The Nephews Buy A truck and I cut hay. Over achievers are we...

The Nephews have been jonesing for a truck since they got their first Tonka Toy.

Finally, through the wonders of online auctioneering and possibly the poor judgement that accompanies that aforementioned anonymous pleasure that is the downfall of so many farmers, they are now the proud owners of a Ford LN9000 crane truck.

The new truck devours my nephew... It was a little tight getting to the battery!

 

Its a beauty!

We went and looked at it before bidding. The batteries were completely dead and the auction yard was unable to start the truck. Without starting it was impossible to lift the hood so you could only kick the tires.

Nephew crawled under the hood and was able to check the oil with was perfectly clean. The auction company claimed it was an 8 spd but it was a Fuller with a blue knob and a red flipper so that means 13 spd. It also had a fifth wheel plate mounted and a frame long enough for a dump bed.

I did look up the vin and other information and discovered that it was a special order heavy truck and most likely had a big cam Cummins 400 and a 9 or 13 speed Fuller. Crane trucks and Low Boy trucks often have lower miles and are on a regular service schedule with a big company and often are good buys. Or so we rationalized. 

We set a price and someone went just a we bit more. As will happen...

So yesterday we went after it. Took a generator and a battery charger and just let it charge for a while. I knew it was going to be a good day when the generator hit the tailgate, knocked the tail gate open, dumped charger and generator onto Highway 18. While there are a few scratches, now the electric start feature works on the generator! I am very happy with that development as I did not spend the extra $50 for the Harbor Freight extended warranty and the electric start failed after one year and three days. Aside from a wee bit of embarrassment, I would classify this a pennies from heaven, but then I am an optimist.

But I digress...

We got it started. Fired right up with minimal smoke and then cleaned up pretty fast. Might have a ticking fan blade. Pretty sure it is not in the engine. After moving the crane out of the way we discovered that the truck had been setting so long the hood hinges had corroded stuck. (Aluminum with steel pins.) 

It is not quite Minneapolis-Moline Energy Yellow. I feel the color will grow on us. The crane is cool, it is a shame to sell it.

 

No turn signals but the brake lights worked. So we drove it home.  

Truck ran great! Blinkers actually worked twice on the way home so I feel more success is in our future. 

Major Bonus! The turn signals may not actually work but deer will not cross in front of this truck. I have always wanted one of these devices but never actually have seen one in the wild

 

After playing with the crane briefly...

I hooked the mower to the Vista and cut hay. Have not run the Vista in 20 years. Nephew fixed the brakes and hydraulic pump issues. I think the mechanic nephew also worked on setting the oil pump pressure last summer.  

We have ten days of warm weather but it is April 30. This is not the time of the year when you cut hay in western Oregon.

I cut five acres of Clover that was getting a lot of radish blooming and a field of Timothy that was full of annual ryegrass and wild carrot. Hopefully the Timothy will get serious about growing and I will get a crop of hay in a month when it will probably be raining...

I really just want to keep cutting but I have not even attempted to start the stacker yet this years so I don't know. 

 

Sunday Morning with Rick Steves and Seeder Meters

Sadie is at a friend's house. We may skip Church today. We like to watch Rick Steves Sunday morning. He goes all the places we can't afford to go. Today he was talking Turkey. After reading about the Islamic massacre of the Armenians it was mildly amusing to watch Rick tiptoe around it. It was sad to see the loss of some interesting cultures due to Islamifiacaion which is probably like desertificaiton. But I don't really know how to spell...

We just discovered we are going to the Northwest Ag Show. Dad was going to skip it this year. But, he got confused and paid his space rental. I have to come up with a new catalog this year. I have never figured out how to do this. Dad sells moisture testers for hay and soil and seed. Plus, what ever else he finds interesting like devices that count the number of strokes per hay bale, compost thermometers, pH meters, soil compaction meters and what ever else.
Somehow I need to get my wife excited about it. She is the expert in layout and design.
I want to buy some Seeder-meters to sell. See www.acuscale.com.
Dave Berckes who is a farmer in Minnesota came up with a balance scale to figure out grain test weights. He also invented my favorite which is a balance scale for calibrating your grain drill. Every farmer needs at least one of these. You drive a measured distance while collecting the seed from one opener. (take the seed tube off the opener and put a bucket under it) You dump the seed in the cup on the balance scale, then move the little weight till the bubble level in the weight reads level. There is your lbs/acre. The distance you drive is determined by your drill spacing. I think my 7 1/2" spacing is 235 feet. It is easy to measure with my Calc-an-acre. It is harder to use when planting grass seed as it doesn't weigh enough, and the lbs per acre are so low that it doesn't register accurately. But-you can just drive 10x as far. I usually just fake it, but don't tell any of my customers. Hey...it always comes out right....

