Shoptalk Sunday: Tractoring, Writing, Twilight Zone

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Reader note: 7:12 AM. Bit later than usual with our Sunday Epistle.  But there have been some strangish things afoot here…

Texas Twilight Zone

Yessir, fine Saturday in the outback, until we got to the power outage part at about 4:20 PM lasy night.  Right in the middle of cocktails (champaign or rum) and the scent of baby back ribs coming up to sauce time.

Never did figure out what caused it.  Just that the lights went out.

Eventually – 2-hours on – they came back.  By then we were done and done.

I’d spent about 6-hours of Saturday on the tractor, doing the south field mowing for the spring.  Then using the tractor to move a long-dead Husky-varnished tractor up behind the pantry building where the metalworking (junk pile) which is the source of anything you need for welding and metalworking treachery is sorted by pile.

We crashed about 7 PM.

As usual, I asked in the middle of the night “Alexa what time is it?”

No Internet.  Still no internet on the landline side (which is why the satellite link).  Hmmm….

About then, Zeus the Cat wandered into the bedroom.  “Hey Fatso…get me some dry food, you witless old fool!”  Hardly politely meowed.

But I did (as meowed) and coming back through the kitchen, I asked THAT
Alexa box what time it was:  “The time is 11:11.”

The clock on the stove was reading something completely different, so I reset the stove.  Went back to bed.

Several hours later, Zeus is back in the bedroom telling us he wanted to go outside to check if his pal Sam (*who’s Samantha or Samuel, we haven’t figured that out yet), a feral Siamese with the most crossed-up eyes evers – had come out to play, yet.

“Elaine, what time is it?”

“It’s 2:38.”

So, I turned over and was about to doze off while it was Elaine’s turn to let the cat out, which I happened to notice “Hmmm…too much light outside…has my Son left every g.d. light in the shop on? “

With the Internet down, Alexa was offline, but yes, the sky was quickly lighting up but that can’t happen at 2:38 AM unless you’re in Alaska, or something.

Which is how the morning turned into a temporal stew.  Quickly resolved on one of the laptops on the (*still working and connected) spacecoms link.

Sheesh.

There went the plans to get up at 4, writing a chapter on my novel, and put up some pictures of the field work done Saturday.

Another time?

But that Gets Us to Tractoring

THE singularly useful power tool if you have more than  a couple of acres to maintain is a tractor.

But not just any tractor.  There are a handful of items on the specifications list to be aware of when you go shopping.  Don”t settle for less!

Life Bucket/Front Loader

Formal construction has it that a “lift bucket” is on a hydraulic arm mounted to a truck.  But, you will often-enough hear them incorrectly named that you can easily spot “precision of language means precision of thought” people pretty easily.

The front loader bucket must meet two important specifications:  It must be at least four feet wide, but no wider than 5-feet on a small farm.  The width of the bucket should be able to carry half a four-foot sheet of plywood (think barn building) and if any wider than 5-feet, you’ll be cursing your “go big” decision if you can’t get it through a gate at anything less than  a straight-ahead 90-degree angle.

The second key spec is it MUST have a bucket lift capacity of NO LESS than 600-pounds.

“Pint’s a pound, the world around.”  So, when you go to move a 55-gallon barrel of water, you’ll be lifting 55 times 8 pounds per gallon.  Call it 440-pounds.  You will, rest assured, still find that even if your bucket could lift 600 pounds when new, hydraulic seals age and as they do, lifting power can decline a bit.  Always to just under what it would be nice to have in a particular crisis.

Water-Filled Tires

In ag-based burbs, like Palestine, Texas, there is always a low-level debate raging in the coffee shops and down at the feed store about the “right” way to fill tractor tires for local work.

The folks pulling field implements will generally go with completely-filled tires because that way, and addition however-many hundreds of pounds of weight ensures maximum pulling ability.

Another third of locals seem to be in the “one-half full” camp.  These people hold that additional water can actually increase slope work safety by putting a few hundred pounds at or below the axel.  I think you can work out that part even without too much more coffee.

