Lately I've been leaving the back door open a little bit when I go to bed. Rascal sleeps all day. At sundown he likes to be outside much of the night. But he also wants to come in the house to get a bite to eat every so often. He wakes me up to let him inside. 5 minutes or so later he wakes me up to go back outside. Several times a night. So I leave the door partially open. Late night / early morning he is done being outside and will come and lay on my bed next to me.
This morning when I got up to use the bathroom I found a dead headless mouse in the hall outside my bedroom. Okay... maybe leaving the door open is not a good idea. I tossed the mouse out the back door. Later when I woke up to start the day I saw the mouse was gone. Earlier I had heard a bird out my window.
Then I go and check on the water trough for the cattle. They are still at my neighbor's place. I then do a short bicycle ride of 5 to 7 miles. Today I got a flat tire and had to ride home a half mile on a flat front tire. What caused the flat? Those darn steel belted tires. They fleck little bits of metal wires. And they will go through my bicycle tire. I seem to get a flat from these wires a time or two a year.
I fixed the flat. Later in the afternoon I went and checked on the water trough again. Then when I went on another short bicycle ride I got another flat! No wire this time. Not sure what caused the flat. Maybe when I hit a small rock when riding? This hole was harder to find, and I had to put my inner tube in the water trough to see where the air was leaking, I fixed this flat. But then when I put a little air in the tire the inner tube popped and went flat. The tube had a cut in it now. Why? No idea.
So I needed a new inner tube. And I didn't have one. A trip to Walmart. They had a 700 mm tube but the width was a little larger than my tire. No other options. I bought it. Later, at the end of the day, when I installed the tube it did fit. I went and rode to fill the water trough again. A very short ride and this time no flats. Finally.
From my hay cutting yesterday I used some diesel. I had enough diesel for today, but the DEF one must add to the diesel was low. The fuel gage for the DEF was in the red area. Off to buy some DEF. Walmart - who carried DEF as I seen it some weeks ago - was out. I went to my Town Pump gas station. I had seen in the past they carried DEF. They were out. What is going on? All diesel engines are required to use DEF since 2010. So it should be sold and available at places where diesel is sold.
I had to drive to another gas station. Another Town Pump. And I encountered all stoplights as being red. And when I could drive everyone was driving 5 mph under the speed limit. What is going on today?
This Town Pump had some DEF. $14.99 for a 2.5 gallon jug. More expensive than diesel itself. I picked up a box. Then I had to stand in line. It seems as if everyone was also buying a 6-pack or two or of beer in addition to gas.
I also decided to buy some diesel. The total came to $3.15 for the diesel. What? I had given him more money for the diesel. He then told me that even though the sign said $14.99 for a 2.5 gallon jug, there were two jugs in the box. There were no option to buy only 1 jug.
I have a Town Pump reward card. But it is a Town Pump Exxon reward card. This place was a Town Pump Conoco place. Oh for heaven's sake.
I put the $3.15 diesel into my container. On the way home I stopped at my normal Town Pump and bought more diesel to fill the container. This was the Town Pump Exxon place.
This is the first time I added diesel to my tractor. John Deere put a tool box above the fuel tank. There is room for a nozzle to add fuel. But to put diesel into the tank using a container, it is hard to position. I think I will remove the tool box to give me more room in the future.
The DEF fuel cap is near the diesel fuel cap. The DEF jug has a plastic hose to help one pour the DEF out of the jug. Oh wait. The plastic hose has a screw on - connect ability. The jug does not. So I had to get a funnel. Then I discovered the DEF fuel cap has a small entry. Maybe so one doesn't mix up the diesel and DEF spots. The small funnel I got was a touch too large to fit in the DEF opening. I had to find an even smaller funnel.
Since one can't see inside the DEF tank, when is the tank getting full? I didn't want overfill the tank and spill DEF all over. (I already spilled a little diesel when trying to position my container.) I had to go get the tractor key and turn it so I could see on the fuel gage how full the tank was.
This DEF is a pain. It is suppose to protect the environment. I heard they don't have it or require it in Canada. So if you drive your diesel powered vehicle in Canada you could have a problem.
I didn't have breakfast until 4 pm. I didn't start cutting hay until after 6 pm. My tractor's clock was off. I went in my house to check the clock that will synchronize with the U.S. clock in Colorado to make sure it has the correct time, I couldn't quite see the time so I moved the clock and dropped it. The batteries fell out and there went the time. 
I was concerned about my hay cutting considering how this day had gone so far. What is going to happen now? But, things changed. I got my hay cut with no problems. Finally something is going right. Earlier I just wanted this day to be over.
The few hay cut hiccups were: one can set the back of the MoCo to determine how wide the windrow would be. I was almost done and I saw the windrows were a little larger. So I adjusted the lever in back. Here the photo shows how wide I want the windrow to be. The other issue is the tilt of the cutting blades. I wanted them to be mid-range. At one point I saw the tilt to be all the way. I reset that.
I don't like leaving grass around the power line towers. Before I started cutting hay today I used my hand scythe and cut the grass from around the tower's legs, With this new tractor I didn't drive through the powers. I would back the MoCo into the towers from each of the four sides and cut the middle of the towers. This takes longer to do, but it protects my tractor from a mishap.
Once the field was all cut, this was what I had left under the towers. I backed the MoCo under the tower and cut most of this grass. Then I used the hand scythe to get the little left.
What a day.
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