Tractor frustrations

Today it was time to put out another large hay bale for the cattle.  The morning was cold so I plugged my tractor in to warm the engine.  The tractor started, then quit.  I was raising the loader arms with the bale spear when the engine had quit.  When I went to restart the tractor, it wouldn't start.  The same problem I had in the past where it seemed like the engine wasn't getting the diesel. I pushed the button on the fuel pump and it had fuel.  I tried and tried.  The engine was starting to get weaker.  So, I put a battery charger on the battery.

I tried off and on for the rest of the morning and into the afternoon.  A few times it seemed like the engine was starting, but when I released the key, the engine immediately quit.  Hours later the tractor finally started.  Now when I tried to further lift the bale spear the hydraulics weren't working.  Before the tractor initially quit in the morning the hydraulics were working.  Now?  Nope.

I drove the tractor out into the sun.  Hydraulics weren't working for the steering either.  Ok.  I'll wait because maybe the hydraulic oil needs to warm up as it had been some time since I had plugged in the engine heater.  I waited and waited.  No hydraulics.  Last week I had poor hydraulics but that was due to low amount of hydraulic fluid.  Back then I filled the tractor with fluid.  I checked now.  The hydraulic fluid still seemed to be there.  I waited.  And waited.  Then I added a little more fluid as due to some foam I couldn't completely see how high the fluid was. Did some air get into the hydraulic fluid and was causing the foam?  I also turned the steering wheel as the tractor sat there.  Over time it was a little easier to move. Maybe turning the steering wheel would help get air out if that was the problem.  

After an hour of the tractor running the hydraulics finally started to work normally.

I was able to get a large hay bale and take it out to the feeder in the middle pasture in order to feed the cattle.  They were happy to finally get hay.  I had started this process after 10 am and now it was after 3 pm when I finished putting the hay bale out for the cattle.

Speckles, another cow, and three heifer calves were in the south pasture.  Speckles saw me put the hay bale out and she came walking up river to get back to the middle pasture.  After I parked the tractor I saw the other cow had done the same.  The three heifers were standing along the fence watching the cows eat from the hay bale.  So I walked out and opened the gate for them.  Two heifers walked through.  I noticed the cattle needed another salt block so I went to get one.  I figured the other heifer, who saw the gate was open, would walk through when I was gone.  After I returned with the salt block, I closed the gate.  Then I saw the third heifer had walked down the fence line to the west instead of coming through the gate.  It was standing along the fence looking at the cattle eating hay.  So, I had to open a gate and herd the heifer through the gate.

What a day.  So much was wasted.  And, it was sunny for once, the temperature had warmed up, and the snow was melting, so I could have gotten stuff done outside. But I didn't.

First snow

Today we had the first snow of this Winter.  Not a lot.  Maybe an inch.  The high temperature today was 36 F so most of the snow did not melt.

The cattle are waiting for me to bring out another hay bale.

Strong wind and tree damage

Last night we had very strong winds when a cold front passed through. The peak wind gust was 63 mph.  I didn't lose power but around 10,000 people in the Valley lost power.  I was riding my bicycle back from getting my booster COVID vaccine shot this afternoon and I had to wait on one road as a guy in a bucket lift was chain sawing a large dead tree that blew over and fell on a power line going across the road.  Amazingly the large tree trunk did not break the power line and fall on the road.

A few fiberglass sheets on my patio blew off overnight.

As you can see below, the wind tore the trap over my haybales even though I had the ladder and posts on the tarp overnight.  I didn't expect the wind would get up to 63 mph.

I had a number of tree branches broken off in the pastures.  I had two trees blow over.  The first tree was a dead tree.

The tree partially fell on another smaller tree and broke off that tree's top.

The second photo of the broken tree better shows the missing top.

The second tree was a live tree.  The tree had been split when it was growing.  Last Winter the right side of the tree blew off in strong winds.  Below is a photo of that part of the tree.
 

Another day when I finished cutting the middle pasture tree.

Here are photos of the left side that broke off last night.

So now I got more work to do.  *sigh*  Just what I need.

