Down to the Wire

With my usual Christmas break coupled with a week of layoff, I had what (hopefully) will be my longest Christmas break ever.  Going into it, two and a half weeks seemed like an eternity.  I thought I had come up with a reasonable to-do list.  As I write this with only one day of break left, I realize that even with the extra week off, I still over estimated what I could get done.  Not getting everything done in this case is not really a failure though.  There were many instances where the workshop sat idle due to making memories, instead of making progress.  

Before getting layed off for a week, I took advantage of my free employee admission to the "new" Cat visitor center and finally took the boys.  We left Mommy at home to get some Christmas prep done, but Grandma and Grandpa met us there, so thankfully I had some help corralling the boys.  They had a ball climbing on the machines and doing the simulators.  I didn't expect N to show up Grandpa on "running" an excavator, but he seemed to pick up on it after only a couple minutes. 

Since I had used all my vacation, being layed off allowed did allow me the opportunity to attend Dad's retirement party.  It was great that our whole family was able to make it, and at least L was there to represent the grandkids.  Of course, the real star of the day was Dad.  It was great to see him in his element, with all his friends, peers and customers.  It's had to believe it's been 17 years since I worked there, but for me it was nice to see alot of the same customers, and even some of the guys I worked with back them come back to honor Dad. 

I also took advantage of my layoff week to take on a project we had talked about for a while; putting in a water softener.  We have had several instances lately of faucets/appliances having issues due to, what we assumed was, hard water.  Our water isn't terribly hard, but with evidence of scale build-up and the frequency of the issues lately we decided it would be worth putting in a softener.  I'll leave out the boring details, but good news is that, despite having to make 4 trips to Menards in one day, I still know how to sweat copper pipe. 

It's not often we actually get a white Christmas, but this was one of those years.  It wasn't alot of snow, but it has proved to be resilient.  It came in with a bitter North wind that, like years past, shut down our furnace. This time, since I was home, I kept a close watch and called our HVAC guy as soon as it started acting up.  Thankfully, he came out and got it back working, hopefully for good this time.  It was a messy snow that started as freezing rain.  Last year, our first snow was similar, and my first outing with Johnny's snow blade was pretty disappointing.  This year probably would have been similar, but the 317's ability to put down-pressure on the blade and scrape off the ice came in pretty handy.  With no more snow than we got I'm not sure I couldn't have done it about as fast with a shovel, but it was more fun with the tractor.

 

 Snow removal was in preparation of the first of our 3 Christmas celebrations this year.  The first one was with C's family at our house the Saturday prior.  The second was the day-of, with just our immediate family, the the third was the following Saturday with my family.  There are some benefits to spreading them out like that, not the least of which is giving me time to get all the boys presents put together and them time to enjoy them before getting overwhelmed with more.  Not surprisingly, the boys did pretty well this year.  It is a never-ending battle to keep them grateful for all that they have, but it is so hard not to spoil them.

Assembly, and even repairing, a few Christmas presents seemed to occupy alot of time in the work shop over break.  Of course, it didn't occupy all of it.  I finished cranking out a few last minute ebay projects.  I had plans to start into an engine rebuild on the Wheel Horse, but that didn't happen.  Instead, we started in earnest on N's pinewood derby car.  We got off to a rough start.  N didn't have any strong opinions on what he wanted to do.  We spun our wheels for a while on trying to come up with ideas, and finally settled on a plan to do one for him according to his ideas, and I would do one for myself that better suited my tastes.  We made good progress on his car.  It's tough for me to turn over the reigns on a project like this, but the design is all his idea.  I probably did more sanding than I should, but he did help, and continues to be excited to help and keep working on it.  Not surprisingly, I've got grand ideas for my car, but the execution so far has taken a back seat to getting his done.

With only one day of break left, I don't have high hopes of checking much more off my Christmas break list, but given everything that we did get done, I'm pretty content with all the projects, and more importantly, the memories, we completed the past 2+ weeks.

Christmas and Winter Prep

I consider it a small victory in parenting that when my 3 year old asks to watch "Barney", he actually wants to watch the Andy Griffith show. 

So, we're quickly coming up on another month gap since my last update.  I better get something on here before it all runs together more than it already has. 

In my last post, I neglected to mention that C and I had just returned from an extended weekend trip to Nashville.  It was the first time we had left the boys overnight since L was born, and the first multiple-night away from home for the two of us since before N.  It was some much needed time away for us and we had a blast.  We definitely will do it again some time.  Thank you so much to Baba, Grandpa and Aunt M for watching the boys while we were gone.

The weekend we were in Nashville marked the start of the Holiday season for our hotel there.  Seeing all their decorations prompted me to do some updating to our Christmas decorations.  For nearly ten years we have used white rope lights for our decorations.  They have held up remarkably well, but this year I decided to change things up with some color.  The warm weather we had around Thanksgiving gave me a good opportunity to put up some new LED lights that look like the older lights with the larger light bulbs.  OK, so you can tell it's LED's and not the old bulbs, but I still like that it is something different from what we have done in the past. 

