Bom Dia!

Wow, almost a whole month since I updated.  I guess that is because I haven't done anything all month.  Yeah right!  It's been quite the opposite. 

We started off the month with a nice extended family vacation.  Much like our extended family vacation with C's side earlier this year, we had to juggle differing schedules / routines, but we were able to do that fairly well and I think everybody had a great time.

The vacation was a good chance to spend some together time before I had to leave for a work trip to Brazil.  The trip went fairly well, and I enjoyed seeing a new place and meeting my counterparts down there, but after two weeks I was more than ready to get home. 

When I got back from my trip, I saw something I hadn't in quite a while; rain.  It wasn't alot of rain, but enough to show me that the roof in my under-deck shed was not as rain-proof as I would like it to be.  When I first built it, I was OK with it not being totally dry.  It was mainly for bulky kids toys that were mostly plastic anyway, so it wasn't a big deal.  As I have increased the number of lawn and garden items stored there though, the moisture concerned me more.  The portion I recently added was better than the first part, but even it had some problem areas.  With a touch of fall in the air, and seeing more normal levels of rain the forecast, I decided now was the time to address the problem.

Initially, I thought about just repairing/reinforcing the problem areas.  (In retrospect, that still may have been a better option.)  However, I decided that my original design was flawed and I would be better off redoing the roof.  To do it the new way I wanted to, I would need to remove the decking boards from the deck.  I had wanted to take some of them off anyway to re-level some joists that had settled/shrunk anyway, so this would allow me to kill two birds with one stone.  Looking ahead in the weather forecast, I saw rain was coming on Sunday.  I knew there was no way I could get done by just working Saturday, so I took a day and a half off during the week to get it done, leaving me Saturday as contingency to finish up.  Well, long story short, I drastically underestimated the amount of work it was going to take.  I blew through the vacation time, and still needed all day, and nearly all night on Saturday.  The rain arrived right on schedule Sunday morning, and I finished the roof work with less than a couple hours to spare.  That still left some revisions to the walls, which took a couple additional afternoons of vacation time, plus evenings to finish.  With the remnants of the hurricane scheduled to hit this weekend, it should be a good opportunity to test it out.

Not surprisingly, the shed project has left time for little else, but  before I started that I managed to sneak in a few other things.  Shortly after I got back, I did have to mow, which I hadn't done in quite a while.  Although a little rain and some cooler weather have helped the grass perk up, the dandelions have perked up quicker, prompting me to finally try out the sprayer I built last spring.  It worked pretty well, although the wand part broke before I was done.   I did the wand spraying while L was asleep, and must have looked pretty strange (although the neighbors are probably used to it by now) pushing Junior and the sprayer around the yard so as not to wake L up.  After he woke up, I could run the tractor and tried out the broadcast part, which worked well without any issues.

Johnny got a little workout too.  One of the neighbors ordered some landscaping rock, and they delivered the wrong stuff.  He got the rock for free, and offered some to me if I wanted any.  I figured it would be good to line the creek with.  I got alot of help loading it in the wagon too.

I have made a tiny bit of progress on the new Cat wagon, but still have a little more to do to consider it done.  The Wheel Horse sits pretty much as it did at the start of the month, except I did coat the inside of the gas tank so now it hopefully won't leak the next time I try it.  September is going to be a busy month, so progress on these projects is going to remain pretty slow.

Ol' Red

As I mentioned in my last post, the hot weather encourages me to stay inside and surf ebay and craigslist. This leads to finding new projects instead of being outside working on projects I already have. This is extra encouragement I obviously don't need. The warm weather also seems to be motivating people to clean out their garages, because there has been a higher than normal number of tractors, carts, wagons, implements, etc. on Craigslist. That combination of more items available and more time spent looking at them is a dangerous one. As I recently mentioned, in the past few weeks I have already added a snow plow for the 70 and another wagon to the collection. This week was an even bigger addition, another tractor.

Back when I first started looking for a garden tractor, I actually first considered a 1960's Wheel Horse because a couple had caught my eye at a tractor show. I looked for a little while, and after realizing Deere's were much more common, I switched gears and started pursuing those. Obviously, I found one Deere, and then another. Still, there was something about those old round-hooded Wheel Horses that appealed to me. They again caught my eye at the recent Penfield show.

As luck would have it, a 1964 Wheel Horse 854 showed up on Craigslist last week. Despite some prior interest in that style of tractor, I still probably would have scanned the ad and moved on if it weren't for the way the seller advertised it. He said he wanted it out of his shed, and since we didn't know what it was worth, he would entertain any offer. That got me curious - what was it worth? So, the investigation began. I dug up what information I could about the model, compared the photos to others to see what was damaged and what was missing, and tried to come up with a value - hypothetically of course. Petty soon I had enough time invested in the investigation that I just had to carry through with making an offer on it. Long story short, after some negotiating, the tractor was mine.

I justified this one to myself as a true "garden tractor". It has an implement hitch on the back, which will allow me to raise and lower my disc and a plow. Of course that means we will have to expand the garden next year. All of that assumes, of course, I can get it running. It came with the typical "ran when parked" sales pitch, although "running" and "running well" are often far different things.  So far, I've just done a good cleaning, inspection and changed the fluids, but it's not moving under its own power, yet.

Despite adding the Wheel Horse to the heard, I couldn't resist another tractor that found me.  Just a couple days after buying the Wheel Horse, as I was on the way to work I spied a lawn tractor out at the curb a couple blocks from my house.  Sure enough, there was a "Free - Take Me" sign in front of it.  I drug it home.  It starts and runs OK, but the drive belt has come off twice so I assume it is shot.  It also leaks some oil, so the engine probably needs some TLC.  Still, other than having to put the drive belt back on, it worked fine for mowing, and left me looking for other things that needed to be mowed that I didn't want to use a "nice" mower for.  I will probably just part it out and scrap most of it, but for now it will save some wear and tear on Johnny. 

 

The Wheel Horse has taken some attention away from the new wagon, but not totally.  I did manage to get the side boards assembled and painted.  I still need to put the brackets on to hold the side boards in place, but so far, so good.  I still hope to have it done in time for the Labor Day tractor show in Pontiac.