January 8. I am not willfully ignoring the events of yesterday or the day before that. Or the day before that. I don’t want us to become a source of dissension that could attract trolls. And on a more personal note I need at least one place/forum separate from the insanities that are surrounding us on a daily basis. If others disagree, I bow to the majority but will mostly likely be quiet.
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I saw a news story that some residents of the town of Haverhill, Massachusetts are upset at the smell emanating from the new Dunkin’ Donuts factory there in town. They complain about the fried dough smell and that their homes and clothes reek of it. Of course, quite a few others think it’s a nice smell.
It was a surprise to me that the donuts are made in a factory; while I never really thought about it, I assumed they were made in each Dunkin location:
Turns out it’s a little of both worlds. Most Dunkins get frozen dough from various partner factories. They thaw the dough, shape, fry, ice, etc. in the individual locations but there are also franchises that have the donuts made in their local factory. Who knew? Truly I do like the idea of the donuts being made right in my little store, but as long as they taste good when I get them in the drive-thru, I guess it doesn’t really matter to me.
However I do sincerely understand how the anti-smell folks in Havervill feel. When I was working in the bakery, I came home every single day and took a hot shower before I did anything else. I even convinced the owner to include me in the uniform rental (the other women in the bakery didn’t want this) so that I could leave the odor-drenched clothing at the bakery. I could FEEL the bakery smell on my skin. It wasn’t even that it was a bad smell just that it was so enveloping. And, of course, I believe I told the pumpkin pie story more than once, but my aversion to that smell is just as strong now as it was back then.
I guess that means I would be in the “ew, it stinks” camp if I lived near the factory. But I’m not sure I’d be willing to complain about it out loud.
What kind of a factory would you prefer not to live near?
I took a walk on Christmas morning. Me and the dogs, out through the fields. Saw a bunch of pheasants, tree’s I need to cut down, and lots of deer tracks. The header photo is from our walk.
Weatherman Mark Seeley has a weather forecast and article on the back page of The Farmer magazine. In the last issue, he talked about January of 2006 being the warmest January in MN weather history. “January 2006 started a remarkable trend of warmth in Minnesota. Fifteen of the 19 Januarys since that time have brought warmer-than-normal temperatures to the state. Of further note, seven Januarys since that of 2006 also rank among the warmest 20 in state history.” — https://www.farmprogress.com/farm-life/january-2006-started-warm-and-never-wavered
There are many reasons to be appreciative of the deep-freeze cold we normally get in winter. It kills off harmful bugs, it helps breakdown the soil for better working conditions in the spring, helps break up compaction layers in the soil, it helps keep stored grain in condition, to name just a few benefits. The worst thing is repeated cycles of freezing and thawing. That’s hard on certain crops, like alfalfa. Ice sheeting, and the repeated freeze thaw or a lack of snow cause winter kill. I bet you master gardeners have examples of the problems repeated freezing and thawing can cause in the gardens. Not to mention how tough the warmer temperatures are on cattle that have a winter coat and are prepared for cold. Respiratory issues can really become rampant.
We’ve had this one chicken living in the garage all winter. During the day she has taken to perching on the bottom rung of a sawhorse and looking at herself in a mirror.
Mirror Mirror…
And then the other night, there were 5 chickens in the garage! OK, seriously, the poop from the one chicken is gonna be bad enough come spring, and at least she’s over in a corner. Having five of them: one in the rafters, two more on recycling containers, and one on the dogwash wall are too much.
An unneeded bonus chicken in the garage
The next day I kept the garage door closed. I figured they’d just go back down to the coop. Three spent the night around the corner perched on the bird seed containers. Why have they moved up here in the first place? I don’t know what their problem is. I’ve got several spending the night in the nest boxes where they lay their eggs. They’re not supposed to do that either. They’re not too crowded as some are in the right side space, some are in the left side space (and they all pile up on top of each other for some reason), some are up in the rafters, and the rest are in the main coop area. I did add another board in there if they need another place to perch. Is it too many roosters? I think we have 5 roosters these days. And maybe 55 hens? I don’t know exactly how many, they are too hard to count. Really 2 roosters would be a good number. There’s a couple that seem extra ornery to the chickens. How come they never get picked off by coyotes?
