Category Archives: Automotive

2025, animals, Automotive, Farming Update

Say What?

38 Comments

Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben.

I was watching Luna’s ears the other day and got to thinking about how dog ears can move so much considering how thin they are. Down the rabbit hole I went. Dogs have eighteen muscles in their ears, humans have six. They are born deaf as the ear is sealed up for about the first three weeks. You can get dog hearing aids! I’ve always loved how soft a dogs ears are.

I was headed to Plainview the other day, updating and getting quotes for a new farm insurance policy, and I had time so I took one of the scenic back roads. I don’t know if y’all have noticed these silhouette Bigfoot cut outs that are becoming popular. I see a few here and there, and I drove past one farm that must have a dozen of them. I frequently pass one farm that has one painted red, white, and blue, but for sheer volume this place was the winner. They have one life-size with two child size ones tagging behind, then there’s one in the yard carrying a couple of steel wheels, there’s another one by the shed, and there was a few others in the pasture. I guess we’ve just never got the appeal of yard art like that. We never had the bent over butts, although we have done the pink flamingos, and I do have an old road grader parked in the lawn now and mostly it’s just a pain to mow around. A friend of mine said he liked to put art in his yard because he didn’t have to mow the grass under it, which is a worthy point, but every couple of months I have to move this road grader to a different spot or the weeds get so bad you can’t see it amongst the weeds. I know we could do some landscaping around it. ‘It’s on my list’ ™.

The oats is heading out, a little area went down one day last week. And with the storms this week, more went down. It’s still green so that’s a little unusual.


Looks like some of the peas have started to be harvested by the canning companies. They sure make a mess when it’s raining like this. The canning companies don’t stop for weather. As I understand it, they have a schedule and they need to stick to it. Again, it’s all about those Growing Degree Units. Stop for the rain and they’re behind next week. We’re about 160 GDU’s over normal.

We got .8” of rain Wednesday, then 2.4” on Thursday. That makes over 6” in June. Ok, that’s enough, FOR NOW- I say that carefully. Down in our valley we can’t tell how windy it is. There have been two tornado warnings for us this week. Course I was standing in the machine shed door watching the rain come down. Ever been in a steel building while it’s raining? Rain on a steel roof is so loud you can’t talk over it. And it sounds much worse inside than it really is outside. But in my new shop, it’s quiet and cool and nice. Except for a few leaks… We’ve caulked all the roof nail heads, sealed all the joints and the sides and roof peak, and I still get drips.

After the first day of all three padawans, I split them up the next week. I’m better with them one at a time. Although it depends what’s happening. Next week we start some summer projects at the theater and I may be able to use all three.

We cut brush down around the barn and got rained out and did a bunch of stuff in the machine shed. Still working on that ‘to-do’ list. Finished a few odds and ends in the shop. Got plywood on the new pallet racking, took the battery out of the Farmall ‘C’ and found the smoking wire on that, literally. Working on the 630 and the new air cleaner, muffler, fan belt, radiator hose, throttle plate, ect. The four bolts that hold the muffler are all corroded (they’ve been there since 1959) and I believe I’m gonna have to drill and tap new holes for those. I did take the tractor down and power wash it.

Ordered parts for both tractors. And I thought before I get too far into this I better call a friend of mine that works on old tractors and get his opinion. He’ll be out one of these days.

The corn is a good knee high and just about canopied, meaning there shouldn’t be any weed pressure after this. And I can’t see the water standing between the rows now. The soybeans, the ones the deer haven’t eaten, yet, are looking good. They’re about 8 inches tall, but when you look across the field it looks very ragged and uneven and upon closer inspection it’s because the dang deer keep eating them right down to the ground. It’s so darn frustrating! The weed pressure is getting pretty bad on the beans and I know they need to be sprayed, and the co-op knows it, too. We need a little less rain and wind so they can do that.

We’ve let the little chicks out and they’re very happy about that.

WHAT PARTS OF YOUR BODY CAN YOU WIGGLE INTENTIONALLY?