Workshop time has been balance between Ebay projects and tractor projects.  As I mentioned earlier, I had trouble getting motivated on the Ebay projects, and thus got a late start.  I have since found that motivation, and while I still haven't put as much effort into it as in the past, I have had decent success.  I've got a few more projects that didn't quite get finished before Christmas, so those will have to spill into next year. 

L, who is always wanting to help, expressed interest in painting some monster trucks of his own while I was working on mine.  He did actually did a remarkable job keeping the paint on just the truck.  His, however, won't be going on Ebay.  N also got into the act, creating his own 8-wheeled monster truck inspired by one of the monster truck shows we watched. 

Tractor work has primarily been focused on my "new" 317.  It took a little longer to arrive than I expected, but once I got my replacement driveshaft, it went in the tractor fairly easily.  I was very happy to find that with the drive shaft in place, the tractor ran and drove great.  When I went to put it away, I set the hydrostat really slow and let L ride the tractor into the garage (with me standing right next to him of course).  He was elated and exclaimed to me, "I'm driving it, I can't believe it!" 

While waiting for the driveshaft to arrive, I picked up a hydraulic snow plow for the 317.  After I got the tractor running, I couldn't wait to try out the plow.  I hooked it up and discovered the blade wouldn't raise.  It was not a problem with the plow, but with the tractor.  It seems all the tractor had ever done was raise a mower deck up and down, so the 2nd lever never got used and was frozen.  I had to take the hydraulic valve all apart to free it up, but now it seems to work just fine.  A new snowplow seemed to keep the snow away last year, so we will see if another one does the trick this year. 

Bagged Another Deere

One of my co-workers has been diligently bow hunting for deer.  He has gone out almost every morning and evening the past couple weeks.  Despite his persistence, and a few misses, he has yet to get one.  Personally, I have never had much interest in hunting animals.  I am, however, all about hunting inanimate objects, be it toys, tractors or whatever is my current area of interest. 

My "hunting" typically follows the same pattern.  I start off trying to satisfy some personal want or need.  Once that need is met, not wanting to waste the research that inevitably went into it, I will typically transition into hunting for "opportunities" to upgrade or turn a profit.  I have definitely gone through that phase on toy tractors and power wheels.  Although I am not as fanatical about those now, I still like to take advantage of a good opportunity when it presents itself.  Obviously, my most recent fad is garden tractors.  Starting off with "Johnny" in early 2011, I have progressively added tractors to my fleet, each with a unique purpose in mind.  I now find myself out of ways to rationalize adding tractors to my collection, but still seeking the thrill of the hunt. 

It is that continued hunting, with no real need for finding anything, that has presented me with my latest situation.  In my defense, I did resist for almost a week calling on a Deere 317 fix-er-upper with an asking price less than half the going rate for a running tractor.  It was the classic opportunity ripe for the picking; vague title, bad picture, limited description, and (relatively) low asking price.  Combine those factors with close proximity, and it was just begging me to at least go take a look at it.  Finding out the seller had multiple other interested parties that couldn't come look at it until the weekend only further fueled my curiosity. 

Long story short, I am the new owner of a 1982 John Deere 317.  The seller practically described it like a family pet, but a high dealer estimate for repairing a broken drive shaft (a weak point on 317's), and a recently acquired four wheeler that can perform similar duties, prompted him to part with it.  For me I saw about $250 more in just the major parts than what he was asking for the tractor, and perhaps double that if I can find a decent deal on a used drive shaft to get it running again.  I'm not sure yet which path I will choose, but either way, potential uses for this tractor duplicate those of others I already have, so long term one or the another is going to have to find a new home.  Of course, I have said that before...

Pumpkins, Plowing and... More Storage

The past couple weeks have been fairly tame by our standards.  Not that we've been sitting around looking for things to do, but we haven't had any major activities planned. 

Of course one event that did happen over the past couple weeks was Halloween.  Although our pumpkin crop from the garden left something to be desired, we started a new tradition, decorating watermelons.  The boys put some stickers on the watermelons we had left.  Not wanting to buck tradition, we bought some pumpkins.  We had skipped jack-o-lantern carving the past couple years, but the boys enjoyed it this year. 

We also took in 3 trick-or-treating events this year.  We did one at the local petting zoo, one at the high school, and then the neighborhood one on Halloween night.  L was super cute in his monster costume that C made.  N was really into his Transformer costume, and surprisingly kept the mask on the majority of the time.  For the neighborhood one, we took the big wagon so we could haul the boys, extra coats and our candy bowl for the neighbors to trick-or-treat from since we weren't home. I couldn't resist tricking out the wagon a little bit, and put on an extra set of orange strobe lights to give it a little Halloween flare.   