Christmas day late afternoon I forgot to shut the garage door in time and had to chase out 3 chickens. Yeah, even being Christmas, I chased them out. I had given them extra corn and layer ration in the morning. They’re fine. The one in the corner, she’s earned it, she can stay.
Out in the shop, I added a metal top to the work bench. Dad built this work bench after the shed was built, so maybe in 1982 or 1983. When I started on the shop project two years ago, the guy doing the insulation wanted me to pull the bench off to redo the insulation behind it. I said no. Dad had put styrofoam and fiberglass insulation on that wall before he added the bench. I tore the top four feet off the wall as part of the shop project. The old insulation was pretty bad. Yeah, I probably should have redone the bottom four feet too, but I was already in over my head on this project and didn’t think I could handle any more. Hindsight you know. The bench is pretty well built, and the top is 2×8 boards with a gap between them. Stuff is always falling into that gap. Maybe it was Dad’s way of cleaning off the bench, to sweep the dirt and dust into the gap. Which then ended up in the bolt storage he had underneath. A couple weeks ago, I lost a screw down that gap and I decided that was it! I am covering this! I bought two sheets of 16 gauge steel (about 1/16th inch thick) 2′ x 4′ from a big box store. ($70 each! Jeepers!) Thanks Obama! (That’s a joke you know) And I rounded over the front edge. I need to get some different screws to hold it all in place, but it looks real professional. I’m glad I did that.
Kelly helped me get the last screen back in the 630 grill and I have that all reassembled.
Reassembled 630. Runs and sounds Great!
Needs an oil change yet and it will be ready for next summer’s work and projects. Next summer’s project I think will be rebuilding the belt pulley assembly. Clyde probably knows what a belt pulley is. You’ve seen pictures of back in earlier days, a long canvas belt ran between the tractor and an implement to provide power before the advent of power-take-off on the rear of a machine. That’s the belt pulley.
On the 630, that belt pulley is also the hand clutch assembly. And it rattles like some of the plates inside there are broken. I remember Dad adjusting it once in a while, but I don’t recall him ever pulling it all apart. The tractor also hasn’t had a working tachometer / speedometer / hourmeter for as long as I can remember. A few hundred dollars will get me a new gauge, new cable, and I don’t know yet if I’ll need a new gear inside the governor assembly or not. It’s all only money.
I’ve done my crop rotation maps for next year and got the acres figured out. Talked with Nate at Meyer’s Seeds and I’ve got until January 16th to lock in the early order discount pricing on oats, corn and soybean seed. I was approved for $43,000 in loans for chemicals and fertilizer from the Co-op. That doesn’t include the loan for seed. I’m really hoping I don’t need all of that loan as the crop prices aren’t that good. The first few years I farmed I stressed out a bit more about the crop loans. Of course 35 years ago I probably spent $10,000 on everything and it was still big money. Now days it’s just part of the deal. I don’t stress over it so much.
I thought for sure Kelly and I were gonna win the lottery the other night. And what would we do with all that money? As the old joke goes, keep farming until it is gone!
EVER BEEN THROWN OUT? TOLD TO LEAVE? EVER THROWN SOMEONE OUT?
Brrrr. We are hardy Minnesotan’s but it’s still cold out. Hope you can stay inside and warm for the weekend.
Honestly, how did people do it 100 years ago? Or 500? Or 1000??
We have so much to be thankful for.
I got my corn check from the co-op last week and put it in the bank. And this week I paid off the loan I borrowed from a month ago to pay the bills. And the co-op emailed about setting up the loan and credit for 2026 crops. Easy come, easy go. Repeat. I spent some time this week comparing interest rates. It’s kinda hard to find out what the actual Prime rate is. Course it varies by bank and how much money you have. And it was kind of interesting how that works. One of the companies the co-op uses does Prime minus 0.5% until August, then Prime + 0.5% until Feb of 2027. Another company has different rates on some of the products and zero interest on some, but then Prime +2% on fertilizer. In the end, it doesn’t amount to that much money. It would be a different story if I was spending $450,000 at 7.5% interest. (That’s $33,750 @ 7.5% if you’re curious. Now we’re talking real money!) And the government is going to bail me out with the poor prices on soybeans. So they say. I don’t know what that’s going to amount too yet. It won’t be $33,000 I can tell you that. I’ll bet I can take off a couple zero’s there and be more like it. I always say the difference between me and the big farms is a couple zeros on the expenses and the income.