2025, Automotive, Family, Fantasy, Farming Update

Into The Concrete Weeds

41 Comments

Todays Farming Update comes from Ben.

Well I didn’t start anything on fire this week so that’s a win.

The co-op was out on Wednesday to spray the oats for broad leaves and apply a fungicide. They used a drone! I wasn’t there to see it but they took some video and had it in their newsletter:


https://youtube.com/shorts/wgsNnr2c6fo?si=tQ4SKhqTutv07eX-

According to the newsletter, the drone carries a 10 gallon tank, meaning it can cover about 5 acres, and the spray pattern covers about 25 feet at a pass, so they did my 25 acres of oats in a couple hours.
I think that’s pretty cool! I don’t know if they were flying it manually, or were able to upload GPS field maps from their other machine passes earlier in the year, allowing it to fly, mostly, itself. I think this is such cool technology. It didn’t make tire tracks through the oats, and it didn’t leave ruts in the soft ground with the recent rains. Some of the big farmers are starting to buy their own spray drones. It’s another tool in the toolbox.

Me and one of my summer padawans cleaned out two corners of the machine shed, rearranged machinery and got the corn planter and the grain drill put away, and moved the haybine to a different spot. Just about every day I spend an hour or two in the shop, “organizing”. I’m still rearranging and sorting out things. I sure am glad I put that used AC unit in there. I just run the dehumidifier and it’s staying about 64 degrees. I love it. I’m happy to putz out there as much as I can.

I’m trying to do some of my home ‘honey-do’ projects, as well. A couple years ago, Kelly took all the landscape rock out of an area and we added compost large rocks for a walking path, and planted some grasses. That only survived one year, and the biggest problem was keeping the dogs and the chickens out of it. Daughter and I went to the local compost site and got half a pick up load of compost on Wednesday. Thursday afternoon was pretty warm, but I waited until this area was in the shade and then I dug out the old stuff. Padawan and I will unload the truck on Friday.

I ventured off into the weeds one day. I knew there was an old cement mixer out there, and there was supposed to be a second one that I couldn’t see at first. A tree had fallen in front of it. And I mean I hadn’t used either one in 25 years or more. For all I could remember, I let someone borrow it. But I found both of them.

I don’t remember using the sliver one, but it was fun to spin the handle and make the barrel turn. I remember playing with it often. The header photo is a plate on the side of it.

And the red one Dad got from a neighbor. I know we used that one. Whichever one I pick to use now, it will need a little grease… but the innertube on one tire is still holding air!

Might need a new tire, but the tube is good!

Heck, it doesn’t even need tires, I’ll be using it right by the shed.

One of the projects on the list is a concrete pad outside the shop walk in door, and a concrete pad for a garbage dumpster. Figured the summer padawans could learn about pouring concrete. I’ve done just enough to be dangerous. I found a concrete calculator online, which gave me a total of about 3 yards or about 170 bags at 60lb each. Wow, that’s a lot of bags to mix up even with an electric mixer. Checking some big box stores, a bag is $4 – $6 each. I sent an online message to a local concrete place just to see what the deal is with small batches. I’m in no hurry for this. Could be a month or two.

Also back in the tree’s was the old combine that Dad bought in the 1950’s and I parked in the tree’s in 1990 something. Time to haul that to scrap iron.

My brother and I both learned to drive a standard clutch in the 1967 Chevy pick-up truck following dad and this combine around the fields. Times were different back then. I’m guessing I was maybe 10 yrs old. I can picture it like yesterday though. He would have been pulling this with the 630 tractor (that I still have) and combining oats and would dump it into the truck. Today’s huge combines are bigger, fancier, self-propelled versions of this.

MONTGOMERY WARD IS SELLING FLYING CARS. WHAT COLOR IS YOURS AND WHAT OPTIONS DOES IT HAVE? GOT ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT WARDS?

