Friday, June 1, 2012

Oops!


      Starting a new project, particularly one that flies into the face of convention, there are hurdles and setbacks.  The first operation, the destruction of the grass, is done.  So, here is a look at some of the “oops” that I faced.


      Here’s one of the first oops.  This is what we found upon arrival at the farm.

      Here’s what it looked like where and when we left.



           And where and when we loaded the plow.



     It was about a 175 mile trip, so we combined the plow-hauling with appliance-hauling, a stove and refrigerator headed for the farm.  And the piano.  Part of borrowing the pickup-trailer combination, and the valued assistant WM (WM=Wildman=accurate nickname), was that I had to take an old player piano housed in WM’s basement for the past 30 years.  The piano was to go to the shop, but oops!



    We were lucky to get it to the garage in the front yard.  Stove and refrigerator ended up in the garage, too.  No access to back yard, back door, or shop.

    Another natural Oops! besides rain and snow,  rubber-loving rodents.


 
    It’s good something likes old tires, maybe.  Too bad they never seem to get the ones in the fence row, just the ones on an implement or one protecting a new tree.  Steel wheels had some advantages.

        The most expensive Oops!

 
      The 40 year old tires stood up to the chisel operation, but bouncing over the chisel rows did them in.  The hernia is at the very bottom of the tire.


     Help is at hand—to the tune of nearly $1000 per tire (ended up putting on four, two for each tractor.  Ouch.) 
     The tire man earned his paycheck.  Each tire holds twenty gallons of calcium chloride, used for ballast.  The ruptured tire-tube broke when he was pumping the solution out of the tire and he got a bath in nasty stuff.  Fortunately, a water hydrant nearby cleared him of the deed.

 
      All better.
     The old tires were old in 1989, the last time the tractors were used extensively.  They were on the tractors when we bought them in the ‘70’s.  So I  better not complain.  Anyway, both old tractors are now "retired".  



    

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