Harvest 2018

      It didn’t amount to much.

     I did a lot of worrying unnecessarily.  Not too much unusual about that.  Worrying about what to do for a grain bin. Should have been the least of my worries.

     Will I need help getting bin ready, setting up auger, etc.?   Needn’t have worried about that.  Wil I be ready when the wheat is ready?  (No, but it didn’t matter.)  What’ll I do if it rains and the weeds starting to grow between the wheat rows get big and gross?  Rain?  What rain?

      But there was a flip side.  Everything went right for a change.  All the old engines fired up without too much difficulty. 

     When I put water in the combine radiator, it began to leak somewhere.  I thought , “Oh, no.”  I decided to start it up and move it out into the sun light where I could see what was going on. 

     Miraculously, when I started the engine (I had to prime the electric fuel pump to get the engine going), the leak stopped.  It was the water pump.  Oh yes, I remember.  The last time I used it, two years ago, it leaked all the antifreeze out and I had to use water for coolant.

   Maybe the water pump seal healed itself with a little liquid and some heat.  But no, as soon as I shut off the engine, the water came dribbling out a leak hole in the bottom of the water pump housing. 

     Thereafter, a ritual ensued.  Start the engine, run  around, climb the ladder, and dump two gallons of water into the radiator.  As long as the engine was running, nothing leaked.  Shut the engine off, and two gallons of water would leak out.  I could live with that, feeling I would have the devil’s own time trying to find a water pump or seal for a 50-year-old combine.

      To get everything ready, I had to use the Ford tractor to extricate the header from the red barn.  The Ford had been running a bit rough lately.  Anticipating that I would need it to run the grain auger, I took the carburetor off and cleaned it out by blowing compressed air through all the apertures I could find.

      It ran after I remounted the carburetor.  It didn’t want to start when I was ready to get the header out a few days later.  After a few head scratches, I figured I must have flooded it with too much choke.  It took off and the header on its trailer was soon in position to go onto the combine.  (“Position” meaning the left trailer wheel has to be in a low spot to allow the combine to raise the header high enough to clear the trailer tire.)

      I was able, with a minimum of backing and readjusting, to get the header and the combine together. Both trucks fired right up.  The swather took some patience, but it too started and crawled out of the way. (I didn’t take my two-year-old grandson’s advice to put the swather in the building before the combine so I wouldn’t have to start the swather every year.)

      The combine had a few issues which could have been serious.  The double pulley that controls the ground speed started squealing and clacking, suggesting a bearing failing.  I tried applying a little oil and it quieted down. 

      Going through light wheat at top speed over rough ground was hazardous to the sickle and the reel.  I had to take a link out of reel-drive chain to keep it from jumping off.  When the reel drive belt jumped off, I spent a few minutes with a Chinese puzzle, trying to figure out how it went around the four pulleys.

     I made two trips to town with the Dodge truck.  The brakes worked!  (Thanks to $300+ of brake booster repair)  No waiting, no problems.  The Genoa terminal has added a row of big steel bins north of the office, including a new outdoor pit to dump into.  A new scale is in the works but not yet functional.  When the new scale is functional, a truck driver will weigh the emptied truck, grab the scale ticket from the machine and be on her way.

     I didn’t have to wait in line.  They actually dumped a semi in the old elevator as I dumped my second load.  Too bad they didn’t have all that storage two years ago when we had some real wheat.

       I began harvesting the afternoon of the fourth, Wednesday, and finished Saturday afternoon, the seventh. It went pretty fast once I got everything ready and got to the field. 

     While it wasn’t a yield to brag about, it was another victory for the ancient ones, including equipment and operator.

   

Organic Certification Time

      June comes to an end, the longest day of the year has come and gone, the days get uncomfortably hot, the wheat starts to turn from green to gold, bringing with it harvest anxiety.  It also brings the organic inspector.

      Two years ago, the inspector came as I was emptying the grain bin in preparation for the 2016 harvest. I had to take three or four hours out of my day to visit with him.  As we sat going page by page through the voluminous application I had filled out in February, I couldn’t help but think of the things I should be doing, namely, hauling wheat.

     It wasn’t a problem last year, because there was no wheat harvest.  I did have a bin full of wheat, but I had until September to dispose of the wheat and prepare for millet harvest.

      I was getting a little worried as of last week when I hadn’t heard from the CDA (Colorado Department of Agriculture).  I had their letter saying my application, filled out in January this year, had been found acceptable and an inspector would be getting in touch with me.  It wouldn’t be the first time I had somehow disappeared from their oversight.