The last camp (which I’m in out of laziness, as much as anything) says just keep ’em pumped up to 40 PSI and leave ’em empty.,

This is because when it rains in the South, which to us now is anything south of I-90, If you drive one of those “water-ed up” rigs on soft land, you’ll be making a lifetime supply of deep ruts, the likes of which are seldom discussed in polite company.

Four Wheel Drive, or Two?

Again, something of a trade-off in feed store talk.  I’m in the four-wheel camp and never plan to leave.

On the plus side, four-wheel drive on the grades and muck clay around here is an absolutely necessary option.  The two-wheel drive units can’t pull as much, but they are better on fields in good and dry conditions.

The reason?  When you engage the 4-wheel drive, and go to make a sharp turn, the front wheels are “locked” relative to the rears.  When you turn, therefore, the tires will tend to rip out sod.  Not usually the intent.

The solution is to leave the tractor in 2-wheel drive if appearance matters, and in 4-when you’re working a big field.

Accessories Used Most

  • A Brush-Hog, also called Bush-hog, also called generically a rotary cutter, thrash cutter, and every name in the book of “no-no’s” when they break.  Hard to work on as a one-man project, though I’;ve done it plenty of times.
  • Get two 25-foot lengths of strong chain with hooks and keep them on your rig.  Putting a chain on the back of the cutter, up over the top of the rollover protection cage and then down to the front bucket, gives you a way to use hydraulics to move things around.  If working under have triple redundancy in your blocks and chains.  Equipment falling is a terrible way to die.
  • Box Blade:  This is a squarish contraption used to level-off bumpy land.  This is Eat Texas, for crying o9ut loud, and the Almighty Hisself doesn’t have a way to level things out here…so why bother?  I hooked it up on the 3-point hitch a few times, took a perfectly good high-centered truck track and turned it into two parallel quarter mile mud pies.   Better than a box blade, as I figure it, is just driving on the shoulder.
  • Short Bucket Forks:  Small ones (4-6 inches) are great for general sdirtr work.  Strong as hell, you can back-scratch with the bucket set so they co9ntact ground from straight up – then pull ’em back to easde up that compacted dirt.  Works like a champ.
  • Long Bucket Forks.  These run about $150 a pair at Amazon and will let your front fork carry (*and lift) sheet goods and roofing or decking materials, all day long.

Well, so much for coffee- hour.  Time to click and run.

Nice to have an alarm cat wake-up meow.  Not to trouble-shootize the CenturyLate internet problems on both landlines.  Why is the new Gen4 Echo ball counting time backwards now?  FMTT, never stops, does it?

Write when I wake up,

George@Ure.net

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George Ure
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/George-Ure/e/B0098M3VY8%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share UrbanSurvival Bio: https://urbansurvival.com/about-george-ure/
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16 thoughts on “Shoptalk Sunday: Tractoring, Writing, Twilight Zone”

  1. One bit of advice, the water in the tires should be a mix of antifreeze and water or when the cold comes you will have a huge thumping time when you try to drive the tractor. 50X50 mix works just fine.

    • “mix of antifreeze and water”

      ???????

      what affect would the antifreeze have on the rim’s and the rubber… I am assuming that glycol alcohols similar to water detremental over a period of time.. as in .. corrosion of the rims.. and the composition of the rubber.. in the semi we would put in green slime.. which the tire repair shops hated.. with a passion.. same issues.. it was good for a quick temporary fix but sure was a mess ….

      • Real tractor tires are tubed. The tubes prevent glycol (or any other chemical) from reaching the rims. Around here, farmers are split between filling tires with windshield washer fluid and filling them with used, filtered oil.

      • Oh, yeah…

        Farmers: Get yourself a hot patch kit. Tubes are now almost exclusively made in China. I have yet to have a Chinese tube last for two years, not even if it said “Goodyear” or “Firestone” on the side…

        YMMV

  4. I’m right there with you on the 4 wheel vs 2 wheel tractor. I made the mistake of buying an old 2 wheel drive Long tractor and putting a bucket on it. I’ve since used the 4 wheel drive truck to pull the tractor out of the mud on numerous occasions. Seems that once I get that thing headed down a slope with a load on the bucket, there’s no way to back up with it. Too much weight on the front, letting the rear wheels slip if there’s any slick at all to the ground. Yes, I’m in the ’empty tire’ category. Ever tried to fix a flat on a tire that’s full of water?