I’ll fill out the forms this weekend and figure out next years crops. Samantha, the agronomist I work with at the co-op sent out a rough worksheet of next year expenses for my planning purposes, and I’ll get things ordered and prices locked in by mid January for the best rate.
Yesterday on the blog we were talking about things from the past. I had a guy at the farm the other day who had a front wheel drive car and was almost stuck on the bare, but snow covered driveway. He clearly didn’t know how to drive on snow. His wheels were spinning and he blamed the posi-traction. I can still hear my dad’s voice “DON’T SPIN YOUR WHEELS!” Our mantra in winter back in the day of rear-wheel drive cars. “Sit heavy! Don’t spin your wheels.” And my family jokes that Dad would say, “NO TALKING! BE QUIET BACK THERE!” I don’t remember that, but I’m sure it was so Dad could hear the wheels not spinning. Shift to low, back up to the garage so you can get a run at it, and don’t spin your wheels. And the guy got out. Our driveway is long and starts right off with an uphill “U”. (So right, “get a run at it” but you’re making a corner at the same time. You learn a lot about friction doing that.) Then you’ve got a flat 75 yards to gain some speed before the next uphill corner to the left. Most people, if they get around the U, can make the next corner. Although there was some days I had to back up 50 yards and get a run at the second corner again. But a front wheel drive car? Dude. Learn to drive. I remember years ago, the guy who would come in to breed the cows. He had a little tiny car. Rear wheel drive. He couldn’t get out. And he turned around and went backwards really fast around both corners. I was very impressed. But he made it.
Last weekend Padawan called me about 10:00 at night to see if I would help pull a friend of his out of a ditch. So I went. Because we’ve said Padawan is our second son, so, that’s what you do for your kids. The friend had a new sporty little car. Still had the temporary plates. Skidded on the snow and slid into a ditch. Another kid who needs to learn how to drive. He was only a little stuck. Pulled him out with the truck.
Haven’t had much time to work in the shop this past week. Concerts at the college, homework, (had the last ‘in person’ class. I have a couple tests to take yet and some online lectures to watch. Last day of classes is next Friday) And I’ve been moving snow.
Our mailbox is out on the highway. It’s on a swinging post so the snow launching off the snowplow doesn’t damage it, the box just swings out of the way. Meaning it WHIPS the mail out into the ditch…More than once we’ve found the mail under that pine tree behind the mailboxes. Sometimes we may not find it until spring. Hopefully it wasn’t the check we’ve been waiting for. There are three mailboxes as there used to be three homes down our road. The third, unused mailbox our neighbor named “S. Lamb”. The sacrificial lamb. Our neighbors are very witty.
The choir sounds really nice this year. It’s a new conductor and he’s doing a great job with the students. At rehearsal I heard him ask the kids, “Are you ready for the concerts Friday and Saturday?” And they responded, “Thursday and Friday!”
“Good. What time is the concert?”
“7:00”
“Good. What time are you going to be here?”
“6:00”
“Good. Saturday and Sunday concerts, It will be fun!”
“THURSDAY AND FRIDAY!”
“Good.”
Clearly, he’s worked with teenagers before.
In my happy place.
HOW YOU GONNA STAY WARM THIS WEEKEND?
HOW DO YOU THINK YOU WOOD HAVE STAYED WARM 500 YEARS AGO?
Guess it’s winter on the farm. I even wore a T-shirt under my sleeveless shirt one day.
I don’t think the chickens have come out of the pen all week. They peer out the door, but none of them has much interest in actually going outside. I picked up one chicken that was still living out in the pole barn and carried her back with the rest. And the garage chicken has moved down with the rest. For body heat I presume. Found 4 of the 7 chicks. It’s unfortunate it worked out the way it did for them. I’d have liked them to get a little bigger, or the weather to stay a little warmer, or momma to take a little more care of them a little longer. Any of those options would have served them better.
I got the starter put back on my 630 tractor and it started right up. I can’t get over how quiet it is now. Evidently having a hole and crack in the exhaust manifold is like a hole in your muffler. It’s surprisingly loud. And repairing it was very educational and gave me a great feeling of accomplishment. My dad would be so pleased. That thing has been cracked and loud for as long as I can remember. For a tractor from 1959, it’s getting some much needed attention.
