No Go

I wrote this last night and when I went to post it...the internet wouldn't let me!

hmm...where to start. Today was one that was meant to be productive...and you work all day, but when looking back not much seems accomplished.

So, on the way down to chores I picked Dean up again...and let the chatter box begin. After feeding all the hungry critters, Dean and Ross went up to get ready to cut hay and I hopped in with Merle and we headed up to the shed to move some things around. We needed to put the fuel tank from the black pickup (that needs a new battery) into the red pickup. Well, come to find out- it still had fuel in it from the winter time. So, Merle, Ross and I wrastled the dumb thing until we got it from one pickup to the other. I managed to get my foot underneath of it at one point- boy that sure was smart, and felt great. But, pretty sure it's fine and won't fall off.

Then, Merle and I started another short little project. We needed to get the chicken house ready for chicks! Delbert is going to be bringing them over any time so we figured we better get things ready. We rounded up the lamps and bulbs we needed and then went and got a stock tank to start them in. In the process we came across a huge rattle snake and killed it with a timber that was nearby. It was ready to shed it's skin so it was probably blind and nasty...but we got him. I have a picture and will have to put it up some night when it's not so late with all the other picture I promised to put up. I am not the biggest fan of chickens but how can one resist chicks! ...I'm sure I will probably have some opposite comment of that in two weeks! After getting that all ready to go we went and brought up a couple more feed bunks for our bucket calves. They are getting too big for the two we have!

We loaded up some other things that we needed for the field, and took off in that general direction. I did some greasing, and was ready to roll. My tac still didn't work, but the tractor drove just fine- so I was good enough to go. Adrienne came at noon to bring some pizza. That sure helped out my pb&j sandwich! Eventually, we got the entire field done except a couple corners when I ran into trouble.

I backed into a corner (like usual) and my tractor decided it was not moving (for good this time). I have this problem every now and again, but this time it was stuck. I messed with fuses, the ground cable, battery cables, dinked around with the shuttle shift...and about everything else I could think of. I got it so it would reverse, but not go forward. Some good that did with a wheat field behind me! In all the time I had wasted, Merle managed to catch up with me and he sits in the seat, does exaclty the same things I had been doing for ten minutes and voia la...it goes. That's usually how things go with that tractor- you can't figure out what you did to make it work and it's totally inconsistant.

So, I got over to the other haypen and saw an awesome whirl wind thing along the way. It was huge for a whirl wind too! Pretty cool. I get into this tricky haypen and the radio starts to die, then the CB radio dies, then it just quits moving while in gear. This time I'm stuck. We tried it all, and shut it off and couldn't get it going again. So, after lots of phone calls to Roger, the mechanic, we tried a few things. One of them was to be able to bypass the batteries and ground cable, but we needed jumper cables- which we almost always have- except today. So, we ran over to the other field east of Hisle to grab Ross's out of his pickup and then came back. It popped right off...but that still doesn't mean much since it sometimes just does that. After some more dinking around, we decided there was no hope other than to take the alternator off and go and get another one. So, I took the dumb thing off, dropped Merle on the side of the road for Ross to pick up (literally) and took off for Phillip. It was already like 6:30 or later so we were way after hours. But, Roger is a super guy and just had me call him when he came to town and switched pulleys and gave me a new one. I got back home with a new rebuilt alternator right around nine and am now headed to bed!

"There's nothing wrong with a hard hat and a hammer...it's the kinda glue that sticks this world together." -Alan Jackson