2025, animals, Automotive, Family, Farming Update, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

Rain

31 Comments

The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

We’ve had about 2 inches of rain between Tuesday and Wednesday. It was a nice easy rain and much needed. The first of the corn that I planted is up, Oats is filling in nicely, other than one field that looks terrible. I’m not sure what’s going on there. Other than it was corn last year and the other fields were soybeans last year. So, they worked up different, or I don’t know what. But I think I’m gonna replant part of this one. It’s just a terrible looking stand and it’s right along the road so it embarres me to think the neighbors will judge me.

 The rows that end up in the track of the tractor tire never come up quite as fast as the other rows. I think because the soil gets packed down by the tire, and I’ve always thought I need some kind of tiny digger teeth behind the tractor to refresh that dirt. Mounting something is the easy part, trying to figure out how to make it raise and lower is harder, But I really need to figure out something.

I did finish planting corn last Saturday. Had a couple minor repairs I was able to fix in the field. One loose bolt, and one broken chain link. Good thing I had a spare chain link. There was a pheasant pair running around in this field.

I spent Monday riding in a big truck, being the navigator as a company applied calcium chloride as dust control on our Township gravel roads. It’s a thing we do annually. We finished that about 3:00 PM and I went to Plainview John Deere and picked up a new rear wiper arm for a tractor. Would you believe 120 bucks for that! And then to Meyer seed’s and picked up soybean seed.

Tuesday and Wednesday were meetings at the college.

Thursday was the visitation for mom, and Friday was her memorial service.

Saturday I have a set up meeting at one theater, an event at the college, and the ‘cousins Reunion’ at my sisters house. The kids are the cousins, Kelly and I are the fun, cool Aunt and Uncle. Even a couple Grand Neices we’re excited to see again – or for the first time.

It’s been fun to have all the nieces and nephews in town. They’re all pretty cool people.

Back in April I ordered a ton of egg layer ration from the co-op. Forty, fifty-pound bags on a pallet. They put it in the truck with a fork lift, I use the loader and forks to take it out of the truck and put it in the feed room. Works great.

Got the first bag out the other day, and it’s meal, rather than pellets.  Hmm, not sure about that. Turns out the chickens are not fans… I didn’t know I needed to specify pellets; it’s just always been pellets.

I called the co-op to see about exchanging this. Due to bio-security, they don’t usually return feeds. Plus they’re going to stop making pellets. Hmm. But she was going to check into this. Haven’t heard back yet. Plan B will be to buy bags of pellets from Fleet Farm and mix into it I guess. A ton of layer rations last me 11 months. This could take a while…

GOT LONG TERM PLANS?

2025, Automotive, History, Uncategorized

Service-less Station

24 Comments

The very first night after I got my license, my mother gave me the keys to her Volkswagen bug so I could go out to a party.  As I was leaving the house, she handed me a five-dollar bill and said I should get gas.  I headed up to the service station nearest to our house (in the rain).  When I pulled in, the attendant came out; he had on a plastic poncho and his hat had a plastic protector on it. 

I felt so grown up as I rolled down the window and said “Fill it up or $5.00, whichever comes first.”  Then, to my utter dismay and embarrassment, the attendant started to laugh.  Standing there in the rain, he laughed HARD.  My confusion must have shown on my face because he said “Even if the gas tank were bone dry, you could never get $5 of gas into it.”   These days, I would laugh along with him and maybe explain that I had just gotten my license, but back then at the tender age of 16, I was absolutely mortified.  Every time I ever had to go to that station again, I crossed my fingers that a different attendant would come out. 

Last week when I stopped for gas, I was hoping to clean off my car a bit… it’s dirty and the timing hasn’t been right for a carwash in the driveway.  I wasn’t holding my breath when I checked the squeegee holders and it was a good thing.  None of the containers had any water in them; this is so common that when I do find water I’m always surprised.

It got me to thinking about how much has changed since my $5 mortification.  No attendants to pump the gas or to check under the hood or to top off your oil or to clean your windshields or to take your payment.  No water in the windshield cleaner containers and even if you find water, you might not find a squeegee.  If you’re lucky enough to find water and a squeegee, you have to hold your breath that the squeegee is actually whole and not coming apart.  And then there’s the price.  Gas was 37₵ that night in the rain.  These days the most economical gas near me is at my local Pump n Munch.  Last time I filled up, it was $2.79. 

