The downside

of using chickensh*t for fertilizer is having to give the dogs a bath every day. Elvis likes to roll... no, wallow in it. Wouldn't matter were he an outside dog, but since he has because an indoor/outdoor dog (who likes to sleep on the furniture) this can be a little bit of a problem.

Oh well, it's supposed to rain tonight. That'll take care of it until the next time at least.

Skeered

On a closer examination, TC is getting leery of the Allis. The boy what owns it now... well, lets just say that I don't think his bread is done...He brought it out to a job site (still with that crossmember broken mind you) and managed to immediately tear the hydraulic pump out of it.


Looks like a train wreck don't it?


Here's a side view. It looks like it's missing an idler from underneath the top of the track. The pads are good, the pins aren't worn too terribly bad, but the drive sprockets seem to have a lot of wear on 'em.

If he knew it would hold together for about three months, I think he'd buy it, but after seeing it in it's current sad state, I think he's lost interest in it.

idiot sticks

An old farmer went into to town one day to go to the Feed n' Seed. Whilst he was there, someone stole the posthole diggers out of the back of his truck. He called the Sheriff out there and was just raising cain about it. Told the Sheriff "I want you to find whoever done this and be right quick about it!"

The Sheriff, who was somewhat taken aback by the man's obvious passion, asked "Now are you sure you want to prosecute somebody over a ten dollar set o' posthole diggers?"

"Hell no! I want to hire 'em!"

My Bride didn't really think that little story was funny, but everybody I've told it to that has spent any time using "idiot sticks" thought it was.

I guess I missed out on de-lurking week

As Big Daddy Possum mentioned earlier this week, but I don't it matter 'cause all four five of you normally leave comments anyway.

Moving right along, I didn't get to try out the chainsaw-on-a-stick, or rather I did, but I going to have to read the manual... that's a hard thing for a guy to admit, but it's true. Something is not quite functioning right. I did have it running, but not at a fast enough rpm to cut any limbs. Besides, it was too bloody cold to spend much time outside. Matter of fact, I didn't accomplish a damn thing today other than going with TC to look at the Dozer from hell.

Some guy told him he had a big old Allis dozer he wanted to sell, so we went to look at it. This monster turned out to be a 60's-70's Allis HD-16, a huge machine that weighs close to 25 tons. That is probably overkill for what TC needs a dozer for, but it's cheap and if it will hold together for about four days, it won't matter if it blows up because he will have finished clearing everything he needs to clear. Then he can sell it for scrap. No kidding, this thing will push down anything in front of it.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop? Herein lies the problem, otherwise known as the reason it's cheap... there is a crossmember underneath this beast, about amidships, that holds the whole shebang up out of the dirt. It be broken.

The old boy tried to weld it back together, did a half-ass job and it broke again, he's got a piddlin' little ole chain holding it together right now.

I'm thinking the reason his weld didn't hold was because that crossmember is probably a cast part and this genius probably tried to weld it with a 6013 rod or a mig or something else that won't work with cast steel. See. Allis was big into casting back when they were in bidness. If I'm not mistaken, they built some (or all) of the cast pieces for the turbines in the Hoover Dam (read that somewhere, don't recollect where, so don't hold me to it). Anyhow, bigger brother thinks he can weld it up, but he needs to look at it to be sure.

TC may be getting himself a behemoth toy to play with in the near future. Hope so, I'd like to borrow it for about a day.

Burning holes in my pockets

I received a Lowes gift certificate for Christmas. Now that, my friends, is something useful. The problem lay in how to use it? Should I hold on to it, use it sparingly on small purchases and keep more of my hard earned money? Never! Why would I do a thing like that?

I blew the whole thing today to soften the cash outlay for this contraption. Yes indeed, I bought myself a chainsaw on a stick. And what, pray tell, do I need with such a device? To begin with, I hope to clean off some fence rows, some low-hanging limbs in the pasture(one of which cost me a cab window on the Ferguson three years ago) and some nasty viny sh%t that's hanging over my driveway. I've pondered the best way to get rid of those limbs for a while. Standing in the back of my truck with a chainsaw is one way, but I scared the beejeebus out of DR last year doing that, so after seeing one of the neighbors using a pole-saw a couple of weeks ago I decided this would be a handy implement to have.

The fact that the pole-saw end detaches and you can use it as a heavy-duty weed-eater also helped to sway me. If I can find a brushcutter attachement for it, I'll have my flunkies cleaning fencerows this Summer... if they're broke enough that I can inspire 'em into doing it. If not then I guess I'll tote the heavy-ass thing around.

Getting back to the limb-cutting deal, I wonder if this is my subconscious telling me that if the chain is eight feet away from I can avoid a repetition of previous chainsaw accident, circa 1989, when I tried to cut my hand off? Which, thinking back on all the stoop-id shit I've done over the years, especially with pto shafts, rotary mowers and posthole diggers (three hitch point auger type) it's a blooming wonder I'm still alive and in one piece.

I'm going to try it out tomorrow, hopefully I won't lose any body parts.

Stink, stank, skunk?

Got up to the house this evening, my boy Elvis (as in Elvis the coonhound) is standing at the door wanting to come inside, its cold and he's been out all day. Let him in and figure out right quickly that he needs to go back out. I first thought he'd been rolling in my freshly spread chickenshit, but I actually think he's been playing with a three-days-dead polecat. He was rank. I believe that's the worst he's ever stunk. Gave him a bath, so now my bathtub smells like a three-days-dead wet polecat, but at least Elvis doesn't anymore.

So, I'm driving down the road

and reach over to adjust my rearview mirror and PLOP! It falls off into the floorboard. I drive around without the silly thing for two or three days before I really get tired of not being able to see what's behind me so I run by the parts store and pick up one of those mirror repair doo-lollys.

This morning, I finally get motivated enough to fix the thing. Take the little metal doo-hicky that the mirror itself mounts to off, scrape some of the old glue off the windshield, put the new glue on, stick the metal doo-hicky back on the windshield.

Then I go and spend the next four hours riding around in a spreader truck, dispensing chickenshit in my pastures.

Finished up with that, came back to the barn to retrieve my mirror that I'd abandoned there there earlier, stick the mirror (for some reason my fingers keep wanting to say "mirrow," every freaking time I type mirror) and head to the house. Hit a bump crossing the road and PLOP! My rearview falls off into the floorboard...

Guess we'll try that again.