I’m still working on some cosmetic repairs. I have new screens for the front grill and I picked up a cheap spot welder to repair part of the hood. Welding class from 12th grade comes through again!
Dad must have run into something to dent it and break off all the welds on one side. And now I need to figure out how to fit this straight piece of corrugated screen into the slots and curves on the corners.
I know it bends, it is just a matter of fitting it all together.
I worked on it for a while one night and decided this was something to ponder and come back too. The dogs all run into the shop and get a drink, and I played ball with Luna while Bailey gets in my face. Humphrey likes having a warm place to lie down and he’s happy. But the others get bored after a bit and Bailey pee’s on the floor and out they go. Kelly lets them back into the house. Out in the shop is my happy place. Have I mentioned that? As I closed the toolbox and turned off the lights, I thought to myself, this has been 35 years in the making. We took over the farm when we got married, 35 and a half years ago. And I’ve been collecting or buying tools and gaining experience since then. If I had it sooner, I wouldn’t appreciate this so much. Or I’d want something bigger.
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At the college I’m getting ready for Holiday Concerts next week. My friend Paul is designing again, so it’s fun to have him back in the shop.
I added a few more LED lights over the stage. Just some plain LED wash lights. They don’t move or wiggle, they just change colors. Over the stage are pipes called ‘battens’ and they’re all counter weighted so they’re balanced as they come up and down. Called “flying in or out”. Our stage has 19 battens. Three are for lighting (called ‘Electrics 1,2 and 3′ front to back). Several are curtains, and some are open to hang scenery. The counterweight is achieved using metal bricks that weigh about 15.5 pounds. We add or subtract them to balance whatever is hanging. When I added the lights to the 1st Electric, I had to add 8 more bricks. This is the main lighting batten. I counted 58 bricks. 899 pounds. This batten is rated for 1000 lbs.
These are the counter weight bricks. The yellow brick is empty base weight.
The First Electric and it’s 23 various lights.
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I read an article in a farm magazine recently about the next generation of autonomous farm equipment. The technology is out of testing and is available for sale.
A little background: As with all technology, this has been coming for a few years. First it was the GPS mapping. Then row sensors so machinery could follow the rows by themselves. Then the machinery started to incorporate the equipment and technology to put all this together and the tractor could follow a line through the field. Then it was automated so that the tractor could raise and lower an implement, slow down at the ends, and all the driver had to do was make the corner, find the next line and hit ‘Go’. From there, multiple implements or tractors could talk to each other. The tractor could pull up next to the combine, and the combine would take control of the tractor and unload at a constant speed. So simply removing the driver really wasn’t that big of a leap, it was kind of the next logical step. That said, I’m not sure I’m ready for a driverless car yet.
This information is from an article in Successful Farming Magazine from November of 2025, called ‘How Farmers Are Using Autonomous Equipment to Do More with Less’. It cites labor shortages, changing weather conditions meaning smaller productivity windows, or maybe just not having enough time in the day to get it all done. Some of the jobs open to autonomy are planting, spreading fertilizer, tillage, or pulling grain carts.
Wanna know what it costs?
There are two big companies: John Deere and AGCO. John Deere doesn’t list prices.
AGCO:
Capabilities: grain cart duties and tillage; planned for 2026
Compatibility: AGCO and PTx’s OutRun system is compatible with 2014 or newer John Deere 8R tractors. Compatibility with Fendt tractors is to begin in 2026.
OutRun for tillage has a $54,000 one-time hardware cost and a $9,000 annual recurring payment; OutRun for grain cart has a $55,000 one-time hardware cost and a $15,000 annual recurring payment.
If using the same tractor and base OutRun Intelligence kit for both grain cart and tillage, it has a $65,900 one-time hardware cost and a $15,000 annual recurring payment.
Carbon Robotics:
Capabilities: tillage, mulching, mowing, and LaserWeeder
Compatibility: Carbon ATK is compatible with John Deere 6R, 8R, 8RT, and 8RX model tractors. Installation takes under a day, with no permanent modifications. Carbon ATK is a $60,000 one-time add-on kit that Carbon comes out and installs.