As I started writing this, YA was looking over my shoulder.  “What’s a service station?” she asked and I thought… perfect.  We are so removed from the service we used to get that the younger generation doesn’t even recognize the phrase!

Do you remember the first time you pumped your own gas?

2025, Automotive, Business, Farming Update, Kids, Nature, Seasons, Songs, Uncategorized, work

Dirt

32 Comments

The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

I heard a snippet of a blog and they said, “A person will work three jobs so they can go home and farm. You never hear of a person working 3 jobs so they can open a plumbing shop.” Sweeping generalization alert there. I’ve been thinking about that since I heard it. And while I’m in the tractor I think about what it is that makes farming so entrenched for us. What exactly is it that calls us to it? For me, it’s a lot of things: I like the machinery, I like working on the tractor or changing the oil, and learning, and having the skills and tools (and shop!) to work on stuff. A sense of achievement. I like working up a field and watching the soil turn black. Stan Rogers says it best in ‘The Field Behind the Plow‘ “Watch the field behind the plow, turn to straight dark rows. Put another season’s promise in the ground”.

I like being this close to the seasons and the circle of… everything. The growth, a faith in something bigger I guess. It’s deep and it pulls in my chest.

I’ve had a few late nights. Working at the college, then home and it might be 6 or 7:00 before I get out in the tractor and to the field. But it’s my time and I got nothing else at the moment. I feed the chicks, talk with Kelly. Daughter asks me to sit on the deck with her. We play with the dogs. Going out half an hour later doesn’t matter. (unless there’s rain in the forecast)

Daughter, turning 30 chronologically, but maybe 16 developmentally, she gives lots of hugs, but when we say “Love You!” she responds, “yep” or “OK” or maybe just “Bye”. And it makes me chuckle. That is when she doesn’t roll her eyes and simply walk away.

So, I’m in the tractor. One night I listened to Joni Mitchell. I haven’t had her albums or listened to much of her stuff. Just the hits. We saw Ben Folds in Rochester on Wednesday night and I listened to his stuff. I did some classical MPR. On the weekends it’s MPR News and their great programming: Wait Wait, Moth, This American Life, Radio Lab. It’s all so interesting! And some podcasts. In the tractor is the only time I can really do that, when I can listen and pay attention.

Best of all, I found some podcasts of TLGMS!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mpr-skits-from-the-morning-show/id104720092

It has been so fun to hear all these characters again. Cap’n Billy, Bubby Spamden, The Bowzer Bed, Wally’s Sherpa, Dr. B. Marty Barry and his bottomless Well of Wellness, Spin Williams, Congressman Beechly, Genway, and that wonderful cure-all pill, Purplex from Spendy Popper. I cannot get over what an amazingly creative writer Dale is! How he came up with all these ideas! We didn’t know what we had at the time, did we?

Me and Bailey enjoy our tractor time. She’s 7 1/2 years old and I have to boost her up into the tractor. Every few minutes she sits up and put her head against my knee and I scratch her ears and she lays down again.

It was a busy week. Filled the big tractor with fuel. It only needed half a tank.

Ordered more diesel and gasoline for the barrels.

I’m using the boating app again to find my place in the fields. And how can I take the linear distance to make it acres? (13.6 miles x 5280 feet divided by 24′ digger divided by 43,500 sq feet / acre = ? Hmm, that doesn’t come out right. Seems like it should make sense.

Did a lot of math figuring what 18, 50 lb bags of oats, at 32 lbs per bushel and I want 3.5 bushels / acre will do how many acres. And if I ran out at 6 acres, how much did I really apply?

Went back to Meyer Seeds on Wednesday morning and bought 12 more bags. Remember last year when I ran out 1/2 acre short of finishing with rain in the forecast and I said I would order extra seed next year so I didn’t run out?? I DID order extra! But I got a different variety of oat seed and the rate changed so… back for more.

