Rob Smith has left us. I never had the chance to meet Rob, but I did exchange a couple of emails with him. He was kind enough to blogroll me a while back and even occasionally left a comment.

I always thought I'd go to a Jawja blogmeet and meet him, along with Dax, Donnie and the rest of the crowd, but I never got my ducks in a row to do it. That is something I will always regret.

I'm about ready for some rain

Since I'm almost finished with hay for now. If we don't get some rain soon, there won't be any more hay this year.

Managed to get another 27 rolls over the weekend. That makes 66 in the past two weeks. Bigger brother got the square baler cobbled back together, but he doesn't think it will last long, so I am in the market for another square baler (wonder if it would be easier to fix one of the other three we have). I have about come to the conclusion that as long as I keep using everybody else's cast-offs I just need to keep two of everything. The other option is to buy a new square baler, but after pricing them last year, that is hardly an option.

The Gehl did fine over the weekend. I still need to adjust the door latches as I occasionally had to take a ball peen hammer and beat the latches open.

At least it wasn't on fire when I had to do it this time.

That incident last weekend did putenough fear into me that I did go to Wally-world and buy a bigger fire extinguisher though..

Y'know, just in case.

Sorry, no photos

It has been an interesting weekend. Between TC and myself, we've managed to break three balers in two days, one of them (mine) multiple times. Two Gehl 1400s and a JD 435. We finally called it quits after mine (which was the last one working) lost a bearing. It almost caught on fire, but I smelled the smoke before that happened.

The 435 is another story. Lost a bearing in it. Had the roll that TC had just ejected catch on fire. If Ken hadn't had a fire extinguisher in his truck we'd have been in a pit o' shit. As it was the field was so dry they had to call the Fire Department. They couldn't get the bale to quit burning even after soaking it, so they ended up tearing it apart and wetting down what was left.

The pickup on the square baler is tore all to hell. Apparently it has leprosy up inside of it somewhere and it pretty much fell apart. Ended up rolling everything and ended up with 49 and a half 4x4's. I rolled several for TC before the bearing when out and rolled some for Tony before that, so all told I think the little baler rolled nearly 60 rolls in the past two weeks. Now that I've got a handle on how it bales I think I can live with it now. Yesterday morning though, I was just about ready to haul it back to Potts Auction and let it be someone else's problem.

Which brings me to something funny. Well, I think its funny anyway.

Poor Bigger Brother is one of those rare people who can literally do anything mechanical, whether its welding, fabricating, operating heavy equipment, machinist work, just about anything you can name. Myself on the other hand, am probably the worst mechanic and equipment operator on the face of the earth.

But.

There is one thing I can do that he can't and it drives him absolutely crazy (although he would never admit it) He can't run a round baler. It frustrates hell out of him because I can take this old worn out piece of junk and make a fairly decent looking roll and he can't. I almost feel sorry for him. The secret is that TC (who has the same baler) rode in the cab with me and taught me how to roll hay. Bigger Brother has had no such training. Things like that usually come naturally to him, but in this case it didn't. It think it really galls him because I can do something he can't, because it is almost always the other way around.

To interrupt the total lack of blogging

I have a few observations;

I really, really, really need to not go overboard next time someone offers me a good deal on chicken litter. It took nearly twelve hours to mow ten acres. I normally mow that much in three hours or less (if the Ferguson is running good).

Also;

I hate vetch.

I hate closed throat balers.

I hate rebuilding drive shafts (disk mower).

I hate getting hydraulic fluid in my cell phone (long story)..

I hate changing power steering lines on the Ferguson.

I really hate being sick (chest cold) when I am trying to mow/rake/bale hay.

On the plus side, the Dremel Tool my sweetie got me for Christmas has been one of the handiest contraptions I've ever had. I wouldn't have been able to do anything with that driveshaft without it.

In other news, after nigh on two months, the dozer still sits across the creek with the track off of it. I have been a busy boy lately. Maybe next weekend. I seem to be spending most of my free time at the office now, so there is not much farming going on around here this summer.

The Ferguson is about to lay down and die on me. The engine has so much blowby now that when I'm running it hard (mowing and running the round baler) it has more smoke coming out the bottom of the engine than it has coming out the pipe. One of my neighbors has a JD 4230 that he priced to me at 7K (which is about 2K under book), but it's not really what I want. If I'm going to spend that much money I'd rather find a Ford or another Fergie. Rebuilding the motor in the 285 is not really an option right now because of the time factor.

If I can find the digital camera (sweetie has it hid somewhere) I may have pictures of haymaking tomorrow evening, or not.

Well, that's about it for now, we can now return to our regularly scheduled non-blogging.