The New Arrival

So today I acquired a new piece of equipment.  Behold the Case 446 garden tractor.  My neighbor had this sitting in his barn for the last many years.  It hasn't run for 7 or 8 years by now, and the last time he did have it running, it tended to die often.  He know I enjoy tinkering and fixing on old things, so he just gave it to me.  Thus, for free, I got this lawnmower, an unpictured snowblade, and an unpictured mowing deck.  And there's more to the story....

We succesfully pulled over the tractor from his barn to my barn using a tow strap.  No problems.  I went back with the old wood wagon to pick up the snow blade.  My neighbor and I lift it up into the wagon without issue.  The fun began when we went to get the mowing deck.

He found it lying under some old hay.  Old hay as in 15 years type of old.  It was pretty well composted and rotten over the mower deck.  We push the hay away and get ready to lift up the heavy mowing deck.  Neighbor on one side, and I on the other.  We lift up and kind of get situated and ready to walk out of the barn when he starts hollering, "Get out!  Run!".  Thinking we may have stirred up some hornets nest, neighbor pushes me out of the barn.  I'm looking behind for some bees or hornets or anything to cause the concern, and he tells me there was a pretty skunk under the mowing deck.  About that time, we start to smell the skunk so we move further away fromt he barn.  After a minute or two, we see that pretty skunk slink around the corner of the barn and into another hole in the barn.  We didn't get sprayed, but it sure got the adrenalin pumping.  I'm sure that skunk didn't like to get that mowing deck dropped on its head either.

Nonetheless, I got two thirds of the equipment he intended to give me.  I'll go back sometime in a few months and see if that skunk has moved it's residence.

What is my intention with this old lawn mower?  I really don't know.  I think I'll at least get it into a running condition.  Perhaps down the road I'll even give it a little paint job.  I have no idea.  I have a problem passing up free lawn mowers, perhaps.

Note:  Please enjoy this picture of my 40-week pregnant wife.  Today is her official due date for Baby #3.  Doesn't she look happy on that old garden tractor?  Perhaps it's just a smile of exasperation.

Weed Whipping - 1930's style

My neighbor has a great way to trim the long grass and weeds along the creek that goes through our properties.  He has a McCormick No. 9 sickle bar mower.  We can trim the creek in the front of the house in about 45 seconds per side.  That sure beats a sweaty hour of weed whipping.

Sure, back in the 1930's, this rig would have been pulled by some horses, but the International 184 is a little smoother.  My neighbor drove, weaved around the many trees, and kept us out of the creek - it was very professional driving.  Keep in mind, the sickle bar is driven by the steel wheels, so the faster you go the faster the sickle bar moves.  We feel it cuts better at a high speed. 

My job riding on the mower is to adjust the height of the sickle bar.  Too high, and you're not cutting anything.  Too low, and you plug up with mud, get loaded up with grass, or break something.  A hand lever coupled to a foot lever allows for movement of the sickle up and down.  If all this wasn't a challenge, staying on the seat certainly was.  The seat I rode on tipped forward somewhat.  So, bouncing over the yard at a decent clip on the edge of the creek while dodging trees and all the while nearly being launched forward out of your seat made for a fun afternoon.  I hope we can do this again soon.

Big Changes

The Girl is losing teeth like crazy. Just 12 days ago, she lost her third tooth. Three days ago, she lost her 4th tooth. Tonight, we yanked out her 5th.

Here is a picture of her before losing tooth number 4 a few nights ago. You can see the top front tooth is pretty crooked.

Tonight, after bunch of wiggling, tooth number 5 was ready for extraction. I found the easiest way to grab on to those little teeth is to use my compound needle nose pliers. Her teeth are so small and so smooth, fingers just can get a grab.  She is very trusting, and prefers the pliers over fingers.

So after all is said and done, her two front teeth on the top are history.

No corn-on-the-cob for her this summer. Oh well. I don't think she will mind too much.

The Weekend

Our Saturday was interesting. A few things to say:

1. In the morning, I made this.... Pecan pancakes with blueberry syrup. One of our favorites.

2. I sharpened blades on the JD lawnmower. When I put the belt back on, I laced it around the outside of a peg instead of the inside. So, when I started it up, things started smoking quickly thereafter. I shut things down, saw the problem, and tried to move the belt to the other side of the peg. I didn't think it would be hot, but it was. The result - I got a nice burn on my finger. It looks pretty gross.

