What did you do with your tractor today?

[Propane1]

Well Jim. I use a shovel to dig mine too. But I had some trouble this year doing that, so next year I’m cutting back. Only one small garden. And one bigger one. Normally I had two big ones and one small. To much diggin for old fella like me. I was pushing myself to get it done, which I did, but end up exhausted.

I used cow manure and chickin manure too. And I’m thinking that caused some of the potatoes to go those crazy shapes. Worse than normall. But most were huge. Potatoe farmer told me once to use triple 17 fertilizer. Which is what I’m gunna use next year. I’d love to have one of those horse drawn ground driven potatoe diggers. That would make it a lot easier to get the potatoes.

Nice variety of potatoes you got there Jim. Was the ground to cold for them to germinate, causing them to be small ? That same potatoe farmer told me to green sprout the seed potatoes. Set them in the sun, spread out. I set them inside my patio door, or you can put them outside, but have to be takin in at night. Inside would be best, because they will still get light on raining days. So what this does is the eyes will start to grow and they will have very green and hard spouts after about two/three weeks or so. So when you plant them, they have a head start. Easier to see where the eyes are too when you cut them into sets.

I’m only growing russets and superiors next year.

Noel

 

[Sawdust]

I sprout mine too for about a week or two after buying them. Some of mine had runners all ready. You never mentioned how far apart you plant yours. I plant about 6” apart. I might spread them out more next year maybe 9”.

 

[Propane1]

I’m normally 12” to 18” apart. And I have planted 24” some times. Just sorta depends on the amount of sets I can get into the 60’ row. Blight likes dampness. So the quicker the plants dry after a rain or dew, the better. And next year I’m going to trim the plants to keep them smaller. My plants were monsters this year. My rows are 5.5’ apart centre to centre. That gives me room to cultivate with a garden tractor. But this year the plants closed in the cultivated part completely. So I couldn’t cultivate and that gave the moles cover to roam around and eat a lot of the potatoes.

Noel

 

[Propane1]

Tractors ! Hehe. Any way, more branch cutting today. Use the Case to pull branch down where I wanted it. Just got gutters on garage fixed up this year. Didn’t want to hit them. Just cut the branch part way, then pulled it down. Some of it dry some not. The fresh wood went up on pile beside garage. Some parts of the branch were alive and some dead. But the main truck was rotted some, so could of broke off at any time.

Noel

 

[dodge trucker]

Well, I got the wiring figured out on the Intek-to-Husqvarna swap.
I had to use the muffler that came with the engine, as the one that was original to the machine was "not quite" gonna work. So I drilled 2 holes and then welded a tongue on the muffler mount plate, so I could use all 4 muffler mount holes.... got it all together, and quickly filled the garage with smoke..... got it outside, and it smoked so bad, I'm surprised the idiots across the street didn't call the Fire Dept.... I think this engine tipped over at one time, while in storage/ and all the oil from the crankcase wound up in the muffler.... after about 1/2 hour of letting it sit there and run, I could see the idiots house across the road again. still a little smoke, but it sure does start easy. This is a used engine I found at a garage sale, with who knows how many hours....
the Husq itself, has more hours on it than I gave it credit for, around 685.... I'd been thinking it was only around 500-ish.
I have the deck off, and I flipped it over, wire wheeled it, got tired of listening to the idiots across the road fight/argue, so I started the tractor again and let it run a while longer...... and ran the grinder/wire brush longer than I was gonna initially/ so as to drownd out what I was hearing from across the road.....
OSPHO'd the bottom of the deck, went to town and got some new pulleys for underneath that didn't growl/ and a new fuel pump, and some 1/4" fuel hose for the LT166.... came home and found a gallon can on the shelf of some old Rustoleum industrial green paint, that was almost half full/ I brushed 2 coats of that on the bottom of the Husq deck.... and bolted the new blades onto it.... will remount that tomorrow, and put the hood back onto it.... and, while I had the green Rustoleum out, I painted parts of my trailer that I had to give a little love to with the MIG, earlier this year, mostly the fenders..... that trailer was what I bought that gallon of paint for, probably 8-10 years ago, and used over 1/2 of it on, back then.

on the LT166, I dumped out the butyl based degreaser I had pickled the (plastic) gas tank with the last 3 days, to clean all the sludge and varnish from it.... got about 90% of the sludge/varnish out, and got water from the bathtub faucet to flush out the last remnants of butyl degreaser from the tank.... I had to shut off my outside water last weekend for the season, (woke up 3 days last week with temps in the 20s)
the new inline filter will have to take care of the rest..... put the new fuel pickup tube (straight from J-D) in the tank, remounted that, ran all new gas line front to back, put a new pulse fuel pump on, pulled the tins, and blew out another mouse house, (been seeing more than my share of that lately) and called it a day on tractor work. I discovered a baffle on the 166 that is bent so the blade closest to the chute won't spin a complete 360....

tomorrow, my new tubes go in the front tires on the 166, and the battery gets robbed from the Husq and I'm gonna try to run the 166 thru its own gas tank, instead of from a remote left over snowblower tank held above the engine.... then the deck gets pulled, baffle gets straightened, and rewelded (I can see the busted original weld, on the deck shell) and the underside of the deck gets the same treatment that the Husq deck got today..... if the 166 runs on its own/ and draws from its own fuel tank/ and moves under its own power, I will order a set of blades and belts for it. Same size deck as the Husq has (46") but the LT has 3 blades where the Husq only has 2. The LT166 has at least 1 bent blade, the one by the bent baffle. then I will have 2 ready to throw "for Sale" signs onto, come Spring. then I gotta finish putting the drive train back together for the Dixon and scrape/clean the deck, and hopefully just sharpen those blades/ and it too will be ready for a new owner come spring..... so I can start a pickup truck paint and add AC fund, there.......

