Good morning!!!!

[Bird]

64 degrees going for a cloudy 84 with a 40% chance of rain this afternoon in the forecast. Great weather yesterday for my wife's doctor appointment. It was just perfect for me to sit in the car with the windows down, re-reading one of Patrick F. McManus's books for about an hour and a half. And in spite of it appearing that the place was busy, I think her doctor was more prompt than he's ever been.

Since I knew there was a possibility of rain today, I mowed the yard yesterday afternoon. I usually like to do the mowing early in the day before it gets too hot outside, but it is nice to mow when there's no dew on the grass.

 

[check]

First (big) cup of coffee. Sunrise was a while ago, but it is just now peering over the top of the big hill behind us.

40°, going up to over 70 today. No rain for a couple days yet, which is good because I have to do a bunch of outside work. A lot of rounds to split, plus I have to support the sagging roofs on the old lodge at our rental property.

The boat house has a brand new roof from last year, but the two side outbuildings are in rough shape particularly one of them, which has 5 inch round logs as rafters. They are spaced 3 feet apart, and about a 13 foot span each! Can’t understand why the roof held up all these years – probably 80 years or more. Roof span charts say even 2 x 6’s at 16” o.c. Are iffy for 13’.

 

[check]

BTW Does anyone know what the rafter span limits would be for 5 inch round logs versus two by sixes?

 

[lostcreekranch]

Good morning. It's 75° with 95% humidity and SE wind at 6 mph. Our string of 90°+ days will be broken with 89° this afternoon. But, with our high humidity, it will still "feel like" 100°+ today. Rain is "promised" for the next few days but .. we'll see?

I need to finish trimming around the house and more porch pressure washing as well. Maybe more work on the rolling ladder later.

Hope everyone has a great day, as we approach Memorial Day weekend, and you stop and think about the meaning of this time. My brothers will visit our Mom (Navy) & Dad's (Army) grave sites at the Veteran's Cemetery in Iowa.

Prayers to all.

 

[lostcreekranch]

Good Morning!!!! 52F @ 5:30AM. Some clouds this morning will give way to generally sunny skies for the afternoon. High 76F. Winds light and variable.
Was hoping for cooler weather in the 10-day, but Wednesday and Thursday next week are still calling for 100F temps. But anything over 95F is miserable, and that starts on Monday.:hissyfit:

I didn't notice what irregularities are monitored by the inverter, Ron, but there sure are a whole pile of error codes it can produce. It does check for an AC power signal "within spec", and will not connect to it if it's out. That goes for grid power, too. And I remember something in the generator docs that said it would turn itself off if it detects irregularities as well. And more error codes.:confused2:

Thanks for the feedback on the Piranha, Rick. That's the name I remember most from TBN research I did a few years ago, but a google search also told me that EA was making one. Their website only lists a 72" edge, and I need something like 85" for the M62, so a phone call is in order. I need to talk to them anyway to let them know what size hydraulic couplers to put on the grapple I ordered. The bucket on the M62 already has a smooth bar on it, and it's drilled every 7" or so. I'll probably need to turn the bucket over and take the bar off for measurements if EA is willing to make a one-off for me. They sure make a big deal of the steel they use, but I haven't looked at the specs for it yet so see if their claims hold water. The bucket on the old tractor didn't have a bar on it, and its smooth lip wouldn't dig worth a darn. The one on the M62 is better, but it's got a whole lot more weight behind it, too.

Thanks for the heads up on Optics RE, David. Looks a lot more capable than the web interface described in the MATE3 docs. But does the Optics RE software run on the MATE3, or is it cloud based? With the slow and somewhat unreliable internet situation here, I'm pretty reluctant to rely on any Cloud based technology. A good example of that is Apple's Siri, which gets a frontal lobotomy every time the 'net goes down.

Is the Creature From The Black Lagoon leaving muddy footprints on your driveway, Buppies?:shocked::laughing:

Wish the MIAs would report in...

