I was home the other day and saw this.
Nope. Ain't no wheels required.
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
How To Get Half A Tractor Off Of A Trailer
I have a 1952 Ferguson TO-30 tractor named Bessie the Tractor. I love that thing, although I abuse it to death as regular readers of this blog can attest. I belong to FENA, the Ferguson Enthusiasts of North America. I received an email from them a week or so ago saying that one of it's members had a 1951 TO-20 that he was giving away for free here in the Ocala area of Florida. It was disassembled and in boxes. Thinking this might be a fun winter project, I contacted him.
Now, I've said before that this is a small world, and posted here about all the people I've bumped into in this sparsely populated area. Well, I called Bob (with the TO-20). He asked where I lived.
"Eureka."
"Really? Where?"
"Not far behind the Kwik King." (Down here, everyone uses businesses as points of reference).
"I'm about a half a mile from you. I'm on the road before the Community Service Center."
So I arranged to go over to look at it. It was mostly all there, and with a lot of new parts. It seemed doable. I went home and went to see my next door neighbor, Denny. Denny and his friends are all retired, and they spend most every day working on various restoration projects. They're just finishing up two trucks, a '65 and a '66. Denny was a boiler maker and can fabricate and weld anything. Tas is a great mechanic and body man. Poor Boy is a mechanic, and a good one.
I asked Denny if I took this tractor if he'd help me fetch it. See, Denny has every type of tool and piece of equipment you can imagine. Sure, he said. Let's go over and see what it will take. Which is what we did. Denny decided that the small stuff would be easy, but we'd need his friend who has a bobcat to load the biggest piece, which was the back half of the tractor.
A tractor is really nothing more than an engine and transmission bolted together with wheels stuck on and a seat bolted on top. On the front half are the steering wheels, and on the back transmission half are the huge back wheels and PTO (power takeoff unit). The engine half was removed, and so the back half, with the huge wheels, would be difficult to move.
Denny, Poor Boy, and I went to get the small stuff. We'd need Jerry with the bobcat for the back half. Remember what I said about this place being small? Jerry lived next door to Bob! So we just walked next door to fetch Bob and the Bobcat. What happened next is in this video.
You're welcome.
Now, I've said before that this is a small world, and posted here about all the people I've bumped into in this sparsely populated area. Well, I called Bob (with the TO-20). He asked where I lived.
"Eureka."
"Really? Where?"
"Not far behind the Kwik King." (Down here, everyone uses businesses as points of reference).
"I'm about a half a mile from you. I'm on the road before the Community Service Center."
So I arranged to go over to look at it. It was mostly all there, and with a lot of new parts. It seemed doable. I went home and went to see my next door neighbor, Denny. Denny and his friends are all retired, and they spend most every day working on various restoration projects. They're just finishing up two trucks, a '65 and a '66. Denny was a boiler maker and can fabricate and weld anything. Tas is a great mechanic and body man. Poor Boy is a mechanic, and a good one.
I asked Denny if I took this tractor if he'd help me fetch it. See, Denny has every type of tool and piece of equipment you can imagine. Sure, he said. Let's go over and see what it will take. Which is what we did. Denny decided that the small stuff would be easy, but we'd need his friend who has a bobcat to load the biggest piece, which was the back half of the tractor.
A tractor is really nothing more than an engine and transmission bolted together with wheels stuck on and a seat bolted on top. On the front half are the steering wheels, and on the back transmission half are the huge back wheels and PTO (power takeoff unit). The engine half was removed, and so the back half, with the huge wheels, would be difficult to move.
Denny, Poor Boy, and I went to get the small stuff. We'd need Jerry with the bobcat for the back half. Remember what I said about this place being small? Jerry lived next door to Bob! So we just walked next door to fetch Bob and the Bobcat. What happened next is in this video.
You're welcome.
Monday, January 5, 2015
The Great Escape
Olivia is a German Shorthaired Pointer, a high energy hunting dog. I've mentioned previously that she escapes from our fenced in yard regularly. Well, yesterday she got out for a romp around the neighborhood.
The main yard is fenced in with a chain link fence. RV "the Boat" is in the backyard and we put up a four foot high fence from the house and garage to the RV. We can't do that along the RV because we need to get in and out of it, and sometimes into the compartments. It also has to be movable so we can take it down once a month when we go to dump the holding tanks. So we put a bunch of stuff in the way. First it was the lattice work. That was laughable. She'd just go right through it, pushing it out of the way. So we put posts behind the lattice. She would stick her skinny snout under the lattice and flip it up. Then we put metal roofing behind the lattice work. She somehow managed to flip up the lattice and then the metal. Last, we put some old metal folding louvered doors in front of the lattice. So, we've got metal doors, lattice, and metal roofing.
I was in bed reading (yes, about sasquatches) yesterday morning When I opened the door and jumped out, this is what I saw.