      In 2015, I called finally in August to ask about my organic certificate, which had not arrived.  I seemed to catch them by surprise.  Three weeks later, I got my certificate in duplicate, first via email, then by US Mail. 

      When I was doing my taxes for 2015, I couldn’t find a fee for the inspector’s services.  I emailed the inspector, and a week later, I got the bill.  Somehow, I dropped out of sight that year.

      My worries about the inspection came to an end on Monday when an inspector telephoned me to ask if she could come for a visit on Friday.  That’s right.  She.     

     I asked what happened to Mark.  She said they like to have different people look at different operations, so a new inspector.

     On Friday morning, she called about 8:15 and said she was leaving the pavement for the gravel roads.  Our appointment was for 9:00, but I told her she could come earlier if she wished.

     When she arrived, I asked her where should we start.  She suggested we take a tour of the operation while it was still cool.  I said we should take my pickup, since we would cover some rough ground.

      I apologized for the state of the old 4 X 4’s interior.  She laughed.  She said she grew up in Montana in a community the size of Woodrow.  Then I laughed.

      We took a 20-30 minute tour of the place.  She wasn’t a bit worried if the runoff from the pasture could enter the wheat field.  “You can use manure for fertilizer,” she said. 

      I told her about the time the cattle got out and into the wheat as I was working on the combine.  I called Amy, then the head of the organic department, who asked how long they were in there.  When I said about 30 minutes, she said not a problem, don’t worry about it.

      My riding companion shrugged that off, too.  She pointed out that I couldn’t keep the deer out of the field.  Boy is that the truth.

      We looked at the wheat, still a green tint, hail damage apparent.  I took her to the “border” and pointed out the buffer zone between Jim and me.  She wanted to know why I harvested the buffer zone first, because that meant an extra cleaning of the equipment.  (She revealed that she was quite familiar with my application.)   “Most people do it last.  That way, they don’t have to clean the equipment.”

       I pointed out that I don’t have a moisture tester, so harvest the buffer zone, clean the combine off, not much of problem after only two or three bin loads, cut enough for “purging” what I couldn’t get out with compressed air and haul it to town where I could get an accurate moisture test.  If it should happen to be too wet for safe bin storage, the elevator was stuck with it, not me.

      Her turn to laugh again.  “Method to your madness,” she said. 

     I took her north to the windtower road and east to old number 119, the furthest east machine.  She observed that two of the three windmills are located in the CRP.  I indicated where the MET tower used to be and how much of a relief it was not to have to navigate the guy wires, especially with one eye.

      We returned to the house.  She wanted to see where I stored my chemicals.  We had to navigate the interior of the shop.  I apologized for that.  No worries she said.  She seemed satisfied that the chemicals are all in Orrie’s green cabinet where I can lock them up when the grandkids visit. 

     I warned her that I was for all intents and purposes, a bachelor at this location, that she shouldn’t expect pristine housekeeping as we returned to the house to do the paper work.  She reminded me she was a Montana girl, not to worry.  So I didn’t.

     Her laptop was hooked to another screen, so I could see what she was doing on her keyboard.  We zipped through my application.  I had most of my paperwork handy.  She took a quick look at all my clean-equipment affidavits, which was pretty lengthy since it included all of Jim’s equipment used to plant and harvest the millet crop.

     One of the demerits I got last year was for having no documentation for a clean grain bin.  I wasn’t sure I had done that for Jim’s bin, but there it was when I leafed through the paper.

      I had to go to my laptop to find the planting date for the 2016 wheat crop.  That I could find it made her happy—documentation kept and available.  The wheat was an item since I sold it in 2017, since the last inspection.  I have to keep records so that my harvested grain balances with the disposal of that grain.

       She asked if I had grain receipts.  I had those from the trucker that hauled the organic stuff.  I said I could find weigh tickets for that I sold on the “conventional” (as opposed to organic) market.  I said I could probably find them if I dug deep.  “Dig deep, if you don’t mind,” she said.

      I went to the file cabinet where Granny had wheat weigh slips in a file so labeled, some going back to the 1970’s.  I dug out all the 2016 receipts.  She leafed through them and that was that.  In other inspections, we did all the math, including how much for seed, how much sold or given away in buckets.

