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Messages - SpencerYost

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1
'round the pot-bellied stove / Re: Twin calves
« on: April 08, 2018, 11:41:43 PM »
That’s a tough one.  I hope she is taking to it.   I once saw a goat farmer rub the twin she will take with a cloth and tie it around the neck of the kid she wouldn’t  take.   Seemed like a long shot and since I was just cruising through to handle some IT stuff for the ranch manager I never heard the outcome(they had whitetail deer breeding operation I was involved with but had some pigs and goats manly owned and handled by the farm help).

Thank goodness  twin alpaca births are exceedingly rare and I don’t have to deal with it.


2
John Deere / Re: ATTN: John Deere Owners
« on: March 29, 2018, 11:50:52 AM »
Amazing how many G forces are in a dead stop; even at very slow speeds (-:

I love that picture of your tractor and house. 

I actually did have a John Deere concern for a while a few months ago.   The seat on my 620 suddenly seemed to tilt down toward the front of the tractor, so I was thinking the shock absorber must have gotten "sprung" or some such thing and would need to be replaced.  I ignored it for a while, intending to look into it once the weather got warmer.   But I eventually noticed (duh!) that the seat suspension arms had somehow popped free from the pins that support them on the front side of the battery box, and just needed to be set back in place.  Easy fix.  I'm not sure how they came off to begin with, but I suspect it happened when I was using the rear blade to level some ground where I'd recently burned out some big stumps... the blade caught a root and stopped forward motion of the tractor, causing (a) the front end to suddenly rise, (b) me to grab the clutch lever while cursing my stupidity, and (c) the front end to drop back down.   Must have been enough of a jolt to bounce the ends of those suspension arms off their posts.

Anyway, all's well that ends well, and the 620 is back to normal and I'm a bit wiser about use of that blade.

Dean Vinson
Saint Paris, Ohio


3
ATIS General Tractor Discussion / Re: Foggy Morning
« on: March 28, 2018, 11:52:53 PM »
That is a nice picture for sure.   Thanks for posting it!

4
ATIS General Tractor Discussion / Re: 730 Case Video
« on: March 26, 2018, 01:25:28 PM »
Nice video Ralph - thanks!!!!

I shot a video of the 730 Case today. Not at work, just a walk around tour pointing out a few details. Its the one my uncle bought back about 1965. And the one I learned to work summerfallow with in the summer of 1970. We both survived.
 https://youtu.be/lYpz8dEoUdg

5
ATIS General Tractor Discussion / Re: Osage orange
« on: March 23, 2018, 11:55:38 PM »
I have a section you can clear for me when you are done (-:   

Seriously though, that wagon was a cool find.  In a really interesting coincidence, a really neat old metal wheel (old dump rake wheel??) was found in mine.   Leaning up against a shed now for decoration

I have about 14 acres of old pasture that's pretty much completely overgrown with osage orange, which I assume spread from the two old deliberately-planted hedgerows (hence the other common name for osage, “hedge apple,”) along the old farm lanes.   I get the original purpose, but left untended for many decades the darn stuff sprawls and twists and leans and interlocks and spreads, making the land all but impenetrable.   For four years now I’ve been slowly battling it with a chainsaw and some prodigious bonfires.

The wood is amazingly hard and dense, making for magnificent fenceposts and extremely hot, long-lasting fires, and I’ve read it’s a great choice for archery bows.   But it darn sure makes you work for it.   The same features that make it such an effective hedge (long, jagged, twisted, interlocked branches, and strong, sharp thorns on the young shoots and suckers) make it darn hard to cut down; cutting through a big branch or the main trunk might be easy enough but getting the darn thing to fall to the ground is another matter.   Sometimes takes a tractor and chain to drag each cut section down and out of the surrounding hedge.    Clock goes by fast without much to show for it in situations like that.

Then there’s the question of what to do with the stumps, since the wood won’t hardly ever rot and becomes harder with time.   Wild cherry turns into marshmallow after a couple years laying on the ground and in the weather; osage turns into iron and just lays there, waiting for you to forget it, until the day comes when it snaps the shear pin in your rotary cutter like a piece of chalk.

For most of the big trees, my normal procedure is to cut the tree about 18” or 24” above the ground and let it fall (or drag it down with the tractor and chain, if necessary).  After cutting it all up into manageable size pieces, I pile some of the big stuff around the stump but save some for later.   The few medium-size branches that are straight and free of shoots and suckers and forks, I cut for firewood and haul into a shed; the twisty nasty crap goes straight onto the pile above the stump, along with all the small stuff, for (sooner or later) a nice bonfire.   Once all the small stuff has burned down I gradually throw on the rest of the big logs to keep the stump burning.   Usually takes a couple of days to really catch, but eventually the stump and big roots will burn down underground like a seam of coal, sometimes continuing to smoke and smolder for a week or more, finally leaving a little crater as the ash and dirt above it collapse down into the void.   

For the smaller trees, I scrape away enough dirt to give the chainsaw chain a little breathing room and then cut them dead level with the ground, saw them up into pieces, and chuck them onto the nearest burnpile.   But then I paint the cut stumps with Garlon 3A to keep them from turning into the nastiest thorniest hardiest bushes you can imagine.