John Deere:
No price listed
Sabanto:
Capabilities: mowing and seeding
Compatibility: The Sabanto autonomous kit is compatible with 2015–2024 Kubota M5 Series tractors; 2015–2024 John Deere 5E, 5M, and 6E Series tractors; and Fendt 700 Vario tractors. The kit costs $70,000, and is available on cab and open-station models.
First off, I don’t even have a tractor new enough to put this on. Second, [Looking at my bank account]… Nope, there is nothing to say here.
It is kinda cool! I can see the advantage for some farmers. Kelly suggested I could have the tractor doing fieldwork while I was at the college. Yep. Suppose Bailey would still get in the tractor without me? From the video’s of the systems I’ve seen, the operator is monitoring it from his phone or tablet. Inside the tractor you set the field and boundaries. Then once you’re out of the tractor, depending on which system you’re using, either you start it remotely and the tractor honks and the lights flash and it uses all the exterior cameras to make sure you’re not around, and off it goes.
If it “sees” something not right, it will stop and alert the operator, who can view the cameras and decide the best course of action.
There has been a karate school a few blocks from my house all the time I have lived here (think going on 3+ decades). I’ve really never paid attention to it at all.
Well, I got invited there to watch Marie (little girl who used to next door to me) take part in her karate class. If I had any assumptions before going, they were almost all wrong.
The karate school is woman-owned (not Japanese karate master-owned) with primarily women instructors (not Japanese karate masters). I saw a bit of three classes – the one before Marie’s, then Marie’s and then the very beginning of the class after. It was approximately 2/3 girls (not a bunch of Asian little boys). I actually only saw one Asian kid the whole night. So much for all my assumptions. To be fair, all I knew about karate before this was what I learned from watching James Bond movies.
Marie’s class is about 40 minutes long and the very first class was half instruction about when and when NOT to use their karate skills. Marie is the smallest in her class but pretty feisty. Another little girl had the karate yell down pat and one of the little boys could hardly wait for the instructor to give the go-ahead for the next move. They were all very cute.
I did a little searching on the internet and the history/etymology of karate is WAY too extensive for me to even try to parse it. You’ll thank me for that!
Have you ever learned any karate / judo / taekwondo / sumo??
I’ve heard folks rail about pennies for years but really didn’t pay much attention to them. It surprised me in reading the news of the last pennies being minted this week, that it actually costs 4 cents to make a penny. It’s shocking to me that we’ve been minting these coins for awhile at a 300% markup. Why didn’t we quit this silliness earlier?
When I was growing up, my dad kept a jar on the dresser and every night all the coins in his pocket went in. My mother used to fish out any quarters, dimes and nickels that she found but she left the pennies until the jar was full, then she took them to the bank. Occasionally a few pennies would be meted out to me and my sister, but not too often.
I discovered last January when I visited, that my mother is still putting coins into a jar in her chiffarobe. Apparently she doesn’t do this on a regular basis, just when she thinks her wallet is getting too heavy. Quarters go in a separate jar for the washer and dryer in her condo building. I also discovered that banks are no longer very interested in helping the public deal with their coins. And those coin machines you occasionally see at grocery stores? A pretty hefty fee and the grocery store near my mom’s would only give you store credit. A little calling around and I did find a bank about 15 minutes away that had a sorting machine, but you had to deal with it yourself. Not too awful but you could only put in one kind of coin at a time so it was laborious. Luckily it was a branch of my mom’s bank, so I could just deposit the money into her account.
No coin jars at my house and if there had been, that experience with my mom’s coins would have cured me. The news is that people are worried that every business will eventually start rounding up the price of your purchases. Personally I can see that happening with cash purchases, but with so many purchases being credit card/cyber transactions, I’m not too worried.
Was there a coin jar in your house growing up? What about now?
A wave of nostalgia hit me yesterday when I went to get a gift card for YA’s stocking. When I was a kid, my folks would drop me off in front of the movie theater, I’d meet up with my friends, plunk down my buck, get the popcorn, find a seat, see the movie. No checking a website for availability, no buying the tickets ahead of time, no assigned seats.