That sounds like a pretty ambitious project, RS. :shocked:
Wouldn't you also get some slop from the hydraulic hoses expanding as the bucket hits the bottom of its bounce? And since they act like springs, the bucket gets a little boost up, exaggerating the bounce even more. There's a link in my sig below to the thread where I described the pin/bushing fiasco. Kinda hurts to re-read it.:banghead:

Speaking of hurt, I picked up the old tractor from the Kubota dealer yesterday. Turns out they didn't just fix the leak on one side, they did it on BOTH sides. No wonder they tagged me for almost five grand. And the cracks they found on the wheel hubs extend out from the studs that hold the wheel on. Yet another example of how under designed that tractor is. Had to drive it through a huge mud puddle to get the tractor on the trailer, and the wind behind the truck splattered mud all over the tailgate and back window on the way home. That's what I get for cleaning the window earlier at the gas station.

But before I left the Kubota dealer, I ran into the counter guy that was letting me haul away the steel shipping pallets for their RTVs, and he had another load ready to go. Since I already had the trailer on, I just doubled back after lunch and picked those up, too. It was really nice to be able to take all seven off in one pick with the new tractor. But that much weight also made it pretty tippy. As I backed up an off camber trail to where I store the pallets, the uphill rear wheel broke traction and the tractor stopped moving. The inclinometer said it was only 10° off grade, but the downhill side of the FEL had more weight on it because the fork pockets on the pallets are offset to one side. I put the tractor in 4WD and revised the route to minimize the side hill, but still went VERY slowly to get where I needed to go. I'm thinking more and more about widening the rear wheel track, but then I look at the little bolt circle and wimpy output flanges where the wheels bolt on, and wonder how long it would take to break something on the new tractor, too.:irked:

The box from Messick's I got Monday had a new air filter housing and ignition switch in it, so I put those on after I returned the trailer to my neighbor. When I took the cover off the instrument panel, I found a fist sized mud dauber nest around some of the wires, and a thick coating of that fiberglass laden dust. And one of the hose clamps on the air filter housing was badly corroded. I didn't have a replacement "in stock", so I wire brushed off the rust and gave it a coat of Rustoleum. Sure makes me wonder about the past life of this tractor!

If the grass is dry enough this morning, I'll get a start on mowing. Guess it's time to find out just how tippy this new tractor is.

Happy Hump Day, folks!

Just call EA and talk to Travis or Rick. They'll take good care of you. Just get good measurement of the inside dimension of your bucket in advance of calling.

 

[lostcreekranch]

Forgot to mention. The porch ceiling fan, at our Richmond house, that was "hanging down" was indeed hanging down. It was hanging by the Romex electrical cable only. This is one of four fans on our east patio and the only one installed by the builder. I installed the other three myself.

The ceiling bracket, that supports the entire fan (almost 30#) was attached to the ceiling joist with two 1 1/4" long sheetrock screws.

Had the electric cable failed, it had a nearly 10' drop to concrete .. which would have likely destroyed a $400+ fan.



I'll go back up next week and properly install it with some 3" HD screws.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Good Morning!!!! 55F @ 5:30AM. Mostly sunny. High 83F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.

Thanks for checking in, Jay. No "Good dog" for Brogen.

Thanks for trying to check on Drew, Randy. Hoping for some good news.

Learned of this recall of Harbor Freight jack stands yesterday. Wouldn't you know it, the pair I bought earlier this year are affected.:shocked: Dodged a bullet and didn't even know it. HF knows I bought 'em, and you'd think they'd be sending out recall notices. Nope.

Spent some quality time jumping on and off the tractor yesterday morning picking rocks out of the grass along the driveway. A buddy of mine insists that rocks grow up out of the ground every spring, and I think I got a bumper crop this year.

Then I had to put the forks back on to fish the flail mower out of its hiding place. I usta think the old Kubota was problematic seeing the FEL quick attach, but it's entirely invisible on the new tractor. What camera setups have you folks used, and are you happy with them? I need something that's waterproof...

