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. 

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. 

Still Hot

It's still hot. Thankfully we've had a few days here an there where it has cooled off into the lower 90's for highs, but for the most part we've been dancing around the 100 degree mark almost every day since my last post.

It is never really "slow" around here, but the summer is always especially busy. Of course we have a couple birthdays in July. Chalk it up to Murphy's Law that in the middle of a drought we get rained out (or more accurately lightening'd out) of a pool part for cousin E's birthday party. Still, we had a good time down there, and the kids found other ways to have fun after they had to get out of the pool.

Along with finding ways to have fun, L apparently also found a flu bug. He was fine during the day, but got very sick during the night. This spoiled some plans C and I had to have Grammy watch the boys while we want to a flea market together. We ended up tag teaming it, as we often have to do for things. I went in the morning and took N with me. He was a real trooper and did not complain once.

C went later in the day after I came home. We were not successful in getting to spend some time just the two of us, but we did find some home decor items. A couple days later C got the bug and then finally N got it too. Thankfully, all were well again (and I never got it) by the next weekend for N's birthday party. N's was a pool party too, and being at the indoor pool, we didn't have to worry about the weather. N's birthday gifts resulted in some Lego projects for N and Daddy. We did a couple the first day and then spread the rest out over the next few days. N can follow the instructions pretty well if he has too, but he is more than willing to let somebody else do it for him if they are willing.

I was able to work around the birthday parties and fit in a couple tractor activities. The first was a trip to the tractor show at Penfield, IL. It was a nice show, but since I could only go for the day I just took the 70 and left the Ten at home. It was a good turn out in both terms of tractors and spectators, especially since it was so hot. I had fun showing the 70 and cruising around the show with it a little.

The second tractor event was the Heart of Illinois Fair Tractor Pull. This was N's first tractor pull, so it was a treat to take him and Grandpa. I thought it was neat for us to be there 50 years after the 1962 HOI pull that we have a photo of Uncle Bob competing in.

N's interest in the tractor pull was somewhat limited, especially after he saw the bouncy-house near where we grabbed some supper. He did enjoy that, as well as the lego 4H project displays. He also enjoyed some icecream as we were on our way out.

The high temps also are more conducive to sitting inside surfing craigslist than working in the garage. Not surprisingly, I've found a few things I couldn't live without. The first was a snowplow for the 70. I don't know if I will ever plow snow with the 70, but its nice to know I now have the option of using it next winter instead of my "pretty" blade for the 110.

The other purchase was another wagon. Yeah, I know, ANOTHER wagon. This one was unique in that it came with a Conestoga wagon type top. The boys got a real kick out of it, kind of a tent on wheels. One reason it was so cheap though, was that the paint was coming off. By coming off, I don't mean here and there; it was coming off in sheets. It appears that when it was made, the body was rusting before it was even painted, so the paint didn't stick. Since the paint was shedding pretty rapidly, I stripped it off and repainted it in the color of N's choice; black. Unlike the other wagons that I invested alot more time in, and try to restrict the boys to non-damaging activities with, this one will be theirs to use as they wish.

Work on the "new" Caterpillar wagon has also progressed, albeit fairly slowly. I got the sides cut and router'd at the neighbor's house. Then came lots of sanding, and the first coat of paint. I still need to assemble the sides and then give them the final coat of paint. After that, it will be functional, but I want to add features to it like the toolbox and cup holders I have in their smaller Caterpillar wagon.

Lastly, we did finally get a break in the heat, at least for a few days.  Some Summer thunderstorms blew through and brought with them some pretty strong winds.  No damage from that thankfully, but we did get about 1/2" of rain.  The rain was a little late to help with our weak sweet corn crop, but as they left the area, they left us a nice double rainbow.

Hotter than a Firecracker

With the heat wave we had the past few weeks, the primary focus has just been trying to keep cool.  The first few days in the upper 90's really slowed us down, and we spent most of our time indoors.  N has been showing more interest in Legos lately, so that was a good excuse to get those out and spend some quality time in the basement building some of my old sets.  N doesn't quite have the patience to dig through the box to find the special pieces called out in the instructions, but if you find the pieces for him he can do the rest pretty well.  L isn't quite there on the building skills yet, but he is really good at keeping N and I busy putting stuff back together.  C has some nice pics of the Lego activities on her blog.  If you check it out, you can also see the whole family getting into the act on the kiddie carwash, which proved to be another great way to beat the heat. 
The string of triple-digit days didn't stop us from working/playing outside entirely, and I dare say by the end we were almost getting used to it.  I took some extra days off around the 4th of July holiday and couldn't resist working on a few projects.  The main project in the workshop right now is redoing the garden wagon I found a couple months ago.  I took the wheels and frame all apart, stripped them down and repainted them.  The boys got to help with reassembly. 

With the running gear all back together, I started on the body.  My plan is to basically make a larger version of our Radio Flyer "Caterpillar" wagon, but in the style of the Amish wooden stake wagons.  With the neighbor's help, I got the boards all cut and then sanded them down.  After it finally cooled off a bit last Sunday, I set up my good ole paint booth and applied a nice clear finish.  Next step will be the stake sides. 

Despite a never ending backlog of projects, I couldn't resist adding just one more.  C and I stopped into a local antique store looking for some home decor items.  Leave it to me to find a garden tractor project while there.  They had a nice little garden cart, which I'm sure would have ended up as a planter, sitting in someone's yard with flowers in it.  I couldn't help but notice more than a passing similarity between it and a fairly obscure John Deere #8 garden cart made 1970-72.  Of course I don't need another cart, but I couldn't help but bring it home thinking I would eventually turn it into a #8 cart replica.  I'm not sure the background on the cart, but have found out that the same body was used for this brand, as well as dump carts for Toro and for John Deere.  This version, unfortunately, is lacking a tongue and dumping mechanism, so coming up with those will require some patience, creativity, or a little bit of both.  In the meantime, we already put it to use holding husks as the boys cleaned some of grandpa's sweet corn.  It was delicious!

The Power Wheels are still getting a pretty good workout, although we have found that if you combine these hot temperatures with some heavy loads driving through the grass, they run down the batteries pretty fast, and will even blow a fuse now and then.  N suffered a blow to his ego this week when the neighbor down the street got a new ride.  For the most part, his Cat Jeep has been the top dog in the neighborhood for a couple years.  That was until the neighbor got his new four wheeler last week that goes up to 7mph.  All of the other vehicles go up to 5mph, which doesn't sound like much of a difference, but when watching them, there is a huge difference between 7mph and 5mph.  I had my doubts that the neighbor boy could handle that much speed, but like the rest of them, he seemed to get used to it pretty quickly.  After a couple days, N got to try it out and he loved it.  Of course, he wants one now, but with a price of over $600, I don't see that happening any time soon. 

Although they are no longer the fastest, the boys' trucks had no problem performing a little task I set up for them.  I changed the furnace filter and needed to break the old one down to fit in the trash can.  Rather than do that manually, I let them pretend it was a crush-car for their power wheels.  They had a ball and did a nice job smashing it down.