Machinery Infatuation

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I bought my first NEW piece of farm machinery. I am not sure if this is a failure or a success, but it is different. I picked up a NEW Rotary Cutter (bush hog, brush hog, mower, etc) from a dealer. It cost me almost as much as the tractor did with its bits of hardware and options. It seems to work well on the CNH Boomer 33. I planned on getting up to NY in the next couple of days, but Gracie has been sick.. she has been up and down. The steroid treatment and a change in diet seem to be helping at this point. Besides hauling the tractor and mower up to NY I have numerous events planned over the next month. I will be in Charlotte for a conference as well as Tucson Arizona and of course other events and activities. I started installing radio equipment in the Humvee. It now has a telescoping 30 foot antenna, a 24 volt to 12 volt converter, a removable SDR radio and some other stuff to be sure. I'd like to get it to the Stone Mountain Hamfest -- thats what i am shooting for. I thr...
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I have not blogged in quite a while. Spring is starting to spring around here. The daffodils are starting to peek out of the ground and almost all the snow is melted. It won't be long now.

Rosey the llama is down. We not sure what is going on.

I took my first real flying lesson tonight in about twenty years. Here is a picture of the plane, a 1966 Cessna 172. I am comfortable, but not confident. Flying in and out of a grass strip (2600 feet) is a bit different. The surrounding hills are about 1000 feet higher than the airfield so if you are cruising at 2500 feet you are only about 600 feet about the terrain. The final approach puts you about 20 or 30 feet above some trees at the end of the runway. I think I will get the hang of it but it will take time. The book work is the easiest for me. Taking all the flight information in and processing it in realtime is a bit of a skill to learn. Knowing what to look at and for how long is a trick. Knowing what controls to gain feedback by feel or by visual feedback is a learning experience as well. I will be going up again in a few days.

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Machinery Infatuation

-
Image
I bought my first NEW piece of farm machinery. I am not sure if this is a failure or a success, but it is different. I picked up a NEW Rotary Cutter (bush hog, brush hog, mower, etc) from a dealer. It cost me almost as much as the tractor did with its bits of hardware and options. It seems to work well on the CNH Boomer 33. I planned on getting up to NY in the next couple of days, but Gracie has been sick.. she has been up and down. The steroid treatment and a change in diet seem to be helping at this point. Besides hauling the tractor and mower up to NY I have numerous events planned over the next month. I will be in Charlotte for a conference as well as Tucson Arizona and of course other events and activities. I started installing radio equipment in the Humvee. It now has a telescoping 30 foot antenna, a 24 volt to 12 volt converter, a removable SDR radio and some other stuff to be sure. I'd like to get it to the Stone Mountain Hamfest -- thats what i am shooting for. I thr...
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I finally cracked the code on lime in my fields. Trying to find the cheap/smart way in farming is difficult since farmers are generally very resourceful and they figure stuff out. My lime project has been in my thinking for years. Down here we need lime on our soil for hay. The soil is great for berries, but for hay it needs to be sweetened every 10 years or so with 2 ton/acre of a lime type product with minimal mineral values. I found a close-by source (Lansing) of fine concrete dust. The numbers are great. The price is cheap since it is a byproduct and I found a guy with a tri-axle dump truck in between the source and the farm who was also willing to drive it out the field. It was about 1/4 the money and much higher quality than what most other folks do. I will be spreading it at the same time I mow. The mower on the front and the spreader on the rear. That is efficient.
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Environmentalism and Earth Day

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I remember the first "Earth Day" in 1970. I remember it well. I was in third-grade at Oakview Neighborhood School in West Irondequit, NY. We had energized school lessons regarding care for the environment and there was a common thread in our cultural changes that we all need to care more about nature and ourselves. There was almost no opposing dialog. We had seen large fish kills, weird colored skys, and bodies of water we wouldn't even think about swimning in, including Lake Ontario. This was almost 10 years before the awakening of " love canal " in nearby Nigagra Falls NY. Generally, in 1970 the dialog was about polution and what we can do to reduce polution. Polution consisted of many things, trash along the highways, untreated sewage and industrial dumping and runoffs. Don't forget about sound polution, also part of the polution spectrum. We were also significantly concerned about needlessly cutting of trees and wasting paper. Since 1970 we have made g...
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It was hot this past weekend. I don't know what the temp was but it must have been well into the 90s. I decided I was done making excuses about the trim on the southside of my barn, so I was up there sweating buckets "gettn r dun". I moved and chopped firewood, cleared some for the fence and generally did farm work. I finished mowing my hay field this week. It feels great to look back at the 18 acres and see alternating stripes of grass. Next year, I plan on baling. The big news is that Bonnie "made me" buy a fish pole as well as a new reel for my larger pole. That was fun. I have a very nice Fenwick/Abu Garcia ultralight now. Sunday morning I got up at the usual early hour (about 5:00), drove through the woods with my Jeep to the far corner of the property. I then carried my fish gear through the park about a mile to the very serene, slightly foggy, glass-smooth lake. I fished about 45 minutes. I hooked a nice bass. The fish jumped nicely and then spit the ho...
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The reality has finally hit. I will be away for the holidays. We will all get through it that's for sure, but reality has a way of resisting all other thought. Not only will I be away from home and NY, the United States, I will even be away from "Antarctica". I will be at the very small camp at Taylor dome almost for sure. In actuality is is probably better to be out in the field camp (tell ya the truth) than here. The culture and customs are very strong in Mactown. It is like having your holiday at a stranger's house (not by their invitation). I told my boss about what I had heard the temperatures were at Taylor dome and he assured me those were windchill temperature. That doesn't count. I go by real temperatures. It probably won't be colder than -25F. I feel a lot more confident. Work is going well. I get the chance to fix all sorts of electronic stuff. I was working on solar panels, transmit combiners and PRC-1099s today. My ankle really went around t...
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