The main yard is fenced in with a chain link fence. RV "the Boat" is in the backyard and we put up a four foot high fence from the house and garage to the RV. We can't do that along the RV because we need to get in and out of it, and sometimes into the compartments. It also has to be movable so we can take it down once a month when we go to dump the holding tanks. So we put a bunch of stuff in the way. First it was the lattice work. That was laughable. She'd just go right through it, pushing it out of the way. So we put posts behind the lattice. She would stick her skinny snout under the lattice and flip it up. Then we put metal roofing behind the lattice work. She somehow managed to flip up the lattice and then the metal. Last, we put some old metal folding louvered doors in front of the lattice. So, we've got metal doors, lattice, and metal roofing.
I was in bed reading (yes, about sasquatches) yesterday morning When I opened the door and jumped out, this is what I saw.
It took me a good half hour to find her. She was running down a dirt road. I yelled for her. She giggled and took a right and ran out to the road. I finally trapped her in someone's fenced yard. She stopped to see a neighbor dog, who was in his fenced yard. I leashed her and walked her back to the yard.
I hate it when my dog is smarter than me. Pam is home from horseback riding on Amelia Island with Debbie from Cheers Horse Ranch. Maybe she can figure something out.
Sunday, January 4, 2015
The Dog Days of Florida
Pam is taking folks for horse rides on the beach of Amelia Island, and I'm here with the dogs. Olivia the German Shorthaired Pointer spends most of her time hunting lizards.
Sometimes Olivia naps.
Yesterday, she actually hopped up on the air conditioning unit and jumped over the fence. I had to add yet another piece of lattice to keep her in.
Ruby spends her time laying by the front gate waiting for Pamela to come home. She also hoards toys, and if Chevy favors one, she steals it and shreds it to pieces.
Chevy is just Chevy. A handsome boy.
Me? When I'm not saving the world with my opinions on Facebook or reading and studying sasquatches, I drink beer and shoot pool. Yesterday, instead of listening to Eureka Radio (there is actually a radio station here), I brought my laptop into the garage and listened to podcasts of Sasquatch Chronicles.
I couldn't believe this.
Sometimes Olivia naps.
Nope. No idea why Sassy has on her Grumpy Cat face.
As most of you know, the dogs run free in Bleecker. We have a fenced yard here in Eureka, but no fence between the RV and the back gate. So we made one. Olivia took this to be a challenge and has outsmarted us many, many times and escaped. We keep adding barriers. She keeps escaping.
Yesterday, she actually hopped up on the air conditioning unit and jumped over the fence. I had to add yet another piece of lattice to keep her in.
Friday, January 2, 2015
The Sasquatch Handprint
Since our finding of apparent sasquatch signs, I've been studying sasquatches. Are they real or not? I have books and the internet for tools, and it is all pretty convincing. Footprints, videos, photos, and audio recordings. But as near as I can tell, while there have been hundreds of plaster casts made of sasquatch footprints, but nothing of a hand print except one muddy print many years ago.
Remember this?
I had joined a Facebook sasquatch page, posted that photo, and asked for feedback. About half weren't sure, the other half tried to explain it away as being human, or faked. The lines on the thumb print were thought to be a knit cuff of a jacket.
I was at the end of Dr. Jeff Meldrum's excellent book, Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science and I got to the chapter on hand and foot prints. Meldrum says that sasquatches aren't human, of course. He believes they are a type of North American Ape. In talking about the plaster casts of sasquatch foot prints, he says that casts of the real ones (as opposed to the hoaxes) have dermal ridges. Apes have "friction skin" he said that aids them in climbing. Friction Skin are dermal ridges and are found on the soles of feet and the palms of hands of apes. PALMS OF HANDS!! DERMAL RIDGES!! THAT'S IT!!
Now, there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that we have at least one, but I suspect a family of sasquatches living by us in Bleecker. While the hand print is the most convincing bit of evidence I've seen, here are the rest of my sasquatch photos.
Some fun facts I've learned... sasquatches are omnivores, and eat meat. Like deer, dogs, and probably people. They have a very, very loud howl, starting below the range that humans can hear, and use the low tones to stun their prey.
They'll shake trees to let you know that you're annoying them, like in this pic, as well as knock sticks against trees, something I heard in the summer of 2013 and thought was male deer knocking felt off their antlers.
They build nests by bending over trees and weighing them down with logs, and then covering them with small branches and leaves. Like this.
And they mark their territory by twisting small trees and branches. Like this.
And sometimes trees are bent in odd fashions to mark... something. Like this.
But most people don't know that. Their first sasquatch sign is usually a huge human-like footprint, like these.
When we return to Bleecker this spring, I'm going to buy plaster so we can cast the foot prints. Meanwhile, Pam and I are just outside the Ocala National Forest, a sasquatch hot spot. Maybe we'll look around. Then again... they are omnivores...
Remember this?
I found this print on the back of our car after driving down a dusty dirt road in Bleecker, which covered the stern of the car in dust, effectively dusting for fingerprints.