This morning’s episode in the battle against the osage was fairly light, continuing a long process of cleanup along one of the original hedgerows.   Unlike with the big osage trees out in the middle of the old pasture, I’m trying to save some of the original hedgerow trees if they’re at least somewhat vertical, so I don’t cut and burn them in place--but the long low branches that sprawled 30 or 40 feet over into the neighboring field had go.   So I cut them up and loaded them into a wagon, and hauled them around to a burnpile away from the main hedgerow.   The Super M provided the motive power and looked good doing it.

When I first began clearing this particular area a few months ago, it was a thicket, impossible to see through from one side to the other, much less walk around in.   As I cut and piled and cut and piled, I eventually ran across the remains of a very old farm wagon.   Seems to have been there many decades, based on the size of some of the honeysuckle and other scrubby trees I cut out from all in and around it, but whether it’s been 50 years or 100 I don’t know.  I think I’ll just leave it where it sits, plant some native hardwoods in the area to give it some company.   Looked pretty neat this morning, rising out of the remains of last Wednesday’s snowfall.

Dean Vinson
Saint Paris, Ohio

6
Details in the attachment - don't miss it!   I am hoping someone can confirm this years dates - the flyer contains "May_18" in the file name but the dates, and year, on the page itself look like 2019.

Can someone confirm the dates?

7
'round the pot-bellied stove / Re: Western Ohio Update
« on: March 23, 2018, 12:03:34 PM »
Spencer

I see a big error on the posting time. Is this your clock or mine?

Gene

Just checked - I failed to set the time zone when I set up the board.   We were living in Africa/Abidjan time instead of America/New_York  (-:

And please do save me a spot at the swap meet!   

8
Forum Technical Help / Test
« on: March 22, 2018, 02:23:56 PM »
testing

9
Forum Technical Help / New Forum
« on: March 22, 2018, 02:19:18 PM »
In the conversion to new software (vBulletin to Simple Machines) it does appear everyone's individual avatars survived the conversion.   However, the forum headers, which include the avatar of the last poster, will not display until someone with an avatar posts to that forum.

So far, that is the only thing I can find wrong with the conversion.   Hope you folks enjoy!

10
'round the pot-bellied stove / Re: Western Ohio Update
« on: March 22, 2018, 02:15:52 PM »
Guess I will try my first post on the new forum. Had made a post on the old forum at about the time of the
 changeover, but seems to have been lost in cyberspace. All the other posts are.
Been doing pretty well. My health is improving and am gaining back most of the weight ans strength I had lost.
Been able to get out and cut some firewood while the ground was frozen and dry. Getting along alright with that.
Winter was kinda hard with the cold weather and breathing problems, so wasn't able to work outside much, but
that is better.
Spring came in 4 days ago and met with 5 inches of snow on Wednesday night with 45 MPH winds, so had some
drifting.
Warmer weather will melt that in short order. Haven't had much this winter.

Best of spring to all.    Gene

Great to hear from you - I plan on being at the Portland spring swap meet so I'll see you soon!

11
ATIS General Tractor Discussion / Re: New forum
« on: March 22, 2018, 01:52:25 PM »
Looks good...

I did try to attach a picture and failed. Might have just been me. I couldn't find an "attach" button after picking the pic. I'll just keep working on the small learning curve.

After choosing the pic, the process of simply "Posting" will attch and upload.   Right now its being picky with file sizes - I'll fix that soon.

Spencer

12
ATIS General Tractor Discussion / Good Farm Day
« on: April 20, 2015, 09:49:12 PM »
Post driving goes much quicker when you have help.  But when Saturday rolled around without a friend that was available to help; I decided to drive posts by myself.   With the ground soggy, the driving was easy.   Here is a picture of of a bunch of old equipment(operated by an old operator) going to town on 23 fence posts. The service vehicle holding tools and water (and a beer for afterwards) is a 1986 Isuzu Trooper Diesel.   The tractor is a 58-59 Ford 861 diesel (the serial number is eroded and I cannot tell which year) and the driver is a late 80s or early 90s Shaver HD-8 post driver.   For a while I was driving them 10 minutes to a post.  It was a good day.


[ATTACH=CONFIG]865[/ATTACH]

Yes, that is our alpacas in the background.  Great critters with wonderful fleece.

13
'round the pot-bellied stove / Western Ohio Update
« on: March 05, 2015, 10:45:57 PM »
Here is that picture you wanted Gene!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]811[/ATTACH]

14
'round the pot-bellied stove / Field of 'beans
« on: July 23, 2013, 11:08:19 AM »
Nice photos - Thanks!  Our beans might have gotten rained out in most fields because it is usually planted behind wheat, which is late coming in from the rain.  Our corn looks great though!

15
'round the pot-bellied stove / Western Ohio Update
« on: February 01, 2012, 11:52:28 PM »
While getting the machine back up, I upgraded the bulletin board software.  It did include some security fixes that had direct bearing on posting videos, but not pictures.  I'll continue doing research.

Spencer

Ps.  I do know the update placed a few restrictions on "quick reply", but don't remember the details.  So if you are trying to post using quick reply, try a full reply instead.

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