Thistledog's Farm

We stacked up quite a list of equipment maintenance jobs to do during Bear’s visit here.  Of course the list was way too long and optimistic for the time available, which was three weeks; in addition, he caught a cold on the flight over and so his first week was a no-go for anything other than sneezing, coughing, blowing his nose, and drinking lots of fluids, inside the warm house of course.

But together we’ve gotten a lot accomplished as these three weeks draw to a close, which is a great relief to me, for although I’m pretty capable of doing a fair share of wrench monkeying, my days are stretched rather thin with lots of other requirements.  So all the vehicles and equipment have had their oil changed, the big truck now has mud flaps (Merry Christmas to Thistledog from Bear!) and Jack the Tractor is in the process of getting new gauges and lights installed and wired up.

Yesterday we changed the blades on the Bush Hog, which isn’t a one-person task by any stretch of the imagination.  It was a little more difficult than it had to be, owing to the ginormous socket getting stuck on the nuts after torquing them to 600 ft/lbs.  I think we used the wrong size socket but you know, it turned out ok anyway and we needed the gear puller I had to go into town and buy to pull it off, so I’m not arguing.  New blades will make clipping and mowing pastures so much easier on the tractor, and the tractor operator, too.