is ten acres in three fenced sections. Ouch...

The next field was five miles away. This went better as I could go in circles for most of it and then pick back and forth sections according to how the field was shaped and how well I could see my tracks. But, then I mixed up too much spray.

I finished that field at 2:30 p.m. and went home to get the drill moved. The next field was an hour away at the White 2-155's blazing top speed of 18 mph and the fact that I wanted to avoid town and a steep hill. So I took the scenic route.

The long way is better in many ways but it does have a couple miles of high traffic and slight hills and corners so it is hard to get over for traffic. I got a cautious driver behind me who would not pass. I couldn't see traffic behind her and I wanted to get to my job. When I turned off the main highway it looked like the line of cars behind me stretched for miles. I hate to be that farmer but sometimes it happens.

My wheat planting job looks like a good job. The ground is perfect. I only planted a few acres to get the drill set as I still had to empty my sprayer tank. I had added a chemical to kill Queen Ann's Lace and to also enhance the Vastlan and it required constant agitation. It was probably not a good combo.

When I got home it was near dark so the chemical probably won't work as the plants were shutting down. I have a Timothy field that has horsetail rush and blackberries invading so I decided to empty the tank there. The GPS started working. I have no idea why. 

I feel that I got quit a bit done regardless of the problems. I had to spray the blackberries before winter I just hope the field is not too streaked from my misapplication of chemicals.

I feel people in the neighborhood think I am one of those rich farmers because I have such modern equipment. Everyone should have a homebuilt Gator Sprayer and a fine pickup to haul it around with.