When I walked into the Southdale AMC, it looked very similar to the photo in the header. Just a bank of screens but no bodies whatsoever. For years I’ve left movie arrangements to YA, so I had to idea that people had become quite so irrelevant to the process. These days you can still buy a ticket from one of the automated kiosks but apparently most people buy the tickets online, choose their assigned seat and just go straight to the “ticket taker”.
If there was a way to get a gift card at a kiosk, I couldn’t figure it out, so I asked the ticket taker. Apparently you do still need a person to get a gift card; he took care of it for me. I thought about it as I went back to the car; nobody lets customers sell themselves giftcards at the self-checkout. I suppose that there are just a few too many ways that the sale can go catty-whompus. This was proved correct about 15 minutes later at Trader Joes. I’m not sure what happened but even the cashier couldn’t make the cards scan properly. The supervisor who got called over couldn’t figure it out either. Eventually they did total out my groceries and then do a whole new transaction for the gift cards.
I’m pretty sure that eventually they’ll figure out a way to automate giftcards and then there probably won’t even be a ticket taker when you go to the movies. They’ll most likely AI the popcorn and pretzels one of these days!
What’s something that’s been automated these days that surprised you?
I’m pretty sure that not too many people see grocery-shopping as an exciting activity. Well, count YA and I as the outliers. For some reason over the years, we have cultivated grocery-shopping as an activity we like to do together.
Our favorite is Trader Joes. We especially like to go every couple of months when the new round of items hits the stores. We go through the Fearless Flyer that TJs sends out and highlight stuff that looks good. Sometimes, if I just want a couple of things, I don’t tell YA that I’m going to Trader Joes; if she comes along, it will triple the bill at the register.
The spot where Rainbow Foods used to be in the Hub Shopping Center near our house has been empty for seven years. A couple of times there were signs for temporary spots, like a Halloween store, but they never materialized. When construction started to happen almost a year ago, we were both excited to see what was happening there and then doubly excited when we found out it was going to be a Mexican market, bakery and taqueria. Unfortunately, it took WAY too long to open, so I had put my excitement on the back burner. Finally, about a month ago, it was clear from the trucks in the parking lot that progress was finally happening.
The grand opening was this past Saturday. Prizes, giveaway, samples, a bouncy house, mariachis and native dancers made it a big party. And it was CROWDED. The opening was at noon and we arrived at 1. Thank goodness for my bad knees and temporary handicap parking placard; we would have had to have parked in Iowa otherwise. And forget getting a shopping cart. Luckily YA and I didn’t have any big shopping plans so we just used a big bag that we had in the car.
Lots of nice-looking produce, a massive dairy/cheese aisle and two bakery sections, one with cakes, pies and then the self-serve bakery aisle …. I don’t even have the words
There were plenty of mainstream items alongside the Latino foodstuffs you would expect to find. A big endcap of Mary statuettes and a long row of Mary and other religious paintings above the front windows. They even have a Currency Exchange office. The taqueria was doing a bang-up business, as well as the deli. The tortillaria, where they will make fresh corn and flour tortillas is still in the works and should be open in a couple of weeks. You could see that area and the machines waiting to get set up. Since I’ve quit making my own tortillas, I can’t wait.
Anyway, YA and I had a fun time. We picked up a few items that I needed for a soup I wanted to make but didn’t partake of any on-site food – just too crowded, even for us. But my guess is that in the next few weeks, as the hoopla dies down, this will be another grocery shopping venue that YA and I will add to our events catalog!
If a tomato is a fruit, does that make ketchup a smoothie? Any good grocery shopping stories?
*I used artificial intelligence to give me title suggestions because I had nothing. I didn’t like its ideas, but it spurred me to this one.
Summer padawan and his girlfriend found a hen with baby chicks. Don’t know where she’d been hiding them. That’s the header photo. Kelly and the kids rounded them up and got them in a side pen.
It was a little chilly this week. We had 27 degree’s on Friday AM. I did finally turned on the heat in the house- meaning I turned on the circuit breakers, I haven’t turned UP the heat yet. (Well, we turned on one baseboard heater to burn off the dust and that set off the smoke alarms, much to daughter and Luna’s dismay…) I unhooked the hose on the house faucet. And Bailey even slept in her sink with the blankets. I don’t know, it’s just something she’s always done.
Honestly, she’s not as pitiful as she looks here.
It’s cold in my theater shop; But that just means I have to work harder. Glad I’m wearing sleeves a few mornings.