       When I told her I probably hadn’t sold or given away more than four or five bushels, she said we didn’t have to concern ourselves too much with that.  We went through issues of concern from last year’s inspection, including the mouse poison I keep in the garage.  Did I use it on the organic fields?  No.  Where?  In buildings around the farmyard.  How about the gopher bait?  In the farmyard where the buggers throw up burrows if left unmolested.  But not in the fields?  No.  Checkmark that item and on we go.    

     She signed, then I signed the inspection report on the screen of her laptop with a stylus.  Her start time was listed as 8:30, the end of the interview was 10:00 a.m.  We were done.

     She loaded up her computer and brief case and took off.  She said her next project was helping to investigate some miles of fields adjacent to railroad tracks, where the railroad sprayed sterilant on the track right-of-way and it drifted several yards out into farmers’ fields.  Sounded more interesting than going through pages of an application.

      It was only ten o’clock and I could get back to the summer fallow.  And to worrying about a grain bin for wheat harvest.  My bin is still full of millet.

The Days of wine and Roses

      I can’t say about the wine, but it certainly is the day (or maybe the year) for roses.

     I have never planted a rose.  They are not my favorite flower.  “A thorn with every rose,” the saying goes.  In my experience, there are dozens of thorns for every rose.  Try to do a rose bush a favor by removing some of the weeds around it.  You will be rewarded with scratches a-plenty.

     All my roses are  inherited.  A former owner of the Loveland house must have loved roses.  In our small yard are nearly 20 rose bushes.

     Two years ago, I thought it a shame that the riot of roses in the backyard was appreciated by nearly no one.  In the front yard, on the sunny side of the garage were some vines that clambered near to the garage eaves every summer.  Since they didn’t bloom in the first or second year we lived here, I decided they should go and I would thin the backyard roses by transplanting three of the biggest rose bushes to the front yard on the sunny side of the garage.

     I dugout the existing garage plants.  I made big holes for the new residents.  Somewhere in a tree-planting catalog, I read that you should dig a $100 hole for a $10 tree.  I thought that should work for roses, too.

      Digging up the roses was more difficult, since I needed to preserve as much of the root ball as possible.  And, of course, there were the thorns to deal with.  I got the job done.  I wondered if the bushes would grow at all after the shock they had been through.

     They did grow, and pretty well, too.  But nary a bloom did they produce the first year.  I was calling on a neuro-kinesiologist who was also a rose-raiser.  She said they might never bloom, probably because I hadn’t taken enough of the root ball.

    I stuck with them for another year.  They put out a few blooms low, then gave it up.  But the vines grew six feet or higher.  So I gave them another chance.  This year, they produced.

      Speaking of weird plants, take a look at this asparagus stalk:

     It started out as Siamese twin shoots.  Coming through the soil, it looked like a double barrel shotgun barrel.  I refrained from cutting it.  It grew big.  What will it be like a year from now?

      Asparagus season is over for this year.   I guess I will have to learn how to trim roses whose blooms have faded and fallen.

      Maybe I’ll check out the wine, first.   

Irish Blessing

      “May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back.”

      So begins an “Irish Blessing”.  There are four or five versions floating around the barbershop world.       

      It may be an Irish blessing, but it most certainly is NOT a combine driver’s prayer, or a tractor driver’s, either.  Like many things in the world, the words mean well, but really have the opposite effect.  I can see if you were taking a journey on foot or perhaps by bicycle, a tailwind would be a good thing.  (OK, airplane fliers like tailwinds, too.)

      I’ve sung the song a few times, so can’t really complain if my prayer gets answered.  I set out this week to work the summer fallow, which is yielding lots of volunteer millet.  I would destroy the crop which a year ago was a cash crop, but now is a crop of weeds.

      The theory and practice of good tillage dictates that you work a field in a direction different from the preceding operation.  Other considerations for what direction to work include consideration of conservation, preventing erosion from water and wind.  Taking all the forgoing considerations into account, I decide at the beginning of an operation which direction to head tractor and plow.

      It seems no matter which direction I lay out the land, the wind finds me out, and answers the prayer, at least half the time.  That is to say, no matter which way I go, the wind will follow me. 

      Ideally, I would have a wind blowing at a right angle to my tractor’s direction of travel.  So if the wind is blowing out of the southwest, I lay out the field so the tractor is heading northwest half the time and southeast the other half.  Perfect, the wind is at right angles to the directions of travel.

      Except, that after an hour or two, the wind dies down, and then comes up a little later out of a different direction—either from the southeast or the northwest.  Then, half the time I have a clean ride with the wind in my face, the other half, I am covered in the dust kicked up by the implement’s interface with the soil.  