    Now to the 5′ bucket vs 4′ or 6′. A 6′ bucket requires a bigger tractor to lift it when filled to capacity (1500 lbs). However, that bigger tractor and bucket also allows me access to the barn loft with a load (10′ reach). With my homegrown long fork (4 tines, 4′ long) I can lift a large load of sheet goods to the barn loft if needed. Or to the house roof, which I did 12 years ago putting a metal roof on the house. The larger bucket is not an issue going through gates if you build the gates big enough to accommodate it. Most of my gates are 12′ so I have plenty of room for tractors, trucks, trailers, etc. I also have walk gates for the back yard in addition to a 12′ tractor gate.

    Chains. Can’t have too many of them. I prefer 15 – 18′ lengths, slip hook on one end and grab hook on the other. I welded two grab hooks to the top edge of the tractor bucket so I can lift chain loads with it. I use it to work on the bush hog when needed, as I can pick it up to a vertical position. Also have used it to pick up one side of my 16′ trailer to replace a broken spring.

    Creating mudholes using a blade. Yep, anytime you fill a hole or rut with loose dirt, first good rain will turn that into a hog wallow. Unless you do it far enough ahead of the rain to get it packed down really well, anyway. Then watering LIGHTLY with a hose or bucket will help the dirt pack into the hole even tighter as you drive the tractor back and forth over it. Same principle applies to wooden fence posts. When setting the post, I use a 1″ diameter steel bar 6′ long to tamp the dirt in the hole around the post. A light sprinkling of water helps that compacted dirt become almost concrete.

    • Addendum:
      Something that’s almost as handy as a bucket on the front of the tractor is a boom on the rear. I built a 6′ boom that I also use with my posthole auger. Take the posthole gearbox off, and I have a nice boom with a grab hook on the end and another at the juncture of the ‘A’ frame. I used it to build a pole barn, setting the 16′ and 20′ poles unaided. More info available on request.

  5. Not much of anything would get done around the ranch, or the house in town, without our old Ford 340A. I keep wondering how long that old 3 cylinder diesel will last as they don’t make anything quite that size any more. It’s an old industrial “yellow-gear” model with a backhoe attachment that acts more for the counter balancing of heavy bucket loads than anything else. The idea of water filled tires for counter balancing has its merits but it doesn’t go as far a weights on the 3 point attachment rear end or the backhoe like mine. The manual I have for it says that if you put water in the tires it needs to be of a particular mix of mineral water (calcium something or ‘nother) to preserve the tire itself – and which makes it somewhat heavier, too. If I did that, though, I’d look like an industrial sized sprinkler going across the cactus out there. Monkey snot tire sealant is a must out here.

    Luckily I’ve found a good machinist that can rebuild the hydraulic cylinders and I’ve, personally replaced all but a few of the hydraulic lines on the whole thing. The times I’ve asked myself if I’m getting into an “Oh Crap! Am I going to get this thing back together if I take it apart moment?” are many. One thing I found is that the hydraulic couplings, the metal ends on the hoses, are bigger now than they were when the tractor was built back in the late 70s. This has necessitated extensions in tight places such as the hydraulic valve clusters on the backhoe – and the disconnection of many others when the hose you’re replacing is in the middle of said cluster so modifications to add that extra measure of reliability always become necessary on old equipment. The only thing I’m missing now is a trailer to move it around off the ranch. Maybe the financial crash to come will send one my way – if I can afford the diesel to go get it. In the “preparations” category this piece of equipment has received a ton of funds to bring it up to snuff for the long haul.

  6. well.. today I am making smoked pork butt… yumm.. but I am using my nordicware Stovetop Kettle Smoker to make it.. got that unit just for camping smoker.. but dam it makes good pulled pork sandwhiches..

    https://www.amazon.com/Nordic-Ware-36556-Stovetop-Kettle/dp/B07FPXMHKF

    Oh you can take your regular wood chips.. put them in a blender for a few pulses to get the finer chips.. it is definately cheaper.. I keep one blender just for shop uses..

