A great day for the farm

The last few days on the farm have been very productive.  We have gotten a lot accomplished in a short time and for the most part had fun doing so.  We started our weekend by building a stall in what was previously our hay room.  This new stall was brought on by the addition of a new boarder and a lack of a stall for the horse to stay in.  The stall went up exceptionally quick due to us buying a stall front off from Uncle Henry's.  The stall turned into a 12'x10' stall.  It is not 100% yet because I haven't finished the shutter for the outside as well as a few other minor things but the horse is living in it and happy. 

The other exciting news is that I finally got my Quadractor up and running.  Saturday the pulleys came in from Vermont and I couldn't bear to wait any longer.  I used the bench vise to press the bushings in, put the pulleys on and tested it out.

  I started by hauling a telephone pole and tonight tested it with logs.  We had some trees that were leaning awfully close to the box trailer so I cut them and hauled them out with the Quadractor.

  The last log I hauled was hard to winch out of the gully but once out on the flat it pulled along decently.  You can see my handy little Stihl ms170 saw in the passengers seat. That little saw is so handy for limbing and cutting the brush around where you are working.  It's light and compact which is the reason it is Allyssia's saw.  I also have a Stihl 362 which is a great saw with lots of power for the light weight.  I am a big fan of the Stihl power equipment but I wear Labonville chaps when cutting as they seem to fit best.   

Now the Quadractor still needs to have the primary drive belts replaced but for now I am going to play with it as it is.

This past weekend I also got the mower deck on my Groundskeeper but I of course forgot to take pictures.  After using it today I decided that this summer I need to rebuilt the spare deck as this one is so far gone that when I mow with it the lawn does not look good. 

More updates soon!!

The articulated bolens fleet

For quite a while now I have had a love for the Bolens articulated tractors.  Not many people know that Bolens had a line of these bend in the middle creatures but for a short lived time Bolens tried to make a market for them.

They may not have sold well in the late sixties and early seventies but I have not had trouble talking myself into buying every one that I see. 
      My first Groundskeeper as they are called came from up in Sangerville Maine.  I found it advertised on Craigslist as a mini-skidder.  From that point on it was downhill.  I bought it not running on a weeknight when my father and I had to head there after school and make a night trip out of the junk run.  This first tractor came with no attachments whatsoever and had been rigged up to an extent.  The magneto on the engine was no good so the previous owner had ran a wire from the points to a car coil pack to run the tractor.  I hardly had it working and I tore the tractor down and repainted it.  After it was painted I never really had it running much due to what I thought was fuel pump problems.  Turns out the problem was the coil pack not working properly.  I eventually bought an extra motor and swapped the magneto out and the tractor runs like a top now.

My second tractor came from Farmington Maine a few years later.  As I was coming home from a jobsite I saw what looked like a yellow groundskeeper cab in the woods.  I quickly stopped and ended up staying and talking to the gentleman that owned it for almost an hour before coming to a price.  This tractor luckily had attachments!  it was sporting the snow blower and had a mowing deck sitting in the field a short ways away.  The following Saturday My cousin Tristen and I hauled my fathers 4 wheeler up to Farmington because again this one didn't run and proceeded to load the tractor and attachments.  Now that sounds like it went well but unfortunately it did not.  There was snow on the ground and the tractor had been sitting for a few years.  We got everything loaded and within the day I had the tractor and snow blower running. 

       The last tractor and the one that brings me to this post I got in south Portland.  I had an add on craigslist looking for parts and a snowblade for it and a gentleman emailed me saying he had a complete tractor with cab snow blower and mower but the tractor wouldn't go into gear.  So again my father and I loaded up and off we went.

 The tractor is in decent shape and the mower, which is the main reason I bought it was just amazing.  This is the tractor that I have decided to sell as is to fund other projects such as the quadractor and some others that pop up here and there.  I am of course keeping the mower deck and cab but the tractor and snow blower will be a great addition to somebodys collection. 

     

Back to the Barn

Last weekend Allyssia and I got another large chunk of work done here at the farm.  We didn't start anything until Sunday so It was definitely a long day.  I started the day finally crossing the locker project off my list.  I finished putting the latches on them and they all work quite well. 

Allyssia also got a few small grease boards for each of the lockers to use them as stall cards!  They came out much better than I expected. 

The next major project was a large paddock area for my mare Annie and for another draft cross.  The paddock came out to about 60'x80'.  Again we have Gramdpa to thank for all the boards to build the fence.  We ended up having to go over to get more boards partway through the project but we finished it just in time to have it ready for the boarding horse that came in Monday morning. 

I tried to convince Allyssia that it was a good place to keep the bongo truck contained but she didn't agree.  The posts are landscaping timbers that we got at home depot and we have a stack big enough to do all around her outdoor riding arena.