The Sun shining on 1/2" of Water in the field

I got my field planted...
If I were not such a lazy farmer I would get out of my armchair and get my camera. I could yell at me wife to do it and if I said "please" there is a really good chance she would, because she is a happy and helpful person. But, i hate to push that. Perhaps I'll try for another cup of coffee from her, and see if I can talk her into fixing me something really good for breakfast.
I'll try psychology.
"Those were really good sausages we had yesterday," said I.
"Those were really fatty," she says.
No such luck.
I'm eating the heel of a loaf of bannana bread.
"Are you saving this foil for something else," she says.
"Yes," I reply.
So much for psychology...
S. has two basket ball games and we have a wedding to attend. I should not try amature psychology on my longsuffering wife under such circumstances.
She grew up in the city. Her father was home evenings and weekends.
I am often gone even though we live on the farm now.
I always work on Saturdays.
When I don't work I am tired and often grumpy and I never get stuff repaired around the house.
In my imagination farms are like the Marx farmsets from the 1960's.
Barn full of cows, chicken house with chickens, a little Minneapolis-Moline 335 for a tractor, four kids. That sort of thing.
Have you ever been in a barn stuffed to the rafters with hay? Especially if you worked your bottom off stuffing that hay in to the rafters. And you picked up the hay in the field with a 1949 Studebaker and a 1942 Chevy truck....
It is the middle of winter and cold outside. But the cows keep the barn warm. There is a warm yellow light from the old incandescent lightbulbs screwed into the dusty white porcelain fixtures. You can smell a comforting mixture of grass hay and molassas and just enough of a faint hint of cow crap that you know you are not just waking up to a breakfast of hot oatmeal, (unless you actually live in a barn).
When you open the old barn door you hear the squeek of the pulley on the counterweight. Someone had a good idea 40 years ago. When the cows hear the squeek they all start talking at one. They know it is feeding time. You climb the stack and kick down a couple bales of grass hay. The hay is so green inside and the smell of summer comes out of the bale. You fork the hay into the manger, you get a five gallon bucket of oats and screenings, and then top it all with a dribble of molassas. The cows are all happy and chewing away. You can hear the sound of 20 cows all chewing at once. There are some snorts and sniffles and cows playfully butting each other. If you stick your head over the manger a curious cow will stick her head up and give you a watery sniff and sometimes stick out her tongue. Of course as soon as she lifts her head, her neighbor dives into her spot as she is sure that there is something better next to her.
The chickens are all asleep as it is dark out. When you open the door you hear a faint murmer of clucking. They know it is breakfast time as well. The eggs are still warm when you pick them up. You have to watch old mamma hen who wants to set. She will peck you if she gets the chance. Sometimes the water is frozen and you have to pour hot water on the waterer to thaw it out. You fork some clean straw in and the more adventurous chickens start scratching for seeds.
By now it is light out and you have to make a run for the house, get your school clothes on and make it to the school bus on time.
We don't have cows. We don't put hay in the barn by hand. The barn is full of stuff we can't throw away. We burn the bad hay. The kids watch cartoons in the morning.
I don't feel like getting up early.
Progress I suppose.
 So I wrote all that and realized what I wrote didn't match the post title.
My lovely wife brought me poached eggs and toast. But, no coffee. I don't have the nerve to ask.
I finished the field I was so worried about. Sadie and I went out yesterday morning and we just fired up the White 2-155 and put the drill down and went.
We had to use the 4wd pickup to get to the field. There was a 1/2" of water on parts of the field and the sun was shining. I have some photos but I left the camera in the pickup. Every opener was plugged with bits of straw from the combine run oats. I pretended I didn't see it. The no-till coulters were working the ground enough that the harrow covered up the loose seed that spilled freely out of the seed cups. There was only four acres left plus another four acres of headlands. The field was two foot tall wheat stubble, probably 130 bushel yield, cut with a 20 foot header. There were windrows. I realized why I bought the Great Plains drill. It all flowed through, didn't plug, the air-design scrapers worked perfectly. I didn't look at seed depth. I didn't see any seed on top of the ground.
We got it done. It was a little slimy on the headlands.
There there was the delemia of getting the tractor out of the field. I needed to move the drill home but S. is only 7 years-old and shouldn't be driving on the highway. I put the truck in 4wd. S. drove the truck and followed me. It was pretty slick getting the tractor and drill out but S. did really well in the truck. Once on the highway I went back and shifted the truck into 2wd and put the flashers on. Sadie followed me down the highway several hundred yards to the farm grain tanks. She did very well. She is a careful driver.
Then we went to the cafe for lunch. We are farmers!
The drill is absolutely covered in mud. A good two hour wash job.