     The combine driver has the same dilemma.  A tailwind brings not only dust but also chaff and beards that hunker down in the shirt collar or wherever elastic goes, such as underwear band.  Not pleasant.

     Of course, with modern-day equipment, cabs, air conditioners, and the like, it’s not much of a problem.  I do have a tractor with a cab, but no air conditioner.  It spent last week waiting for clutch parts.  I wanted to get the summer fallow done.  I didn’t take the few hours it will take to install the clutch on the cab tractor.  

     Instead, I took the 820 out, no cab, let alone air conditioner.  Last time I worked the field, I went northeast by southwest.  The wind blew an inordinately long time out of the northeast.        

      This time, I went southeast by northwest.  The wind blew predominately out of the southeast.  I put on lots of sunscreen, without cab or umbrella to protect me from solar rays.  When I came in at noon or at the end of the day, a glance in the mirror revealed a character who spent too much time in the makeup artist’s chair, who had gotten the pancake flour mixed up with the dust, and the grease paint applied plentifully on the nose where I pushed up my glasses several times a day with greasy finger.  After a shampoo in the shower, I had to scrape mud off the shower floor.    

     How does the wind know?  Perhaps I should change the words when I sing “Irish Blessing”.  “May the wind be always at your side.”  Doesn’t have the same ring.  Maybe quit singing it altogether.  Or just give in to the inevitable.

May the road rise to meet you,

May the wind be always at your back,

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

May the rain fall soft upon your fields,

And until we meet again, may He hold you in His hand,

May god hold you in the palm of His hand.

   

Ah, Hail

                   “Then April cried and stepped aside, and along came pretty little May.”

     This year, the merry month of May brought relief from April’s winds (March had given up its place as windiest?) and wildfire danger, over 2” of moisture mostly in the form of rain, and a hailstorm.

     The storm left .61” in the gauge.  Not sure that included melting ice.  It did modest crop damage, the full extent yet to be determined. The buildings suffered some dmage.  No glass got broken.  The roofs suffered only minor “cosmetic damage” according to the adjuster.

      Plastic took a hit. 

     Some of the house siding is 40 years old.  Some of it is newer, having been replaced after earlier hail episodes.  The newer stuff has smaller laps, 5” compared to the older 8”.  The oldest siding is on the south and east, where hail apparently never hits.

    The newest is on the north side of the house, which has been replaced twice since the original job.  The 8” stuff on the north got replaced some years ago.  Within a year or two of that replacement, a second storm nailed the north side.  The siding manufacturer replaced the replacement under warranty.  I doubt they’ll do it again.  It was nearly 20 years ago.    

    This week, the house adjuster was here, measured, noted, and left.  I should hear from him soon.

    The wheat is another matter.  The biggest damage was to leaves that canopy and shelter the rows so that other plants—weeds—don’t start growing between rows.  It could be a weedy harvest.  Can’t spray for weeds without losing organic status.

     The final evaluation on wheat won’t come until harvest.  The formula will compare what should have been with what actually happens as far as yield.  

      As always, Mother Nature showered us with a mixed blessing, the needed moisture along with the damage caused by hail.  Musn’t complain.  I remember a May (2001) when it was so dry not even the dandelions could grow.  

    

Sleep Apnea

     Some years ago, I thought I might have sleep apnea. Brother John had been diagnosed with the condition and I shared a symptom—awakening suddenly, gasping for breath, having the feeling that I was suffocating, feeling like I had run a hundred-yard dash.

     Having reached my deductible with the insurance company, and having some funds left in my cafeteria plan (use it or lose it), I signed up for a visit to a sleep lab.  On the appointed day (or night), I drove to Hays. 

      I found some place to eat, but they didn’t serve liquor.  I ate without my usual beer.

      I pulled into the parking lot where the sleep lab was located.  A younger fellow with a ball of clothes in hand entered the building just ahead of me.  I grabbed my small bag and followed him.

       The place was a hybrid hospital-motel.  There was a front desk with a windowed office behind it.  One of the two young male attendants showed me to a room with a bed, nightstand, and a bathroom adjacent.  The bed’s headboard had a call button dangling from it.

       Instructed to try to go through my nightly ritual as close as I could, I showered and grabbed a book. I think I should have had that beer.  One of the questions they asked during the prep, was had I had any alcoholic beverage to drink.