After planting, this year I had time and cooperative weather to go over the oat ground with the drag (harrow) to smooth it out and help cover the seed in the tractor tracks that don’t always get covered.

Got the old 630 running pretty well. And I’ve ordered a new exhaust pipe and muffler for it. I’m looking forward to working on that after the spring rush.

Parked the tractor in the shop and changed oil, engine air filters, (there’s two) and cab air filters. Two tall, narrow ones outside, and two small ones inside the cab.

The new exterior shop lights are great!

Finished planting oats on Friday while my brother was out working up corn ground. The Co-op applied corn fertilizer on Thursday, and I hope to be planting corn on Saturday.

When I’m planting, I’m travelling at about 5 MPH. Faster than that and the seed spacing gets messed up. And seed spacing is really critical in some crops. Corn it’s extremely important. Soybeans it’s moderately, and oats doesn’t matter so much.

Fancy newer ‘high speed’ equipment carries a seed to the ground using a brush belt to gently place the seed in the trench. New planters are capable of 10 MPH. Time is money you know. It’s fascinating how fast some of these parts are moving to drop a seed every 6″ at 10 MPH. There’s some math for you. Bill, how long does it take to go 100′ at 10MPH and how many seeds does it drop if they’re 6″ apart? That mechanism is really moving!  

Getting ready for commencement at the college. Hung some of the fixtures over the stage, before they place the stage. Had the gym to myself and it was pretty nice.

Will look a lot different this time next week.

Got the laptop and ‘Hog’ console set up and doing all that math / prep work. Or trying. Thursday afternoon the laptop didn’t want to play nice. But Friday morning all was well. I have a plan B and C. It will be fine, FINE I tell you!

HOW MANY JOBS HAVE YOU WORKED AT ONCE?

FOR WHAT GOAL?

2025, animals, Automotive, Farming Update, Nature, Seasons

May

56 Comments

The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

The barn swallows are back.

Often we get one that stops in about this time of the year, just as the scout, and then it’s gone again until about May 6 when they generally return to stay. This year we had one back on April 26. I joked that mom came back as a barn swallow. And a few days later, she brought dad with her. And this pair moved into the usual nest on top of the Windchime next to the front door. They seem to be here to stay.

I’ve been saying I couldn’t remember what day it was for the last month. Heck, throw in a funeral and I’m totally discombobulated now. 

Finished our spring play at the college last weekend, then had a spring concert this past week. Commencement isn’t until the 14th, so this coming week, maybe I can farm a bit between other things. 

It has rained enough I haven’t gotten much fieldwork done or anything planted yet. I think the damp conditions are Gods way of telling me just to relax, it will be OK. Ha! “Relax.” Clearly God isn’t aware of how my mind works.

We moved the chicks to a bigger pen. They’re enjoying that, eating A LOT and growing well. Just starting to get some tail feathers. 

After cutting down all those trees, last week I got them all cleared off the fields. That was more involved than I expected, but it’s done. And I didn’t break anything on the tractor nor hurt myself. 

I did some repairs on something I had bent on one of the tractors last winter, and I graded the road. The chickens sure love a fresh pile of dirt or even if it’s gravel. The first grading of the spring, I’m pulling in rock from the edges, and cutting down the edges so rain water will run off the side and not down the road. It kinda makes a mess for a while. It will get better. Eventually.

I got my final rabies shot got so I got my rabies tag now.

You all know, with any death there is a lot of details. There’s a scene in one of my favorite movies, Mr. Magorium‘s Wonder Emporium, where one of the characters says he’s just the guy that makes sure all the papers are in order. I kind of feel like that sometimes. I made a lot of phone calls this week. I thought when mom passed away I would be complete blubbering mess. But honestly it was a huge relief. It felt like such a weight off. And I’m lucky that I have such a supportive family and we all get along so well. (Well, there’s that one… we’ve had enough together time for now.)

We laugh together at the meeting at the funeral home, we laugh over stories with the minister during the meeting at the church.

