Horsin' Around

With this post, I'm hoping to finally get caught up.  Like always, I need to spend less time looking for new projects, and work on the ones I have, like this blog.

There are certain family traditions that C and I like to maintain, and a couple of them are tied to fall.  On my side of the family, fall meant a trip(s) down to Grandpa's farm to ride in the combine/tractor.  We have tried to continue that by going home to get a ride for the boys in a family friend's combine. 

On C's side, a big fall tradition was a trip to the apple orchard.  She has also done a good job maintaining that tradition with the boys.  Trying to fit both of those in this year posed some complications.  We had planned to take our trip to the orchard on a day N was going to be off school.  Last week we found out this was the day after N was going there on a field trip.  We decided that would be too much orchard for one week, so tried to find a place to move it.   Not wanting to chance the weather by moving it to later October, that pretty much left this past weekend.  Are combine rides and the orchard in one weekend too much?  Nah, not for us.

The boys got primed for the combine rides by the farmer harvesting the beans behind our house during the week.  L had cement trucks and a skid steer on one side of the house, and a combine on the other.  He was on overload.  Saturday, the weather cooperated and we got our combine/tractor rides in.  I think the novelty of it is wearing off on N, but L loved it.  It was a nice family day, and it was also nice to see some friends we grew up with. 

We also were blessed with nice weather on Sunday for the orchard.  It was a little chilly (45 deg when we got there), but with jackets it was just fine.  Like always, the apple fritters, apple donuts and apple cider were delicious, and the boys loved feeding the goats and playing in the playground. 

Two big activities like that in one weekend would be enough to make a normal family want to relax a little bit, but of course no one accuses us of being normal. 

C and I got the weekend off to a good start with a long overdue date night.  We had a delicious meal and followed that up with a romantic trip to Big R.  In my defence, it was her idea.  She wanted some new boots for winter/fall, and ended up finding some shoes she really liked.  We struggled to decide what to do after that, and ended up going to a movie.  It was a huge accomplishment for us to splurge on a movie actually at the theater, and a new release no less. 

After combine rides on Saturday, I tried to finally get more of the deck boards screwed back down, but L said he could hear me and it was keeping him from taking a nap.  So, I postponed that project again, and tinkered on the Wheel Horse a little bit.  After L woke up, I fired it up and tried a little plowing.  It was fun, but I've got alot to learn about setting up a plow, and just plowing technique in general.  There is a garden tractor "plow day" in Roanoke in late October, so if I get things all worked out I would like to try that. 

I had planned on making another plowing attempt on Sunday after the trip to the orchard, but a new "find" disrupted that plan.  Another, slightly newer, Wheel Horse "Commando 8" popped up for sale that had alot of the same parts as my 854.  My plowing attempt the previous day reminded me how nice it would be to not reek of burnt oil smoke after running the tractor.  Sure enough, this other tractor had the same motor.  I decided it was worth a shot that it would be in better condition, or at least have some useable parts.  If nothing else, a set of ag-tread tires like was on it would cost me more than the asking price for the tractor. 

N went with me to go look at it.  He was exceptionally patient the whole time.  Upon arriving at the seller's farm, I quickly noticed several other items I had seen on craigslist recently.  This guy was a "farm primitive" collector/reseller and had quite the collection, or "a yard full of junk" as N put it.  Long story short, I bought the tractor, and N had a good time playing with the guys kids, their dogs and looking at the rabbits and chickens they had on their farm. 

On the way home we stopped off to get a present for L's birthday.  N did a very good job picking out a gift.  It's more often that L is my "little helper", but it was nice spending an afternoon with just N, and I think he had a good time too.

Tractor Season

One could argue that every season at our house is tractor season, but September this year has gone beyond normal even for us.  As previously mentioned, we started off the month with a tractor show at Pontiac, IL.  The way the timing of the shows worked out this year, the main show for the Antique Cat Club fell just two weeks after Labor Day.  The show was at Bowling Green, OH this year, and while not too far to drive, I decided it was too far to take the Ten.  The show was combined with the Historical Construction Equipment Association, and was strictly a construction focus.  As such, it was one of the very few shows where you will see Caterpillar out number John Deere by a large margin.  While it was a nice turnout, I wouldn't call it exceptional from a number of tractors standpoint.  What was exceptional, however, was that nearly all the tractors there were used in the play area pulling graders, scrapers, etc.  Of course it wasn't just tractors either, there were plenty of loaders, shovels and trucks to watch move dirt too.  Next year's show will be near Joliet, so it will be close enough to take the boys to.