      It was a bit early, about 9 p.m., when both guys came in with a fistful of wires, it looked like.  They put adhesive patches here and there.  One wire was glued right in front of my right nostril.  That wire and a few others were held in place by a headband.

     All those wires went into two bundles that were plugged into two receptors which led to some kind of machine under the nightstand.  Now, try to go to sleep.

      I didn’t go right to sleep.  I could hear loud snoring coming from another room, probably the young fellow who led the way in.  It went on for a while.  I could hear both guys stirring around and a conversation going on.  The snoring had stopped and didn’t start again.

       I really never went into a deep sleep.  I had to summon a guy to unplug me so I could use the bathroom sometime in the early a.m. 

      I saw the young fellow leave around 6:30 a.m.  In addition to his ball of clothes, probably dirty laundry now, he carried a small briefcase, a CPAP machine I assumed.  Then the young guys came to unwire me.

      When I asked, they told me they were college students who worked the sleep lab a few nights a week.  While the patients slept, they were free to study.  Plus they got paid to do the job.

     They informed me that I did not suffer from sleep apnea because I breathed through my nose.  Aha!  That wire in front of my nostril.

      I was a bit disappointed.  Not that I would leave without a machine.  Mainly, because self-diagnosis had been wrong.  I dressed and drove home, getting there in time to teach my afternoon classes.    

     In a follow-up, the doctor wrote me a prescription for sleep medication, but I never used it.  I have enough bad habits.  No need to add a drug-dependency.

      That was that.  Fast-forward twenty years, to when I couldn’t pass a physical to retain my Commercial Driver’s License.  (http://50farm.blogspot.com/2017/01/)   

     When I called on the doctor to address my blood pressure issue, despite my protestations, the doctor insisted I visit a sleep lab.  This time, I could stay home, sleep in my own bed.

      I had to go to a “class” where I learned how to hook up the machine, fill out preview and follow-up forms, and return everything before 9 a.m. the following day.  The machine this time was a headband with probes in each nostril and a sensor between my eyebrows.

      I slept quite normally.  Filling out the follow-up question, I was asked how many times I awoke during the night.  I wrote down four or five.  Ten days later, when I got my results, the machine recorded an average of 48 wake-ups per hour.  I had severe sleep apnea.

      I got the CPAP machine.  I have carried it to London, Germany, and Japan, anywhere that I plan to sleep.  It has made a big difference.  I have more energy.  My blood pressure is normal.

     A year or so later, the Goodwife was instructed to go to the sleep lab.  Perhaps her blood pressure problems were related to sleep apnea.

      Her “class” didn’t amount to much.  She brought home a machine.  This one clipped to her right forefinger.  No head band, no nostril probes, no patch between the eyebrows.  They have made a lot of progress in the year or so since I took the last test, not to mention the twenty years or so since I went through it the first time.

      Her test results showed “moderate” sleep apnea.  The “cure”, besides a CPAP machine, included the possibility of using a mouthpiece during sleep.  Except, this is the lady that can’t take a dental X-ray without barfing.  No mouthpiece need apply.

     She has been trying to use the CPAP for a few weeks.  It hasn’t worked out nearly as well for her as it has for me.  The problem is finding the right face mask.

      She is on her third mask style.  She started with “nostril pillows” that plug into the nose and are held in place with a headband.  The current mask has worked best, a modified nostril pillow.  The pulmonologist-lady says we will keep advancing until we find the right fit, perhaps a full mask that covers both nose and mouth.

      Whereas I average six to eight hours per night with my machine (it gives you all the statistics when you turn it off in the morning, including number of “events”—wake-ups—per hour), so far the Goodwife averages about five hours per night.  Her blood pressure is down, however, but she still takes blood pressure pills.

      Now, the nightly ritual includes both of us donning headgear and pushing the button on the machine.  It makes for a rather entangling goodnight kiss.    

     Thankfully, one great stride in the evolution of the CPAP includes nearly silent machines.      

        

      

   

    

R Project continued

      The last time the R ran was sometime in 1986 or ’87.  I was planting wheat with another tractor.  I noticed some little grass shoots coming up in the fine dirt prepared for planting.  Thinking it might be volunteer wheat (that would be ok), but fearing it could be jointed goat grass, I stopped the tractor and investigated.  It was goat grass coming up.

     Can’t have that.  So I shut down the 820 or 830 and started up the R.  I hooked it to the rod weeder and went after the goat grass. 

      Things went well for a short while.  Then the R started losing power, and began having a series of explosions where flames jumped out of the exhaust pipe.  Soon it was running on only one (of two) cylinders. 