Potential jury duty

Today I was part of a jury pool that had to attend local court to pick a jury for a civil trial.  I wasn't keen on having to serve on a jury - once again.  In the 1990s I served on a jury, and one other time I almost served on a jury.  That was 10 years ago, almost to the day.  And in the same courtroom, courtroom #3.

https://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2011/11/almost-jury-duty.html 

I believe we are paid mileage at 56 cents mile each day.  Like back in 2011, when we are called for jury selection we earn a whole $12 - a day.  If we serve on a jury our pay increases to $25 a day.  Woo hoo.    That's not even minimum wage.  Jurors should be paid at least minimum wage for doing more than minimum wage work.

We had to show up at 9 am.  Unlike in 2011, where the process of picking a jury lasted all day (I didn't get excused back then until 4:30 to 5 pm), today I, and others, were released around 11:30 am. And unlike last time, this time I wasn't in the pool of people called up to be questioned by the lawyers.   The courtroom was packed with the jury pool and 25 people were called up to be questioned by the lawyers.  A few people were dismissed from that group of people but I wasn't called up to replace them.  I was concerned as everyone else from my seating row was called up to the front, plus the people who had ridden up in the elevator with me.  I kept thinking, "I'm next to be called."

One woman who was dismissed I believe had sat next to me in the row before she was called up to the front.  She was dismissed because her son got COVID last Monday and her daughter got COVID last Friday.  Her husband had to take off work to care for the children, while she was here at jury selection.  It makes sense she was dismissed as this was a hardship for her family.

What annoyed me was we were packed together in the courtroom, with people not 6 feet apart due to COVID.  And her family has COVID and she sat right next to me, almost bumping elbows.  So if I get COVID it is the court's fault for packing us close together.  The court does not require people to wear a mask. Nor did the court - or can they in Montana - ask people if they have COVID.   Let's pack people together and not ask them if they have, or been exposed to, COVID.  No wonder so many people are coming down with COVID in Montana.   Way to go Montana!

The civil trial is among two business partners in the restaurant business.  Or are they still partners?

I can understand why the lawyers question if you know the parties suing each other, or their witnesses, but one lawyer spent a lot to time asking potential jurors if they knew about the "Where's Waldo" game, and how the game worked and how they felt about it.  I have no idea why he was concerned with Where's Waldo.

It turns out most all of the potential jurors knew about finding out where Waldo is located.

If they had called me up for questioning to be on the jury pool, I'm sure I would have been dismissed.  Donna knew the main restaurateur, and her sister worked for him many years ago. They like him.  And Donna and her sister like eating at the restaurant. So do I.  So I would have found it hard to make a judgement against him.  And I knew one of his witnesses as he works with me as an election judge and has worked with me for over 10 years.

I and the others were dismissed before the lawyers set out to whittle the pool of 25 people down to a jury of 12 people plus 2 alternates. 

I'm happy I'm not on a jury.  I don't want to sit right next to people with COVID for up to 5 days.

Tarp on baler

Recently Donna reminded me that I need to cover my baler with a tarp to protect the baler from the elements.  Ooppss... I had forgot.    So I got a tarp out and covered my baler.  Good thing that I did as our recent weather has been wet.  It is raining once again right now as I type this.

Additional fence rebuild photo

Today I noticed another part of my rebuilt fence that looked good for a photo.  I made the fence a little taller here because of the caragana trees.   If the cows could, they would eat the trees.  That is also why the tall wire fence is sitting in the yard - to protect the trees when the cattle are in the front yard.

In the background you can see the driveway fence I plan on rebuilding into a rail fence like this one.

Hayfield / yard fence rebuild

It took me just short of a month (as I only worked on the rebuild part of each day), but I finished the rebuild of the fence between the front yard and the hayfield one week ago.  Now I don't have to worry about the cattle breaking the fence and going between the yard and hayfield (which they have done a few times over the years).

If you remember, last year I rebuilt - with old rails - a small section of the fence back near the patio.  

Last year.

I liked the look and liked how strong the rebuilt fence became.  So when the fencing company had a bundle of rails on sale this Summer at a low price, I jumped at the chance and bought the bundle.  I'm glad I did.  

