A Long Time in The Works......

As everyone has obviously noted I haven't made a blog in quite some time now.  Life has been extremely hectic the last couple of weeks.  We have made some huge leaps in our life.
We bought a house!  We didn't buy just any old house, we bought a nice log cabin nestled on 13 acres of land in Farmington.  We are right on the edge of Wilson stream and it is almost all field around the amazing indoor riding arena and 9 stall horse barn.

We closed on the property on March 5th and that day I moved a few tractors and some shop stuff into the two car garage that has now become my shop.

The Garage is not insulated but to me anything with a roof is better than having to work out in the cold wearing a snowsuit and having to shovel around all of my projects.  After moving a bunch of tractors and equipment in Monday Allyssia and I went up to the house and decided that before moving in we needed to refloor the kitchen, dining room, and the hallway to the front door.

The flooring was a vinyl roll down flooring that was cracked and faded and peeling up in spots so we opted to go with a PVC core click together flooring.  It is completely waterproof and fairly well scratch resistant. 

My father came over and helped me get started on the floor as he has done multiple click together floors at his house and at my sister's.  When I first started there were a few times that I said "why did you start this" but once I got going it got easier and better.  I still have to finish putting trim around the floor but the floor is down so that is what matters.  Another improvement before moving in was a little bit of painting.  Allyssia painted the kitchen a nice light blue to cover up the yellow that was there. 

This is the first picture collage that I have used on the blog and I hope it shows the colors well enough to see the brightness change in the room.  Finally Friday came along and we started packing the horse trailer with furniture and boxes that night and into Saturday morning.  Saturday morning one of my co-workers came and helped me get the mattress and box spring as well as the couch onto the trailer.  When we arrived in Farmington my other co-worker arrived and helped with the mattress and box spring but not the couch.  We ended up getting rid of the old couch and went to Big Lots and instantly found the perfect couch for our living room.

It's a recliner couch and of course Cricket approves!  Now even though we were mostly moved in Saturday we still had work to do Sunday moving the horses, hay, round pen panels, and other supplies up.  We spent most of the morning and into the afternoon cleaning the stalls out setting up fences and just in general cleaning the barn that hasn't been used in years.  Around two o clock Allyssia left to get the first two horses and by six thirty they were all in stalls and eating happily.

Now onto the house again!  It is a beautiful two bedroom two bathroom log cabin with an unfinished basement and a loft. 

The house is absolutely gorgeous placed in the middle of a nice flat lawn not to far from the barn or the road.  There is no wood stove but there is oil heat and a pellet stove in the living room.

The previous owners also left us enough pellets to finish the winter out.  If you notice in a lot of the pictures Cricket steals the show looking extremely cute and posing for the picture.

So it has been a big step for us but we made it and this big of a step means many more projects to come.  I am going to do my best to document the before and after of all of these projects and most definitely post more often than this last spell that went by with nothing.  As usual stay tuned as we will be making improvements and starting projects left and right here and would like to bring you along for the ride!

Just Playing Around

This past week has been very slow and I haven't done all to much. I have been puttering around the yard doing some small tasks but on the beautiful 65 degree day we had Wednesday I took the Quadractor out for another video playing in the snow.  This time I used the clamp for my GoPro and clamped it to the front fender of the Quadractor and went for a joyride.  I won't go to far into detail and I will let you see for yourself.
                                                      Quadractor In the Deep snow!
Come spring time I have some light logging to do with the Quadractor at my bosses house.  I really enjoy the Quadractor and have a lot of fun just driving it around like this but would really like to work it a little bit with some actual logs.  In other news today I picked up an amp meter for the Caterpillar .  Tomorrow I plan on installing it and moving the light that I had installed to a better vantage point.

On that note I am going to sign off for the night but stay tuned because I always have new updates no matter how small.  Stay tuned and check back often. 

On This Day

After much hassle with the bank and exceptional patience from the buyers we closed on the homestead in Peru today.  It is sad to think that I no longer own property at the very end of a dead end road.  I have been ready for this for a few months now, even though when I listed the homestead for sale I was very leery about selling it.  The new owners are extremely nice people and I know that they will take just as good care of it as I have but it is still sad to have it gone.  While moving my equipment out of the barn I did save a few small things that are part of the homestead to bring with me on my next adventure.  A few of them would be considered worthless to most like the door and window from my little shed but the most important thing is my handrail. 