3. I got a wireless router for the new laptop given on Mother's Day. This is very nice.

4. A dust storm blew up in the evening on Saturday. I was out mowing (after burning my finger), and the northwest looked brown. I stopped mowing, and the dust storm blew through. Visibility was greatly reduced, and our eyes hurt. I've never seen anything quite like it before. I didn't get the yard finished.

5. The neighbor offered to let me have his old lawnmower. He doesn't use it anymore, and thought I could have some fun fixing it up. So, for free, I will be getting an old Case 446 lawnmower - complete with unused mowing deck and a well-used snow blade. It ran when he parked it 5 years ago, but he said it has troubles staying running. Some weekend, I'll move it into the barn. No rush. Lots of other projects to work on in the meantime.

That's all for now.......

The Good Saturday

We had an exciting day this past Saturday. We were able to go down to Indianapolis and watch the Memorial 500 Parade in the downtown. We met some friends, and sat in the middle of Vermont Street watching the parade go down Meridian.

The weather cooperated nicely. It took awhile for the parade to get to us. Lucky we brought bubbles....

The parade was pretty cool. The kids enjoyed the big balloons. I enjoyed the cars. We were able to get out of the area around 2:30 in the afternoon.



We visited with our friends at their house in Fishers, and got back home late to see our front yard under water. according to our neighbor, we only had 0.8 inches of rain, but it came in a flash. And since our ground is pretty well saturated, there weren't too many places for it to go. Here is a picture looking to the north.



And here is a picture from near the house looking to the east. Pretty soggy out there....

The Air Compressor Fix

Dad's air compressor blew up. He took off the cylinder head to find a screw or two rattling around inside the compression chamber. I happily offered to clean up the damage.

Firstly, I sandblasted out all the dirt and grime, and flattened the seating area on a flat granite block with 1000 grit sand paper.

The intake valves were easy - chase the 8 threaded holes with the appropriate tap. It was a very odd sized - #5-40. I use #4, 6, 8, and 10 all the time, but this is my first opportunity to work with a #5. I had to go to my machinist buddy to get a #5 modified bottoming tap.

The exhaust valves needed to upsize a little. The threads were bad, so I went from a #5-40 to a #8-32 button head stainless steel screw. Drill out the hole, thread it, and also drill out the valves and valve retainers to the OD of the screw.

I think this should now work nicely. Delivery is set for Easter weekend.

Watts to Pancakes

This is the first year we tapped our maple trees for syrup making. The wife has been collecting bucket loads of sap every day from just two trees. Each of these 2 trees has just one tap in it.

We don't have a very efficient way of boiling down the sap. We have been evaporating the sap on our stove top. I had the inclinatation this is a very inefficient way to go about doing so, so I did some math.

It turns out there are alot of interesting factoids and conversion factors to ponder in maple syrup engineering.

First, I needed to figure out how much electricity our stove top is consuming. I shut off all the circuit breakers in the house, except for the stove top. Then, at the electric meter, I could count how fast our meter was spinning.

From the internet, I found an equation that turns electric meter RPM into watts. It turns out our stove uses 1200 Watts of power for boiling down maple tree sap.

Here are some other factoids necessary for the final math equation:

• I put 2 Tablespoons of syrup on each pancake
• Sap boils down to syrup in a ratio of approximately 40:1
• Our current electric rate is 9 cents per Kilowatt-Hour

Thus, 2 Tablespoons of syrup per pancake = 80 Tablespoons of sap. There are 256 Tablespoons per gallon, thus it may be easier to say that for every 3.2 pancakes you eat, 1 gallon of raw tree sap is consumed.

How fast does our 1200 Watt stovetop boil down sap? That is an important part of the equation behind my final answer. We figure we yield about a half a cup of maple syrup after an 8 hour day of boiling.

So, 8 hours of cook time at 1.2 KW = 9.6 KWH

Thus, 9.6 KWH at 9 cents per KWH = $0.86

These figures assume the production of 1/2 Cup of maple syrup. (1/2 Cup = 8 Tablespoons)

Thus, 9600 Watts divided by 8 Tablespoons = 1200 Watts of power per Tablespoon.

Since I use 2 Tablespoons per pancakes, my final number is 2400 Watts Per Pancake. Wow!