90 rails.  I counted.

The former yard/hayfield fence needed to be repainted.  But I didn't repaint it because a number of boards were old and weak and needed to be replaced and not repainted.  And new boards wouldn't match the old boards as the new boards would be decades younger than the old boards.  So a totally new fence was needed.

I mentioned in a previous post that each section of fence took me two and a half hours on average to rebuild.  The former fence had fence posts usually 8 feet apart.  The fence boards were either 8 feet long or 16 feet long. A number of two 8 foot fence post sections had a mix of 8 foot boards and 16 foot boards.  Why?  I don't know.  My new sections are 16 feet long as that is how long the rails are.  The fence posts are still 8 feet apart as I don't trust a 16 foot section of rails would hold up against the cattle pressing on them.

Over half of the fence posts had to be replaced.  All these bad fence posts seemed to be doing was to hold the fence boards apart, and mostly up.  Over time I had to lean some metal posts against the old fence to hold some sections of the fence from leaning over. These bad posts were mainly rotten at the top of the ground so they were easy to remove.  I left the rotted part of the post in the ground.  For the posts that were still good to use, I had to dig them out and then put them back in the ground.  That was because the rebuilt fence, to be completely straight, was moved over about a foot into the yard.

The new rails are thick.  I don't have nails long enough to adequately nail the rails to the fence posts.  So I ended up cutting part of the rails to thin them where they were nailed to the posts.  That was part of why each section took so long to rebuild.  As I got closer to my house I could run an extension cord and use a power saw to help make the cuts.  Before that I had to use a handsaw to cut each section.

End fence post section.  Cut by a handsaw.

Middle fence post section. The section was cut by a handsaw into smaller sections, then chipped out.

As you can see, the rail is still thick enough.

The former fence didn't have any gates in it.  No problem as with my long legs I could easily get over the fence.  The rebuilt fence is taller.  And with wire added between the rails it is hard to climb over the fence.  So I added two gates.  I had an extra 10 foot gate so I added it in the middle of the fence. The gate I had was either never used, or they used the original length of gate bolts.  My fence post was thick and I needed to readjust the nuts of the gate bolts.  I had to use lots of WD-40 on the bolts as the original paint was stopping the nuts from turning.  As you can see paint still stayed in the grooves after I turned the nut.  But I got it adjusted.

I used a 10 foot gate as I didn't have an 8 foot gate.  So the 10 foot gate threw the last section off.  Instead of an 8 foot section as the last section, I had about a 5 foot section in the end.  Hmmmm.... another gate would be nice.  I went and bought a 4 foot gate.

Originally I planned on rebuilding the one section of fence I had rebuilt last year in order to make it longer and reach the gate.  This meant finding 9 foot rails to replace the 8 foot rails. I also decided to replace the fence post with a thicker post.  But then after I put the newer post into the ground I decided it was good.  No need to find longer fence rails and rebuild that section of fence.  Two fence posts work and don't look bad.

I had the gate in place before I started to add wire to the rails.  Again that took me a number of days as I only spent a few hours each day working on cutting and adding wire to the fence rails. I have a habit of sometimes climbing over the gate instead of opening it and walking through it.  One time as I climbed on the gate the top bolt came out of the fence post.  This was an original fence post I had reused and the top of the post was not completely solid.  It was solid enough to nail a rail to it and have it hold.  But it was not strong enough to have an extra 175 pounds on the gate for a minute or two.  So I had to replace this fence post with another thicker and more solid fence post.  And I need to try to go through a gate more often and not climb over it.

This is why I added wire to my rail fence.  Not that I was worried about my tree, but when a big cow or bull reaches through the fence to get to the grass on the other side and push, that is how the rails can break.

Wire.  No wire.  (until I later added it.)

Old fence and new fence.

This fence done... now to get to work to rebuild the fence along the driveway.   ...if the ground doesn't stay frozen.

Tractor test and tree branch cut

Friday we had a nice sunny warm(ish) day and I drove my tractor around to test my new clutch cable fix.  Everything works fine.  No problems.  Good thing as I ended up putting out a large hay bale Saturday evening.  Saturday morning the cattle had woke me up when they stood in the hayfield near the house in order to moo at the house and me to tell me the hayfield has been eaten down.