This handrail, I was told, was carved by one of the builder's helpers when the barn was built.  This for me was one of the selling points of the property when I bought it.  Someday I want to smooth the handrail itself up and put it in my house. 

 I know that you've all seen these two before but they really capture the essence of the property and just how beautiful it really is. 

Well I will stop ranting and sign off for now but stay tuned and check back often. 
Someday soon we will have another homestead that Allyssia and I can show off to everyone. 

Final Big Push for the Caterpillar

This weekend I was on call at work and despite working most of the day Saturday and part of Sunday I had time to finish getting the Caterpillar motor mounts shaved down and even had time to get the motor installed and running.  No need to jump ahead of myself so I will start with the beginning.  This morning after going on an early morning no heat call in Turner I stopped in at Grampa's house with the four aluminum motor mounts two of which needed to be cut down a grand total of 85 thousandths of an inch each.  

This is the start of the process all set up in the milling machine.  We got the mount level side to side within 1 thousandths of an inch. 

Once it was ready we had to set the milling machine to take the whole eighty-five thousandths of an inch all at once.  When milling down aluminum you can take a lot more at once and at a much faster speed than when milling down steel.  We were able to mill down both of the motor mounts down in around an hours time. 



This was the first of the mounts being planed down and there is really nothing overly exciting about watching it get done.  I enjoy working with the milling machine and the lathe as it is very precision work but the end result is very satisfying.  After finishing with the mounts and cleaning the milling machine up Grampa and I fixed a rolling pin as well but alas I did not snap any pictures of that process.  After lunch I ran another service call and headed home with my finished mounts and freshly tuned up motor for the Caterpillar. After contemplating the rain a bit I headed out the door to work on the Caterpillar.

 Before you know it the mounts were back under the motor with brand new bolts and washers.  This is one project where my Milwaukee auto ratchet came in extremely handy.

 This time around before running the engine I checked  multiple times to make sure that the coupling was square and level.  I was able to rig the Lovejoy with a two inch wide steel band clamp on the seam of the two couplings to hold it together properly while bolting the engine down.  Doing that I believe kept everything from shifting and moving. 
                                                            The Caterpillar end result
Even though I do forget to take pictures while I am working on the equipment because I am so excited to get it running I didn't forget to take a video to share with all of you.  Now that the engine is running right thanks to Adams Small Engine in Livermore Maine, and the coupling is not self destructing on itself, the machine goes great.  Allyssia was able to play on it a little bit in the rain and enjoyed it!

 The best part for me is not having to carry the firewood in by the handful and I think that it will cut down on my shoveling drastically.  It has been a very expensive, time consuming , and frustrating shovel/wood hauler but I think it will be worth it in the long run.   Remember to check back often I am always doing something here at the farm.  Until next time stay tuned!!

Just a Little Update

Last few days I have been working on a few small odds and ends on the farm equipment.  There have been some small nagging things that I have been avoiding this past week that I was able to cross off and get started on one of the larger more pressing ones.  To start I had to get my Groundskeeper Bolens back in working order.  It had broken a sheer pin last time I used it in this video here.                                    Groundskeeper broken sheer pin
I of course forgot to take pictures of the sheer pin replacement but what I did get pictures of was the cutting edge that was broken on the snowblower.

This is whats left of the cutting edge that I removed from the blower.  I had been running it broken and missing about a foot in the center until I happened upon a new used one.  This old one wore extremely hard in the center probably from our rocky, dirt driveway. 




To mount the cutting edge takes twelve 3/8x2" carriage bolts and two larger 5/8"bolts.  All of the bolts had a flat washer a lock washer and nut.  I bought all the bolts from Tractor Supply because I have found that they sell hardware by the pound and it is a lot cheaper than buying it by the bolt.

You can see the heads of all the carriage bolts and just a tiny bit of the cutting edge sticking out.  It can be adjusted in or out to make up for the edge wearing. 

