The calendar says
May. The furnace doesn’t get it. Mother Nature iced the landscape to honor all
the mothers.
Somewhere under
the white is a lonely tomato plant. I
was reminded that it was out there when the neighbor kid was out in his
backyard in shorts and hoody putting baskets and buckets and barrels over
plants.
I clumped out into
the backyard in my farmer buckle overboots to nestle a jug of water next to the
tomato plant. I put a card board box
over the pair.
It was snowing and the wind had come up. The old blue tarp was handy, so I threw it
over the box. The aspen branch was even
handier and promised to defeat the wind’s attempts to huff and puff and blow
away the flimsy shelter.
The Local
Conditions site says the low was 30 degrees.
They are calling for mid-twenties tonight, so guess the tomato will stay
housed for awhile.
Meanwhile, back at the farm. . . . By Friday morning, the rain gauge registered
nearly an inch and a half for the week.
I have yet to check the gauge for the weekend results.
Local Conditions
report a low of 26 with the projection of mid-twenties again tonight. Only time will tell if the wheat can weather
those lows at this stage of development.
Moisture is no longer a problem, anyway.
The old Ford
tractor underwent a delving into its bowels.
The three point hitch arms have never responded correctly to the depth
gauge / lift lever. The lift arms are
supposed to correspond to the position of the control lever. If the lever is halfway up, the arms should
be half way up, and stay there.
It has never
worked that way. Keeping the mower at
the right height is a constant worrying of the control lever. Sometimes the mower blades will be digging
the dirt. Other times, the mower deck
will be raised so high it will be hitting the rear tractor tires, all with the
same setting on the control lever.
According to “the
book” those problems can all be fixed by replacing gaskets and rings and the
pressure relief valve. So apart it came.
Here’s what the hydraulic system looks like,
just in case you wanted to know. It’s
amazing how simple it is. It’s all right
under the seat.
It’s also amazing
that you can still find parts for the old feller. The place I called had the gasket set in
stock. The rings and the valve are still
available but had to be ordered. Parts
should all be in this week.
Then the usual $64,000
question: will I get it back together
and working right? (Any idiot can tear
something apart. It takes a mechanic to
get it back together.)
The wet weather
gives me a little time to get it done. But
when the sun comes out and it warms up, tractor and mower will be in high
demand.
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