This evening after I put out the hay bale I opened a smaller gate and let the cattle into the pasture to get to the hay bale.  All the cattle quickly went past me through the gate.  All but the youngest calf.  She didn't want to go near me.  The cattle went to the west side of the pasture and the hay bale.  The calf went back and forth along the fence.  When it got near the gate it went back and away before coming back to the fence on the other side of the gate. It would call out to the other cattle.  So I waited.  And waited. And waited and waited. It got dark.  Finally the calf approached the gate as she realized going through the gate as I stood there was the only way she was going to be able to join the other cattle.  She moved quick.  When I said, "See... it's ok to come through the gate when I'm standing here.", the calf bolted and ran to join the cattle and left me behind.

Friday after testing the tractor I decided to work on cutting a broken tree branch.  This is a branch that broke down back on the beginning of July this year.  The tractor was useful as the branch is high enough that otherwise I would need an extension ladder to reach the branch in order to cut it.

Below is how the branch looks like now.  Various times over the Summer I used a handsaw to cut off the side branches on the downed branch.

I put the tractor's loader up next to the branch.  Then I climbed up on the loader's arm and then into the loader bucket.  Then using a handsaw ( I didn't have gas for my chainsaw) I cut the branch.  The branch is thick.  I was partway through the branch when the handsaw's handle broke apart in my hand.  I had to climb down off the tractor's bucket and go get another handsaw.  

This time I eventually was able to safely cut off the branch.  That was another reason I cut the branch slowly.  Because I was right near the branch, and the tractor's bucket was a bit lower than the branch and right next to it, I didn't want the branch to fall on or against the bucket.  The branch is big and thick and long.  I didn't want the branch to hit the bucket.  It could either pin me in the bucket or knock me out of it.  You know I'm starting to get old when I start thinking about bad outcomes that could hurt me.

I cut the branch in a way that I expected it to fall away from the bucket.  Because the branch had split they were two sections.  One part of the branch went down to the ground.  The other part went out and up.  You can see in the previous photo the out-and-up part was slowly dieing over the Summer.  I got both parts to fall away from the tractor's bucket.  The out-and-up part went down first.  The second part went down next.  It broke off the branch below it. The end of the second part fell and landed on my fence.  So I will have to fix the fence later.  And clean up the cut branches.

There were also some dead branch limbs a bit higher than the branch I cut.  While up there I cut a few of them off.  The rest I left as time had passed and it was starting to get late. The dead branch limbs I left are higher up and out of the way and it is not essential I have to cut them off.

Tractor clutch cable problem

Wednesday afternoon was frustrating.  I decided to start my tractor and drive it a bit as I hadn't done so in a while.  It is my habit before starting a vehicle is to step on the clutch pedal to make sure the tractor isn't in gear when I start it.  There was no resistance when I stepped on the clutch pedal.  Hmmm?  I started the tractor.  When I re-stepped on the clutch - nothing - I couldn't put the tractor into gear.

I opened the steering column panel to look at the clutch lever and hose.  I found the cable that moved the clutch was completely broken.  Since I have a cab I had to figure out where the clutch hose and cable went under the cab.  The tractor doesn't have lots of space as everything was designed to fit close together.  So I had trouble seeing or reaching what may or may not be the clutch cable.  YouTube is a help as I found a video of a guy replacing his clutch cable on his John Deere tractor.

On my tractor I had to loosen and move another hose so I could reach up to the clutch cable.  Even then it was hard to work on things as my hand and arm filled the space and it was hard to see things.  How to unhook the cable connector from the clutch lever?  Again I re-watched the YouTube video and they showed how it was done.  Eventually I unhooked the clutch cable and pulled it out.

I had to get the part from the John Deere dealership as other parts suppliers didn't carry the cable I needed for my tractor.  I called and after some back-and-forth and dropped calls they eventually told me they had the part I needed.  I took my cable along in case they were wrong about the part - like that never happened with them.

They did have the correct cable.  It also came with the hose.  Due to the cable end attachments, the hose is required as I wouldn't be able to pull the new cable through the old hose.