On the Saturday before Halloween, I took my Wheel Horse over to Roanoke, IL to a plow day.  It was nice because it was so close for me.  The old 854 looked downright puny compared to all the big Deere's and Cub's.  It was pretty wet when I got there, and the tractors that were going were packing up with mud.  Closer to noon, things dried out enough for me to give it a try.  My tractor did a fine job, just not real fast.  Some of those guys were going faster with a plow in the ground than I could go with just the tractor!  I guess like anything, it turns into a contest to see who can go the fastest.  I took pride in the fact that I could get the job done with less than half the horsepower that some of the others had.  It was too cold and windy for the boys to come with me, but I did a little more plowing at home that afternoon and they had a good time playing in the freshly turned dirt. 

While I spent a fair amount of time last summer expanding my outdoor storage to keep pace with my rate of accumulation, our inside storage has become increasingly full as well.  We did a good job earlier this year sorting and collecting items to sell at a garage sale, and C has continued to set items aside for one in the future.  The problem is, we did not sell enough of it at our garage sale this spring, and when you combine that with the "new" garage sale items, it fills up almost a dozen tubs of stuff.  As the weather has turned colder and we spend more time inside, we have become increasingly frustrated by moving around those tubs when trying to get to various things in our storage room.  That frustration reached a breaking point this past weekend.  After some discussion on it, we decided the attic above the garage was our best storage solution. 

The prospect of lugging tubs up an extension ladder, through a hole barely bigger than the tub itself seemed daunting.   Having recently seen a neighbor with a fold-down ladder for their attic access got me thinking.  It didn't take long for that thinking to turn in to a plan.  Long story short, it took nearly all weekend to add a couple lights, put flooring in the attic, and install the ladder.  The end result is some incredibly handy storage space.  Now if we can just keep from filling it, and actually follow through with a garage sale to get rid of it.

Overdue

Another long overdue update.  It's been too long since the last one, so I'll just give some highlights.

The first big thing after the last update was L's birthday.  Once again, it was nice to get some of the family together.  Unfortunately, not everyone could make it, but we all still had a good time. 

The weekend of the birthday party, I also got a better chance to try out the plow with my Wheel Horse.  The boys are not the only ones in the family that enjoy playing in the dirt with their tractors. 

Later, we finally got a wet weekend and a chance to aerate the lawn.  I got the aerator put together and pulled it around with the 70. The aerator did a nice job, but as with the last time, it's kind of a pain to deal with the little dirt cores all over the yard, especially when they get wet. 

The first week of October brings with it the annual fall cleanup week.  I started off by using a wagon I found last year as part of a fall decoration on our front porch.  Once again, I made the rounds "picking" the treasures set out at the curb.  The big finds this year were a few Power Wheels Jeeps and and a couple wagons.  The Jeeps were combined into 3 "good" ones, which will eventually get sold.  L was a good helper getting them cleaned up and both boys helped test them out. 

A new activity in our house this fall is Cub Scouts.  The Scoutmaster came to N's class and gave them the hard-sell on scouting, and N thought it sounded good.  So far, it has been fun, and a good way for he and I to spend some time together.  Since he is just a Tiger Cub, I get to do everything with him.  So far we have had a couple meetings, walked in the Homecoming parade, and participated in an all-day scout event.  He is also really excited about getting to wear a uniform.

A project I had helped with this year a little here and there was the heritage display in the Cat visitor center.  I had helped do research for the machine restorations, provided some input to the archivist for display content, and came up with the idea for some images in the main stairwell.  Last week the visitor center finally opened.  C and I got invited to a preview night so we got to see it before the general public.  It was really neat to see the finished product.  I can't wait to take the boys to see it. 

My rate of new "toy" acquisitions has slowed some from the rapid pace in September, but I have perhaps traded quantity for quality.  To make a long story short, after a couple years of considering it on and off, I got a utility trailer.  Originally, I was focused on getting a trailer to haul my Cat, but ultimately decided so long as I could just borrow one, that was the way to go.   However, with my expanding interest in garden tractors, and semi-regular trips to Menards where a trailer would be handy, I had been thinking more and more about a small utility trailer.  Although a sales flyer from Tractor Supply is what triggered my renewed interest in getting one, I had all but decided to hold off until Spring.  That was, until a trailer showed up on the classifieds at work.  Although the trailer in the classifieds was a little more than the Tractor Supply one, I decided it's quality, and rust-free aluminum construction was well worth the small premium. 

Prior to actually getting a trailer, I had gone through the exercise of figuring out how to store it.  My most obvious solution was my go-to storage space; under the deck.  I concluded a trailer would fit in the remaining open space, but I couldn't get it in there without moving one of the deck support posts to provide a wider opening.  After several design iterations, I finally devised a plan to minimize the necessary deck modifications.  Although the modifications were "minimized", it still has taken a couple afternoons to get things situated.  Eventually, I would like to improve the design to provide easier access and more protection, but for now it works and gets the trailer secure, out of sight and out of the weather. 

With that project wrapped up for now, I am trying to shift gears into my seasonal Ebay selling mode.  I'm having more trouble this year getting motivated to work on toy projects, but I'm sure once I get going, the thrill of the auction, and the prospect of making some cash, will provide the boost I need.

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!