I asked the funeral home director for a tour. He said he couldn’t give me a tour. I told him I didn’t want to see a dead body, I just wanted to see the “backstage” areas, so he did show me the garage. I remember when Dad died, there was a framed picture of Bea Arthur in the casket room. I couldn’t figure out if she was the celebrity spokesperson or what?? Her picture isn’t there anymore. And the guy wouldn’t believe me that it was there before. But I know what I saw!

Mom had requested a private burial and then the service will be in a few weeks because all the grandchildren were already planning a “cousins reunion” and we didn’t want them to make two trips this close together.

So we’re at the cemetery for a quick little service, and I’m looking at dad‘s headstone “over there”, but the casket and hole over here. And somebody else questions that as well. Finally I get the attention of the funeral director. He went pale for a second, and he started to sweat, and then we realized they had moved the headstone in order to dig the hole and get the mechanism in place for the casket. Oh. OK, that makes sense. He teased me I was gonna give him a heart attack.

Kelly and I stayed after and talked with the cemetery crew and watched them lower the casket into the vault. It’s all part of the process.

And the world just keeps on going round.

IS THERE A CELEBRITY SPOKESPERSON YOU’D BELIEVE?

2025, Automotive, Farming Update, Theatre, Uncategorized

Running Smoke

36 Comments

The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

It was a busy week in the theater again. Shows the last two Saturday’s, but Spring Break next week, that will be a quiet week.

Not much happening on the farm. We survived the “blizzard” on Wednesday. Maybe two inches of snow, and I got a snow day meaning I had time to work in the shop and organize bolts.  I did pull some wagons out last week. See the header photo. The seed wagon has a good flatbed top that I built 25 or 30 years ago. But the wheels and frame under it, technically, that’s the “running gear” are pretty wore out. I have a much newer running gear, with better tires that I reclaimed after disposing of an old chopper box that was junk when dad bought it new in 1980.
So here’s a long boring story about that!

When he first bought the chopper, blower, and wagons, in order to fill the silo’s by ourselves, it was probably the mid 1970’s. My brother helped Dad at first. When I got older, the best job for me, at 15 years old, was to run the chopper, leaving it to Dad to run the smaller tractor and pull the wagons home to unload. You’ll just have to trust me on that. It was actually safer in the big tractor just going around and around the fields, than it was pulling them home, hooking up the power take off (the PTO), unloading by the blower (the machine that blows the crop up the pipe into the silo) and running back out to the field. So, I did that. Dad had two chopper boxes: one being filled in the field, and one home being unloaded. Or on the path somewhere in between.

One box was 14’ long and was a used ‘Kasten’ brand box. The other was 16’ long, and old John Deere box. But it sat taller, and it wobbled more. And I guess I was afraid it was going to tip over, so I’d slow down in the chopper, and then the shear pins would snap off because the machine plugged up. Shear pins are a safety thing to prevent overloading the chopper, but evidently you can break them by driving too slow. I’m sure dad yelled at me to speed up, but I was nervous. Finally, in the interest of his sanity, he traded off the 16’ JD box for a 14’ Papec box. Doing a little internet research, the Papec company started in 1900 and looks like it had a pretty good product at first. But the chopper box they made in 1975 was cheaply made crap. I feel like it was always broken. I bought another used Kasten box in the mid 90’s. And eventually junked the Papec box, and now I have this running gear that was under it.

Chopping was a tough time. Chopping hay needed to be done in a timely manner and the the pipe going up the silo would sometimes plug up (on the hottest, most humid day of summer) and I remember being very angry while trying to get it unplugged. I remember telling Kelly one day there was 18 tires that could go flat while trying to chop. Kelly suggested that might be the wrong attitude. But it was true.

Which brings us back to the seed wagon top, which should be moved to the better running gear, and it will all be a much better ‘wagon’.

I remember dad swapping boxes and running gear. You jack up the box, put a 55-gallon barrel under the corners, pull out one set of wheels, and slip the other set underneath. Nothing too it.