This edge had already been used and is reversible so I put the new edge down.  I did have to bend the frame of the snowblower back into shape and straighten it out to get the new edge on.  The next slightly larger project was removing the engine from the caterpillar again to take a little bit off from the motor mounts.

I have to take a whooping 85 thousandths of an inch off from the mounts to make the coupling line up correctly otherwise this happens.  

I was just a little bit off on my original calculations and the motor was higher than it should have been and ruined the spider.  While the engine was out it was a perfect time to bring the engine alone to Adam Pike to have it properly tuned up.  He is going to clean the carburetor and fix a few other small problems.  For today that is all for exciting things that has happened so until next time stay tuned and check back often. 

Another Year Fixing the Old Ford

So another year has passed and that means another inspection sticker on my old Ford.  This truck has served me very well so I am more than willing to give it the help it needs to keep it on the road.  This year will make year number two that I have had to get the frame patched.  This years patching was very minor compared to last years but it had to be done none the less.  Even though the inspection came up in the winter I was able to do all of the work in comfort and warmth.  In saying that, I would like to recommend anyone that needs large to light duty truck work done to check out Merrill's Garage
                                                             Merrills-Garage-Inc
The owner, Justin and his crew do great professional work and in a timely manner.  The other person I would like to thank is Wayne Adams of Mid State Welding who of course did the welding and patching on the frame.

Wayne does not have a website so this is as close as I could come.  Wayne is an excellent welder and I wouldn't want anyone else to work on my truck.  Back to the real action, my father (who was so generous to help) and I removed the bed Friday night and dropped the rear tank down.  This is the third time that we have removed the bed and are now getting pretty good at it.  Saturday morning Wayne Adams showed up and we started right away on the frame.

At his young age Wayne has decided that he only likes to work on truck frames in the winter if there is a lift and heat. I of course obliged with both to get him to work on the truck.  There were only two small cracks to be fixed that were right next to the overload bumpers. 

The ditch side one he patched on the inner side as well as a large patch on the outside of the frame.  We also beefed up a few other spots as a bit of preventative maintenance. 

This is the other major patch that was done on the drivers side.  At times I wonder if the rear frame is more patch than frame but if Wayne welded it then I believe it will hold.  After Ten O'clock, when Wayne, left I changed a universal joint on the rear of the driveshaft and replaced the fuel tank until my father showed up and helped me replace the bed.  Once the bed was back on and the lights back together and working one of Merrill's employees inspected the truck for another year. 

This has been a great truck and I hope that I can keep it running for years to come. It has served me well and I enjoy this truck immensely.  I want to thank everyone that has helped me keep it running over the last few years through everything that has gone wrong. 
Remember stay tuned and check back often. 

The Sad End of the Peru Era.

It is with great sadness that we are closing a chapter in our lives we have loved, what we know as the homestead in Peru.  I purchased the land with a 40'x50' pole barn on it back in 2014.  When I first went to look at it I instantly fell in love and decided that I had to have it.  After much hassle with the bank it finally became mine.

This view is what prompted the name The Funny Window farm.  All around the barn are windows everywhere.  The joke was that the builders ran out of wood and started placing windows to make up for the space.  We had planned on building a house out behind the barn with a daylight basement as we have grown and gotten married and have found a new direction in life we have decided that at this point in our lives it was to much for us to do all at once. 

I still think the property is just amazing.  I love it up on the mountain in Peru even though it is always a bit windy and cool it still holds a place in my heart.  This little shed was one of the many projects I undertook on the homestead shoring it up and fixing the side of it.  I have taken very careful measurements of the shed so that someday I can replicate the shed on a new chunk of property.

It did take some time for Allyssia to warm up to the property but I think that she loved it almost as much as I did.  We had a lot of memories up in Peru and we even took our engagement photos up there. 

This picture was one of our engagement photos and one of my favorite photos from the property.  There is a trapdoor to get large items upstairs and that is where we are sitting.  The soon to be new owners are extremely nice people and I hope to be able to go visit the property periodically and check up on it. 

We are on the lookout for another property but aren't in to much of a rush.  When we do came across something that fits our needs we will put out all into that just like we did on the homestead in Peru.  It will be missed but someday we will have something just as good or better.

                                            Until next time stay tuned and check by often.