 

[Jazz]

Mounted snow blower on the SS16,,,rarely use it as the walk behind is more efficient but if I dont have the tractor ready Murphy’s Law will take effect on walk behind…..

 

[dodge trucker]

I have to do that yet, to my Ariens GT19.....
today is leaf harvest day..... 4 hours into it and about halfway done. the (gas powered) Billy Goat is getting a workout today. 3 tanks of gas so far.......1/2 a gallon each time. that 5hp "big block" Briggs is THIRSTY!!! I am getting a tank per 2 bagfuls of leaves. 1980-ish era machine.

 

[chieffan]

Only thing I did today was take the dog for his morning 1/2 mile walk. Still kind of stiff & sore from the injections and nerve burning secession yesterday so took it easy today. Figure on bringing the1560 IH Cub with snow thrower up and get it all greased, oil checked in the gear box, etc. Other than that the snow removal equipment is ready to go.

 

[KennyP]

Guess I need to get my shovel greased and ready. Seem to use it at least once a year for the 20' sidewalk.

 

[secondtry]

Going to have to look around for my snow shovel. I have one out there somewhere. The front walk I try to keep after with a corn broom. Had 5" yesterday morning and if it had been just a little wetter the broom wouldn't have handled it. Reason I use the broom is that if it is dry snow I wind up with a dry sidewalk no refreezing.
Don

 

[chieffan]

Dry snows are kind of rare down this way. I doubt that snow shovel sales are very high in Kenny's bannana belt.

 

[Sawdust]

I don’t miss my snow shovel at all sense we moved out here in the country. We have a gravel driveway now and no sidewalks. I can remember just getting it all shoveled many times only to have the idiot city snow plows go by and cover it all back up.

I took a ride on a few tractors just the ones I plan on working on this winter. I packed the others with dryer sheets to keep the mice out. Roger mentioned this a few years ago and I’ve been doing it since and it works.

 

[Toomanytoys84]

I picked up a new snow shovel last week. 10 years of the same one it finally wore the edge down all jagged and I couldn't scrape the snow off the concrete anymore. Still good for scooping.

 

[Propane1]

I packed the others with dryer sheets to keep the mice out.

That’s what we’ve been doing with storing the sons two cars in winter. Dryer sheets do work.

Noel

 

[Propane1]

I still have my fathers shovel and snow pusher that he used when I was a kid. I used both in his driveway. And I used them to clean the snow off the pond, where we skated and played hockey. Use to throw snow at my kids with the shovel. Hehe. We only have a one story bungalow type house, kids would be at the front of the house. I was at the back. With the right type of snow, I’d get a shovel full and throw it over the roof from the back of the house to the front. Kids could easily see the blocks of snow coming. So they never got hit or hurt by this fun.

Noel

 

[chieffan]

I don’t miss my snow shovel at all sense we moved out here in the country. We have a gravel driveway now and no sidewalks. I can remember just getting it all shoveled many times only to have the idiot city snow plows go by and cover it all back up.

I took a ride on a few tractors just the ones I plan on working on this winter. I packed the others with dryer sheets to keep the mice out. Roger mentioned this a few years ago and I’ve been doing it since and it works.

Don't forget to replace them abut 1/2 way through winter just for safety sake. After I open a box I put the rest in a zip lock bag to keep them fresh. I keep the walk behind 24" in the garage headed out all winter. Carolyn does what little shoveling we have. I do the rest with the walk behind or on the tractor/thrower. Think I use the tractor twice last year. Used the 4 wheeler as it was handy in the garage, got a yard cart full of split wood for the fireplace. Got enough to run a couple weeks now just using the fireplace in the evenings.

 

[IHCubCadet147]

Yesterday we had 2 cords of firewood delivered. Today we split some of it smaller and I used my Sears to haul 6 loads over by what’s left of the wood shed. We got most of the pile done before it started raining.

 

[Sawdust]

Yesterday we had 2 cords of firewood delivered. Today we split some of it smaller and I used my Sears to haul 6 loads over by what’s left of the wood shed. We got most of the pile done before it started raining.
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Like the use of rough timber’s for your framing

 

[chieffan]

Good wood shelter. Keeps the rain and snow off & that's the main thing.

 

[IHCubCadet147]

Like the use of rough timber’s for your framing

My dad built it about 25 years ago. It looked really good, but now it’s starting to fall down. Some of the wood is rotting and a tree fell on it. We have to do something with it next year. Not sure if we are going to fix it, or tear it down and build another one.