I’m thinking I can lift the back end with the loader and chains, some blocks under the front corners, and Bob’s your uncle! There are two brackets on the front axle, and two on the back that secure the top from sliding around. Typically, we don’t bolt it tight, because it needs to be able to flex a bit, so we wrap a chain around it leaving it a little slack. That way it can flex a bit but not fall off.

I’ve been working on a show, opened this past Friday, called ‘She Kills Monsters’ by Qui Nguyen. It’s a show about the relationship between two sisters. One sister played ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ and the other sister is learning about the game as a way to get closer to her sister. It’s been a lot of fun to work on. It’s a great director, a great cast, an amazing stage manager who can figure out my light cues, and I have lots of smoke and haze and wiggling lights. I think I ended up with 155 light cues. That’s a pretty good number of cues for a 2-hour show. This isn’t even a musical. Many straight shows end up with 40 – 60 cues.

That last photo was me trying to get the smoke machine level adjusted right. This is clearly too much smoke. But isn’t it fun to see all the light beams!!

The bathroom is finally finished!

Almost!

It’s working, just waiting on shower glass yet, but the rest is done. It looks really nice.

Next week I’ll post the pre and post photos.

REMEMBER ROLLING DOWN HILLS AS A KID? WHEN IS THE LAST TIME YOU ROLLED ANYWHERE?

2025, Automotive, Mysteries, Seasons

Redundancies

30 Comments

The first car that I owned was a 1968 Datsun 510.  I bought it used when I lived in Northfield – in 1977 – for a whooping $400.  It had some rust but ran pretty well.  The owner wouldn’t sell it to me until we test drove it; I don’t think he believed I could drive a stick. 

Back then inexpensive cars didn’t do anything special for you.  No pings to tell you that you haven’t turned off the lights, no messages that your oil life is down to 15%, no back-up cameras, no seat warmers, and certainly no notifications that your tire air pressure is getting low.

Even though my current car is 11 years old, I bought it new from a dealership so I can still take it in when the air pressure light goes on, usually after the first cold snap of each fall/winter. They check the tires and fill any that are low.  No charge for this.  A couple of years ago, a new warning blinked at me, on a cold cold morning in January – a TPMS warning.  I looked it up in the manual and online – Tire Pressure Monitoring System.  Didn’t I already have that?

When I had the car’s check-up in April (right before I drove to Indy for the eclipse), I asked the mechanics to look at it – they said they took care of it.  Unfortunately, when the got cold in December, the light came back on.  I ignored it for a couple of weeks, it warmed up and the light turned off.  When I had the oil changed in January, I asked them to look at it again.  Turns out there are FOUR of these sensors and they not only go wonky fairly often but they run on batteries, so eventually the batteries run down.  They had fixed one of these sensors in April, but now there were two more sensors acting up.  The reality is that they are actually a built-in redundancy, a back-up to the main system, which works just fine.  If the light was bothering me, I could cough up $120 each to have them adjusted and get new batteries for them.  If I wait until the next time I need new tires, it will be a lot less.  So, since the warning isn’t even accurate, I decided to ignore it.  Then when it warmed up… the light went off again.  Sigh. 

Hopefully it won’t come on again until it gets really cold again.

Do you have any “back-ups”, just in case…….

2025, animals, Automotive, Family, Farming Update, Uncategorized, Weather

A Decent Week for Weather

76 Comments

The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

On Sunday, Kelly and I did our usual gator farm tour. This week we went down in the pasture and down to the creek, which was still frozen over, walked around down there for a bit.

The next day I took the truck to Plainview, which meant I have the dogs with me, and after we picked up daughter, they all walked home.

Dealing with mud again, which is never my favorite. And it’s gonna get cold, and it’s gonna snow, and then it’s gonna get muddy again, so we’ll have to do this cycle a few times. Just something else to get through.

I took the anhydrous applicator up to an auction in Plainview. It’s an implement I use in the spring to apply nitrogen to the corn ground. Nitrogen in the form of anhydrous ammonia. I pull those white tanks behind it. The last year that I used it was 2021, and since 2022 I’ve had the co-op applying nitrogen in the form of urea, which is a granular product.