  7. The front tire tubes need tire repair goop in them.

    If the ground is too wet to traverse with water-filled rear tire and two-wheel drive, than it is too wet to be using the tractor.

    I spent six+ hours yesterday cutting and dragging wind damage out of the back yard. I almost got finished. Hopefully I’ll finish today, then start hitting the most severe spots on my barbed-wire fences. Winds are supposed to be 20 – 30 mph with gusts to 45 mph the rest of the day, so working in a deadfall war zone probably isn’t the safest activity to be engaging in. Some of the stuff that fell is too big and heavy to deal with until it dry rots. I will process trees up to about 2′ in diameter, but most of the really big trees are hackberry’s, which have no real value except to maybe the tweety birds. There are 3′ diameter trees which were pushed over with the top touching the ground on my side, but still rooted on the neighbor’s side. Those can wait until the next storm finishes them (and my fences) off. More severe weather is possible Tuesday and Wednesday.

    I went looking for diesel yesterday afternoon. The station I normally buy from was out. The alternate station had diesel, but the price was ten cent higher per gallon. I asked the foreign national attendant if he had diesel, and he nodded, started sniggering, and walked away quickly.

    When I was on my way to look for diesel, I started to pull out in front of a truck in semi-blind construction zone. I didn’t see him until he was on me. His truck had a patchwork of panels painted different bright colors; it looked like construction zone camo. He was nice enough to drive around my @ss hanging out in the intersection. It’s always the one you don’t see coming that get you.

    At the end of last year, it looked like 2022 would be a very good year. It now looks like the hyper-inflation has the potential to send us from a stealth depression to the in-your-face variety. The worst case depression scenario is runaway credit-deflation where only entities who don’t need credit have access, coupled with run-away consumer hyper-inflation. The only ingredient left in that disaster recipe is massive lay-offs, which I am starting to catch the smell of wafting in to the work area. Seatbacks upright, and buckle up.

  8. FYI, we lost power down here in San Antonio at the exact same time. Beautiful day, too. However ours was off for only a few minutes. Last week the same thing happened (keep in mind we loose power a ridiculous amount) but we were out for a couple of hours. Again though, no word on why. It most certainly wasn’t weather. Curious.

  9. Rules for tractor tires and how to maintain and or repair said tractor tires.
    1. Damages or failure will almost always occur way out past where the buses run in the middle of a rain/snow storm while buried axle deep in mud/sh!t with a full load of whatever you want to name.
    2. Any questions read rule 1.

    How to repair said tractor tires.
    1. Get out your handy comm device and call your local tractor tire/parts dealer.
    2. Wait patiently for the magic tractor repair truck to arrive driven by a Big Ole Boy. Go back up to the house and pick up some snacks. If it’s Lester a snack will be a whole chicken and some tater salad. Remember a roll of paper towels.
    3. Return to the disaster site where the repairs should be well underway and slobber all over yourself while looking over the tools and equipment on the truck. Use the paper towels you brought.
    4. Don’t offer to help, especially when he is moving around a fully mounted 48 inch tire filled with calcium chloride. Return to slobbering over the service truck and all its finery. More paper towels.
    5. When the job is finished lay out the snack on the tailgate and have a cup of coffee while the Tire Man eats. Lester can destroy a whole chicken and a large bowl of tater salad in about 2 minutes. Hopefully you have some paper towels left.
    6. Sign the ticket and go back to work.

    73

    • That was an experience the first time I saw the guy replace the rear tires on my tractor by himself without taking the rims off the tractor. Dry rot and many miles through the cactus meant airing them up every time we needed it so the 16.9 x 24s got replaced, one in ’19 and one in ’20. $600 + each, but no snacks. (And the kids wondered why I didn’t get a bigger dump truck) I figured I paid for that somewhere along the way. Still haven’t figured out what kind of trough or something I can make out of the old tires yet.

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