First, look to the left of the window. See the smudges? Something rubbed up against the side of the car. But that's not it.
Well, look at the base of the thumb in the photo above. See those parallel horizontal lines? Those had me baffled, and kept me from being 100% sure this was from a sasquatch. What is that?
I had joined a Facebook sasquatch page, posted that photo, and asked for feedback. About half weren't sure, the other half tried to explain it away as being human, or faked. The lines on the thumb print were thought to be a knit cuff of a jacket.
Well, it wouldn't be a knit cuff. First, the lines go the wrong way. Secondly, this was September. We don't wear winter jackets with knit cuffs in September. Besides, there was also a second thumb print to the right of this one, with the same marks.
I was at the end of Dr. Jeff Meldrum's excellent book, Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science and I got to the chapter on hand and foot prints. Meldrum says that sasquatches aren't human, of course. He believes they are a type of North American Ape. In talking about the plaster casts of sasquatch foot prints, he says that casts of the real ones (as opposed to the hoaxes) have dermal ridges. Apes have "friction skin" he said that aids them in climbing. Friction Skin are dermal ridges and are found on the soles of feet and the palms of hands of apes. PALMS OF HANDS!! DERMAL RIDGES!! THAT'S IT!!
Now, there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that we have at least one, but I suspect a family of sasquatches living by us in Bleecker. While the hand print is the most convincing bit of evidence I've seen, here are the rest of my sasquatch photos.
Some fun facts I've learned... sasquatches are omnivores, and eat meat. Like deer, dogs, and probably people. They have a very, very loud howl, starting below the range that humans can hear, and use the low tones to stun their prey.
They'll shake trees to let you know that you're annoying them, like in this pic, as well as knock sticks against trees, something I heard in the summer of 2013 and thought was male deer knocking felt off their antlers.
They build nests by bending over trees and weighing them down with logs, and then covering them with small branches and leaves. Like this.
And they mark their territory by twisting small trees and branches. Like this.
And sometimes trees are bent in odd fashions to mark... something. Like this.
But most people don't know that. Their first sasquatch sign is usually a huge human-like footprint, like these.
When we return to Bleecker this spring, I'm going to buy plaster so we can cast the foot prints. Meanwhile, Pam and I are just outside the Ocala National Forest, a sasquatch hot spot. Maybe we'll look around. Then again... they are omnivores...
Monday, December 29, 2014
Ocala Farmers' Market
Pam and I drove into Ocala Saturday to exchange a few things at Jezebel's, a woman's clothing store. We were pleasantly surprised to see that the local farmers' market was open. Besides farmers, there were also crafters and even a fisherman.
Yep. Their ridiculous "Christmas tree".
Pam collects and makes sea glass jewelry, so we stopped to check this out.
It looks like very nice stuff. Here is her card.
Then we found these, which I found to be ingenious. Old wine and whiskey bottles with the bottoms cut off, a whisk inserted inside, and a votive candle stuck in the whisk. $15 each, two for $25.
So we bought two.
"That's pretty boring, Dave...." you're thinking. "What about Christmas?"
Well, I'm glad you asked. Pam fetched Jeremiah the Horse and gave the neighborhood kids visiting their grandparents horsey rides.
Daughter Megan came for Christmas. Olivia LOVES Megan!
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Dog Fight!
I was on Facebook today and I saw this.
http://www.yousignanimals.org/Dr-Laura-Schlessinger-Pitbulls-are-a-waste-of-space-and-need-to-be-put-down-Sign-now-if-you-disagree-t-940
As many of you know, Pam and I have two pitbulls and love them. We also have a German Shorthaired Pointer who is usually a sweet dog, but she can also be ill tempered and has a short fuse. We have to watch her.
http://www.yousignanimals.org/Dr-Laura-Schlessinger-Pitbulls-are-a-waste-of-space-and-need-to-be-put-down-Sign-now-if-you-disagree-t-940
As many of you know, Pam and I have two pitbulls and love them. We also have a German Shorthaired Pointer who is usually a sweet dog, but she can also be ill tempered and has a short fuse. We have to watch her.
We had our first dog fight this afternoon. Judi's (my mother-in-law) little dogs were in a screened in porch, and Olivia the insane German Shorthaired Pointer went up to the screen door. Benji, the alpha Yorkie, attacked the screen. Olivia, being nuts, attacked back. They couldn't get to each other, of course, because of the screen, but Ruby the overly protective female pitbull didn't know that, and went after Olivia. She pushed Olivia away from the screen. Olivia, being very mad, actually went after Ruby, and a HUGE dog fight broke out between them. We finally managed to get them apart. Ruby is full of dog bites from the pointer. Nose, head, ears. Olivia doesn't have a bite mark on her. Ruby wouldn't actually bite her. So, Dr. Laura, tell me again how vicious pitbulls are, and how they should be put down?
Afterwards, we had 80 pound Ruby in Judi's house after dinner and she played with a 3 pound Chihuahua.
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