Lately…

19 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by thegentlemanfarmer in Gentleman Farming, Living, Seasons, Time, Totem Hall

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

chores, farm boss, farm chores, field mow, fieldwork, hay, kubota, taylor pittsburgh mower deck

I’ve been spending time on the back of a tractor, contemplating all the mysteries…

Stalled…

28 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by thegentlemanfarmer in Gentleman Farming, Horses

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

best laid plans, collateral damage, damn flies, embarrassment, farm chores, farrier, front-end loader, heat wave, horse stalls, kubota, quarter horses, taylor pittsburgh mower deck

blissfully unaware…

I had big plans for the day, which really were no plans, perhaps do some fishing, get my sailboat out, chase a golf ball, float in the pool. Instead, as the heat index reached 100 (that’s about 38 degrees for my Celsius friends), I found myself shoveling dirt in a horse stall.

the problem…

With our farrier making his monthly, bimonthly, six-weekly, visit tomorrow, I found myself under the gun to get the main run-in stall back in decent enough repair that I could hold reins and not be terribly embarrassed by the condition of the barn.

You see, the flies this time of year bother my boys terribly. Hell, wouldn’t you be? The damn flies bother me terribly too, but I least I can scoot into blessed air conditioning when the going gets too tough. No such luck for the horses, so what they do is paw up dust to keep the bugs away. Paw enough when you’re big enough and soon enough there’s a mighty fine hole in the ground and a mighty fine weekend of plans of doing nothing much goes bye-bye.

on the mower…

through the woods…

future barn dirt…

loaded up…

dropped off…

shoveled out…

the end result, one stall, one side…

collateral damage…

Bear with me, just a few more comments. The whole job would have been easier with a backhoe, instead of the front-end loader, but I am too cheap to buy one, and have no place to store it if I did own one. It is amazing how tight a barn stall can get, especially when you’re on top of a tractor. Things might have been easier if I had taken off the mower deck, too lazy, too hot, too bothered…

Adjust This, Cowboy…

19 Thursday Jun 2014

Posted by thegentlemanfarmer in Gentleman Farming, Totem Hall

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

adjustment bar, bad innuendo, field mow, fieldwork, frozen, nuts and bolts, taylor pittsburgh mower deck

My bar needs adjusting. There, I needed to say that, just for laughs and giggles, and well because my bar really does need adjusting.

the adjustment bar…

For those who just can’t get through the day without knowing, the adjustment bar helps with a mower deck’s angle of attack. You see, most folks tend to have the front of their deck too high in relation to the back. This will lead to backside dragging (a problem whether you’re a human or a machine), which results in blown out, abused, and otherwise perfectly trashed back panels. A little adjustment here, a little adjustment there, and before you know it, the front side has the most is the perfect pitch to the back and you get the most loveliest of mows.

no saggy back end here…

At least that’s how it works in theory. In my reality, I adjusted too hard, cranked one too many times, which, as you can see by my ruts in the dirt, led to a not particularly aesthetic finish. Adding insult to injury, my nut froze to my bolt. The only solution: saw it in two.