The weekend turned into a "double feature" for me, as on the way home I stopped by the Peterson farm in Indiana to see their collection.  The Petersons own the 1912 Holt Caterpillar that I have mentioned before, and I had always wanted to see the rest of their collection that rarely gets taken to shows.  They really were not kidding that their family has never thrown anything away.  They had nearly every tractor and implement that had ever been used on their farm.  In addition to the Holt and several other Cat tractors, they have a 1904 Hart Parr, and a 1915 car.  By virtue of being Caterpillar customers for 98 years, they also have an impressive collection of literature and memorabilia that Cat sent out over the years.  They also have some nice Cat tractors in their collection that are more recent additions.  At times, it felt like an episode of American Pickers, as they kept mentioning other barns with something interesting in them.  In all, I spent 5 hours there and I still don't think I saw everything. 

While still not in the same league as the Peterson's, I haven't been able to resist growing our collection a little bit the past few weeks.  One of the main reasons I bought the Wheel Horse was because of it's hitch that could raise and lower implements, thinking that could be fun to use in the garden.  Doing so, of course, requires said implements to raise and lower.  Since the Wheel Horse hitch is a bit unique, I had been keeping my eyes out for implements that would work on it.  I happened across a couple, on the John Deere collector site of all places.  The first one was a cultivator that the seller didn't know what brand it was for.  I recognized the hitch style, and was able to identify it as a Wheel Horse one.  When I went to get it, and talked to him about what it was, he remembered he had a plow with the same style hitch.  I wasn't sure it was Wheel Horse, but the price was good enough I was willing to take a chance.  After getting home, I found out it was a Wheel Horse plow, and an uncommon one to boot. 

There is just one problem with the attachments I have gotten for the Wheel Horse; the Wheel Horse isn't ready to pull them.  The first order of business was replacing some worn out rear axle seals so I could get the oil to stay in the transmission.  From a missing chunk in one of the rear hubs, I suspected the previous owner had tried to replace the seals, but discovered a hub was seized on the axle shaft and gave up.  My suspicions turned out to be true, but after alot of liquid wrench, heat and some persuasion, I got the hub off.  I was able to get the new seals put in, along with a few other small parts, so I should be ready to go. 

The last recent project was refurbishing an old toy box that my Grandpa Louie made for me and my brother.  It served us well through our childhood, but had probably spent the better part of the last decade in my parent's crawl space.  C was looking at wooden toyboxes online one day, and I said I knew where there was one we could have if we wanted.  I think I sanded it all down back in June, but deciding on a color and actually getting around to painting it took considerably longer.  C was looking for something to add some color to the room, and it certainly does that!

Rain for a Change

The way the tractor show schedules landed this year, The ones I planned to take the Ten to were in May and September.  Wouldn't you know it, after waiting the whole hot and dry summer for the Labor Day show at Pontiac, it rains almost all weekend.  Not one to be easily discouraged, I did still take the Ten to Pontiac, but only for Friday afternoon, parking it back in the garage at home just as it started sprinkling Friday evening.  It was good to get the Ten out again, and since it sat dormant almost all summer, I was glad that I was able to get it started.  It sputtered and smoked a little more than usual to start with, but after giving L a little ride, it got back to normal. 

After raining off and on all day Saturday, the clouds parted a bit Sunday morning and we all went back over to the show, hauling only our wagon and no tractors.  I still didn't have the cup holders done yet for it, but it was done enough to use for the show.  It was a good thing too.  Both boys rode in it most of the time, and it did a good job keeping them out of the mud, of which there was plenty.  The muddy conditions prevented us from seeing too many of the tractors up close, but the boys got to ride the train, and C got to walk around the swap meet.  Since I had already seen the tractors on Friday, we all were able to head home satisfied. 

The rain also provided a good test for my deck-shed project.  A test which it failed.  It didn't leak too badly, probably not any worse than it did before, but it was disappointing that it did leak.  I was able to redo that portion that leaked, and seem to have fixed it (at least for now), but a subsequent phase of the project created some new places for leaks.  A few additional hours of sealing and caulking have hopefully improved those spots.  I could run the sprinkler over it to test it, but I think I will wait for it to rain, and probably am just going to have to accept the fact that it is going to leak sometimes.

Despite the rainy weekend over Labor Day, the following weekend was just about perfect weather-wise.  Saturday morning was mostly filled with errands, including a stop at a garage sale where we found a new, bigger bike for N.  He was really excited to try it out, but we had to add some training wheels.  When we got to Wal-Mart, all they had were pink training wheels, but that wasn't anything that some of Dad's spray paint couldn't cure.  L was equally excited to get the hand-me-down bike from N.  His legs are just a little too short for it, but with his determination he manages to get up on it, and can do a decent job of pedaling.  I'm sure by spring he will be zipping up and down the street on it. 

The nice weather also provided me a good opportunity to get all the tractors out for a group photo.  I got the Wheel Horse back together, and thankfully I had better luck stopping the leaks in the gas tank than I did stopping the leaks in the roof of the shed.  It was fun to get all the tractors out. 

L was excited to go for a ride, and before I knew it, a bunch of the neighborhood kids came over and wanted to go for a ride too.  I hooked up two of the wagons to the Ten and took them all for a ride along the field.  They had so much fun, we had to make a 2nd trip.