When I was working with my dad, the story was he had gotten a heavy whiff of the ammonia quite a few years ago and he never liked it and couldn’t stand being around it anymore. So I’ve been applying the anhydrous probably since I was 18 years old. We used to rent a smaller machine to do it, and then as the tractor‘s got bigger I could rent a little bit bigger applicator bar. And when the co-op stopped renting that equipment and they sold them off, I bought this one. I don’t remember the price anymore, it was probably 10 or 15 years ago.

This is also the machine that I had a little incident with back in 2018.

Anhydrous can be really nasty stuff; it can kill you, it can burn you, it’s gotta be treated with respect and handled carefully. And I have always been careful, making sure I’m parking into the wind, working up wind, wearing heavy gloves, and a face shield.

So this one day the hose was dragging on the ground between the wagon and the applicator.

I stopped, I closed the valves, I started to disconnect the hose, and the valve did not seal properly. I remember that it was very difficult to open, it had been really cranked shut. So it made sense that it was leaking a bit now. There was very little breeze that day, next to nothing, so I couldn’t get up wind of it. I debated what to do. I debated just holding my breath and rushing in there to crank it shut. And finally thought, I just need somebody with a respirator, it’s not an emergency, I just need somebody that can get this closed. So I called the nonemergency number for the fire department and explained the situation. Well, when the first of three firetrucks showed up, and I was still sitting in the tractor waiting for them, they parked a half mile up the road and suited up and a guy in full gear walked down to me. I’m sure they were all bent out of shape that I was still hanging out down there. All they were told was that there was an anhydrous leak.

It turned into a whole big thing. Ambulance, incident command vehicle, and a sheriff deputy, all out on the highway, and the three firetrucks were on our road.

I had to call a chemical spill hotline who thought I had lost the entire tank of 5000 gallons. No, it’s just a few drips and a very minor vapor leak. But, it was good training for the fire department: they went down with a wet towel, sampled the air, wrapped a towel around the valve and was able to get it turned off tight using a pipe wrench so that I could then disconnect the hose. Always glad to help them out, I said. They even gave me a bottle of Gatorade.

I had to attend a safety workshop, and I had to replace the hoses that are only good for 10 years and of course mine were out of date by a few years because it’s expensive and nobody pays any attention to the replacement date. I think it cost me $1500 for new hoses and a valve.

And now it’s 2025, stamped on the hose it says ‘replace before 2025’, and I took it to the auction and it’s not my problem anymore. When I pulled it out of storage, one of the tires was low. Not flat, just low so I pumped it back up. Pulled it the 20 miles to Plainview, and as I walked into the office I could hear a hiss and air leaking from this tire. Well, not my circus, not my monkey anymore.

The dogs all got pup cups at the Dairy Queen and I had a blizzard.

WHATS YOUR FAVORITE CLEANING PRODUCT?  ANY MONKEY STORIES?

2025, Automotive, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Playing Chicken

19 Comments

Most Wednesdays I leave the house very early to hit my favorite donut place.  When I left yesterday, YA said she was going to the gym before work and would probably be gone before I got back. 

I was thinking about that when I pulled into my driveway and saw that she was starting to back out of the garage.  She didn’t notice me right away (I was on the hill part of the driveway so my lights were pointing higher than her car) so she didn’t wait for me to pull into the garage next to her so I just sat and waited.

What you need to know is that YA and I have different strategies for dealing with our long driveway.  I almost always just back all the way down to the street.  YA does several little turns at the top of our driveway so that she is driving out headfirst.  Both techniques have their pluses and minuses.  But it meant that by the time she had turned herself around at the top, there would be room for me to get by and into the garage.

Went exactly as I had expected but while I was waiting it did make me think about “playing chicken”.  I’m not a big playing chicken kind of gal but it does feature in a movie I’ve watched too many times:

Have you ever been in a submarine?  Do you have a favorite submarine movie?