Back at home I had a big problem removing the cable hose from the tractor cab.  I took the lock ring off but the hose would not slide out of the metal holder in the cab.  I tried and tried to pry it out.  No success.  Eventually I used a hammer to pound the hose down out of the metal holder.  It appears the metal holder was designed whereby the hose comes up from the bottom to install and remove, and one cannot slide it out sideways.  Why a lock ring is needed?  Who knows?  The YouTube video didn't show them removing the hose, and anyway the video was for a different model of John Deere tractor.

After some effort of sliding the hose down through the cab, it then took effort to reach and fit the hose into the metal holder under the cab.  Then some effort to thread the connector onto the end of the cable's threaded end.  Then to attach the connector back onto the clutch lever.  That done I went to attach the hose into the cab.  The trouble I had removing the hose... I had more trouble reinstalling the new hose into the metal holder.  I knew I had to slide the hose in from the bottom of the holder but the hose seemed a quarter inch too long and the hose was rigid and had no room to move.  Over and over I went.  Finally - somehow - I got the hose into the metal holder.  Then to attach the cable's connector to the pedal's arm connector... I had to unthread and rethread the connectors to each other so I could move the top connector into position to I could install the bolt to hold it in place.

Finally done.  Hours later.  My afternoon was shot.   Now to start the tractor.  Again no resistance on the clutch's pedal.  I couldn't disengage the clutch arm to put the tractor into gear.  I checked.  The cable was fine.  What is going on?  When I rethreaded all the connectors, did I not get them exactly right?  My neighbor Curtis wasn't around so I didn't have anyone to push the clutch's pedal while I watched under the tractor to see how the cable and clutch bar moved.  Or had experience with fixing clutches.  It was starting to get dark so I quit for the day.

When I had my head injury several years ago sometimes I think when I came back from the dead I came to another world from which I was born in.  Odd things happen now.  I've almost always have driven clutch vehicles over the many decades and never had a clutch cable break before.  My head injury did not cause the clutch cable to break.

Thursday morning.  I got my neighbor Curtis to come over and help me with the tractor clutch problem.  While waiting for Curtis to arrive I re-adjusted the top part of the clutch cable connections and the clutch seemed to work a little bit better.  When Curtis arrived he adjusted the top more and it got even better.  Then I went underneath the tractor and adjusted the bottom connections to the max limit.  Curtis made some temporary adjustments from the top so I could fully adjust the bottom.  Then he readjusted the top when I was done on the bottom.  It worked!  The clutch now works.  I was able to put the tractor in gear and drive a foot forward, then in reverse gear to drive back. 

I finished reassembling everything.  Then I went in the house and ate breakfast and then cleaned my wood stove.  Now it was early afternoon and it started raining.  And was wet and cold all day.  So I didn't go out and drive the tractor around the pastures to re-test the clutch work.  Tomorrow I will as the rain is suppose to stop tomorrow.

Photos.

Broken cable and new cable and hose.  You can see where the cable had broken.  And for the new cable you can see how the cable thread attachments on each end prevents one from sliding the cable through the hose.  The extra connector on the right side of the broken cable is what attaches the cable to the clutch's arm on the bottom under the cab.

This is before I removed the hose from the tractor cab.  You'd think the hose would slide sideways out of the metal holder.  Nope.  At the top are the two connectors that attach the threaded cable end to the clutch pedal arm in the tractor cab.

New cable and hose before I somehow bent it down to get into the holder.  The hose would not slide any further down through the floor and below the cab.  Even after the hose was put into the holder you can see the top attachments had to be removed in order to get them onto the threaded end.  Then somehow the end connector back on the clutch pedal arm.  Harder than it looks.

Under the tractor.  The opening was barely larger than my arm.

The purple arrows shows another hose I had to move in order to reach up to the clutch's cable and hose.

The red arrow shows the cable and threaded end.  I hadn't attached the connector to the cable and the lever yet.

The green arrow shows the hose's end and the metal holder just underneath the cab.

The blue arrow shows the clutch's lever I had to attach the cable and connector too.