      It was growing dark, so the explosive flames emanating from the muffler were quite colorful.  But not funny.  I unhitched the rod and limped the R back to the farmyard.  It managed to back itself into the red barn, far in the corner, where it stayed for the next 30 or so years.     http://50farm.blogspot.com/2017/11/

      Many a time I wished it were operational.  With the right combination of social schedule, weather, and good luck, I may get it off the unemployed roll.  Here it is in its homeless state of uncleanliness.

      Slowly, it sheds its parts:

     One of the hardest jobs was removing the studs that hold the exhaust/water pipes and the air intake fitting to the top of the head. Having removed the nuts retaining the pipes, it was necessary to take the studs out of the head, too.  I double nutted it, but couldn’t get the nuts tight enough to turn the stud in the head.  Add the vice grip, or adjustable locking pliers, in case you object to using a brand name for a generic tool.

     The outside ports are exhaust ports.  The next two are water jacket ports (notice the rust).  The middle one is the air intake port.  The outside ports lead to the exhaust valves.  The inside port leads to the intake valves.  The water ports connect directly to the radiator.    

      Altogether, there are 12 studs to remove in the top of the head.  All went well until number eleven came up.  Woops!

  

      “Don’t know my own strength!” to quote Bullwinkle.  Note the twisted-off stud.  I wasn’t able to do a selfie of my right arm between elbow and shoulder after the stud twisted off and my arm connected with the radiator cowling.  I was wearing a long sleeve shirt, a heavy over shirt, a hoodie, and coveralls.  Blood soaked the sleeve of my long sleeved shirt.  I wasn’t aware of the extent of the damage until the “nooning” when I removed the outer layer of clothing.  I did feel my pain, however.  It helped not to look at it.

     More studs to come, but first, off came the tappet cover.

  

     Then the rocker arms and fuel injector lines.

    Then the fuel injector pump cover.  Actually, the pump cover had to come off to get the fuel lines disconnected.

     Inside the pump compartment are four nuts connected to, you guessed it, four studs.  The nuts have to come off to get the head off.  In addition to the four nuts in the pump compartment, ten ¾” nuts hold the head to the block.  (Studs again, but they don’t have to come off.)  They should be torqued to 208-foot pounds.  This isn’t a job for the weak, as they say.  I got in plenty of upper body exercise on this day.

      Another day, another strenuous task.  The chain hoist hung on the east wall (can be seen in the background of the second picture above).  It had to be lifted up and hooked to the cross bar overhead.  I don’t remember it being such a hard job in days of old.  Or maybe it isn’t the days that are old.

    I had to remove the lower water pipes, connected to the head with four more studs.  I felt like I had in a day’s work by the time I got to this stage.

    Note the left valve, which is the exhaust valve for the left or number one cylinder.  The little “eclipse” mark at about 2 o’clock is where the flames were coming from that came out the exhaust pipe.  The valve is badly burned.  Why did it fail?  Valve springs too weak?  Tappets set too tight, so the valve never fully closed?

     Well, it won’t run that way.  Eight more studs to remove, the four that go into the pump compartment, and four holding the lower water pipes.  The four going into the pump compartment spend their life in the oil, so come out fairly easily.  The water pipe ones get rusty and stubborn.  Another twist-off.  This time, I didn’t injure myself.

      On a rainy day, the head went to Duerst Machine in Burlington.  I pointed out the two twisted-off studs.  “Yeah,” both guys said, and shrugged.  Must happen all the time.

       Next step, see if parts are available.  They are, at a healthy price.  Do I install new piston rings while I’m this close?  I have to remove the starting engine to get to the rod bearings.  If I don’t change rings and it uses oil and doesn’t have good compression, I have to go through the whole remove-the-head thing again.

     A set of rings (there are 14 of them, seven per piston) cost $300+.  A gasket set cost $200+.  One of the twisted-off studs costs $13.  The water pipe stud is only 7/16” and costs only $11.  Of course, they are all painted green for that bargain price.  Well, maybe nothing in this order is painted green, but they are green by association.  I mustn’t complain.  I can still get new parts for a sixty-year-old machine.

      The R gets a rest (as if it hasn’t had enough of one) while I get back to my social schedule.  The quartet sang two songs (national anthem, and America) at a Rotary convention in Estes Park.  Our lead is a Rotarian.  It was a long way to drive to sing two songs.  We had to go through Longmont because 34 is closed for flood repairs—for the second year.