Was in the middle of getting the flail mower attached when the solar contractor showed up, and got to meet the lead installer. They'll need more junk removed from the pump house, and I'll have to move some machines in the garage, but I've got almost a week to do it. They OKed the solar panel rack, and told me how to orient the panels when I install them, too. And we agreed to replace the aluminum wire that runs between the power drop in the pump house and the main power sub-panel in the garage with copper wire. So I've still got a shoveling job to do to dig out the trench again. But at this point, the installation is scheduled to start next Wednesday, which is great news. They think it'll take two or three days, barring any surprises.

Got the flail on the tractor, but I think I'm going to swap out the 3PH pins on the attachments from Category I to II. The kit came with sleeves, but they're too short to cover the length of the pins up to the cross pin hole, so only about half the sleeve ends up inside the eye on the lifting arm. That, and it's only a matter of time before one of those sleeves comes up missing. Speaking of missing the old tractor lifting arms had a slick little slider that allowed the eye to be adjusted in and out a couple of inches, which made changing implements pretty easy. Spent a lot of time jockeying the tractor back and forth and side to side yesterday trying to get the pins lined up just right; now I know why three point quick hitches are so popular. The best part was when the lock button on the drive shaft coupler moved easily, and the shaft itself had enough adjustment in it to fit the new tractor. Half way through the first mowing pass, though, the flail started vibrating bad enough to shake the steering wheel back and forth an inch or so, so it was back to the bottom of the hill to figure out what happened.


One look was all it took to see that the tall grass had wrapped around the knives, clogging the cutters and holding them off balance. Took a while to get it all out of there, and I resolved to slow way down or I'd be stopping often to repeat the exercise. I've never let the grass get this high before (it's up to my chin), so it's not the flail's fault. More good news is that the engine on this new tractor didn't even break a sweat holding 2000 engine RPMs going up hill and keeping that flail spinning at something like 420 RPM.


But after cleaning the grass out of it, there was still more vibration than felt right, so I decided to replace the knives with the new set I should have put on last year. Easy to see that the vibration was due to missing material on some of the knives. Guess they don't get along too well with rocks.:laughing:


Didn't get much cut, but it was good to get the mower on there and get a start. I'd walked the hill earlier in the morning, and the dew covered my boots, making it too slippery to tackle. By 4PM it was dry enough so that the tires were only slightly moist. Still, there's lots of dry fuel up there, so job 1 this morning is to move the fire extinguisher from the old tractor to the new one. Then while the grass dries out, start shoveling out the trench. What fun!

Hang in there, gang, Friday's comin'!

 

[PJSprog]

55°F and cloudy this morning, going up to 71° today. Started raining again this morning as I crossed the Mississippi River into St. Louis.

Strange that these rain showers are popping up out of nowhere, dropping some pretty good rainfall, yet not showing up on radar. If this is what Spring is normally like in Shropshire, Eric, you're more than welcome to have it back.

Some more good-looking pictures this morning.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Just call EA and talk to Travis or Rick. They'll take good care of you. Just get good measurement of the inside dimension of your bucket in advance of calling.

I saw where EA're putting holes into the side of the bucket to attach the tooth bar, Rick, but the edge that's already on there is held by bolts on approximate seven inch centers. Don't think I need those side holes, right?:confused2: So I think all I need is the length, width, and thickness of the edge that's on there, and the bolt spacing so they can get the holes in the right spots.

 

[PJSprog]

Learned of this recall of Harbor Freight jack stands yesterday. Wouldn't you know it, the pair I bought earlier this year are affected.:shocked: Dodged a bullet and didn't even know it. HF knows I bought 'em, and you'd think they'd be sending out recall notices. Nope.

Thanks for the heads-up, RNG. I have two sets of those. Guess I need to check the part numbers when I get home.