I didn’t get much of anything done this week at the theater or the farm because it felt like I had a lot of meetings every day. I became chairman of another board, but that’s just a nominating committee and it’ll be quick and easy.
I got the three broken bolts drilled out and re-tapped for the muffler on the 630.
Drilled out the old bolts, and cut new threads using this tap.
Now I’m just waiting for the stud bolts that I had to order. And I got a new bolt for the tongue on the wagon that I fixed. The replacement bolt was a little bit different and I needed to drill a hole in it to put in a cotter pin so that the nut doesn’t work loose and come out causing the tongue to fall off, which would be a whole big deal.
Marks on the head of the bolt tell you the hardness of the bolt. If it’s plain it’s soft steel, grade 3. And this is all different for metric, I’m just talking American bolts, SAE. (Society of Automotive Engineers also called US Standard or imperial). Three marks mean it’s a grade 5 and six marks mean it’s a grade 8. A grade three bolt will bend whereas the five and eight will snap and break. There again, information you didn’t know you needed to know.
Bolt markings
I had to re-sharpen the drill bit a couple of times to get this hole drilled through this grade 8 bolt.
Drilling a hole for a cotter pin.
This is what it looks like when finished.
Took the dogs to the vet. Humphrey, being 10 years old and having a sore leg, has been on aspirin for a year and he needed a checkup before they’d give him more aspirin. And all three needed all the shots. And then I took the trailer to save more big money, and bought thirty, 20’ lengths of rebar for the concrete. They make fiberglass rebar now, it’s cheaper and lighter.
In preparation for the concrete, I have finished excavating dirt so that I can put the gravel down as the base. I was able to use the tractor loader to excavate most of the dirt. Then shoveled along the wall and existing concrete. I did have to get the pick out for a couple spots. I bought this at an auction a few years ago. Glad to have it, and it worked great.
There was rain in the forecast for next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday (Which turned into Tuesday, Wednesday and is now just Tuesday) depending on who you listen to. I am planning concrete Tuesday. The biggest portion would be inside so that’s not an issue but the whole reason I started this was the two outside slabs and too much rain is an issue for them. I’m trying to decide if I can somehow put a tarp over this or I should just reschedule for another day. And I don’t want to do that. I’m stressed about this and I have help lined up for that day, so I just need to get it done.
Although maybe by the time you read this the forecast will have changed, that’s what I’m counting on.
I’ve rented a plate compactor for the weekend to get the gravel base compacted prior to the concrete. I’m excited and scared about all this. Trying to think of all the little things I’ve seen done when they pour concrete. The biggest slab, inside the shed, is 19’ x 21’. The concrete truck won’t be able to back in there, so I’ll dump it in the loader bucket and drive that into the shed to dump it in place. And I’m adding a trench drain in there just to complicate it and make it more funner.
I’ll be glad when this is done. And smarterish.
Every now and then I have dreams about water. They say water dreams represent your emotions and it’s the depth and clarity that matter in the dream. Clear or shallow mean you’re peaceful. I’ve had dreams of a hose running clear water across the floor. Nice. Last night I was driving through a flooded street which I didn’t realize was flooding until I was pushing a wave in front of the car’s grill. Not sure of the clarity of it… yeah. I need to get this done and get this show open.
This time next week it will all be better.
ARE THERE SONGS ABOUT CONCRETE? OR PREP WORK, OR DIGGING? *
*I tried asking AI for questions, involving all this stuff but its questions were just dumb.
We have made several trips to our local landfill lately disposing of lots of stuff. Our landfill is set up so that you drive onto a scale, they weigh your truck, you empty your stuff in the appropriate bin, then you drive back onto the scale and get weighed again. It costs $3.00 for every 100 pounds.
The people who weigh the truck and calculate the cost are in a sunny office where we frequently see at least one of the three cats who live at the landfill. They have soft beds and full food dishes in the office. Sometimes they sleep beneath a sunny window on the workers desk. One cat has only three legs, and that is the cat we most often see running around, prowling , and sometimes taking a nap in a sunny space. They are very well loved cats and they make going to the landfill a more pleasant experience.
What are your landfill experiences? Where have you unexpectedly run into resident animals at businesses?
Trail Baboon 