Conser Run Report: What a week!!

Do to the short notice of my wife getting hired I needed to take a couple weeks off to watch the kids till we were able to line up daycare. So I have been spending some much needed quality time with them and the farm!

To start the week the kids and I went out and fed the animals, played in the sand box, and cleaned up the garage. We then put the top onto the toolbox I got back in December.

Lisa swept while I worked on hanging tools up. You can see the top for the toolbox sitting just behind her

Here is a pic of the top on the toolbox!! It is very nice! Makes an awesome mobile bench and it is just the right height!

Next thing we did was work on my truck. There are some flex joints in the exhaust pipe going from the manifolds to the turbo. The ones on the passenger side all broke after I removed the egr system due to leaks and malfunctions. If recently found out that when you remove the egr cooler you have to replace the piece of pipe it connects to with a solid one or you will have this problem. Vibration from the engine running cracks all the flex joints and causes a pretty large exhaust leak.

This is what it should look like.

This is what it looked like after the breaks.

I took it to a friend that works on stuff like this and he cut and spliced pieces in to replace the bad section on the left close to the where the pipe hooks to the turbo. The section where the bolts are at the pliers to the end by the tape measure I ordered a replacement section for. It was a solid pipe that eliminated the egr cooler port and the scoop inside the pipe. Unfortunately, in the hurry to get it in and tested, I forgot to photo the new part.

The truck does run great, however, during test drive, bearing went out in the alternator, so I have one of those on order now. Unfortunately, the truck is at that stage in its life where all the wear parts are failing and need replaced for another 5 -7 years of trouble free use. By that time I am hoping to have a newer one and I can use this one just for the farm.

The weather this week was phenomenal! Sunny, 60 degrees in the second half of the week, and drying out some. So, in preparation for the lumber guys arrival in a couple weeks, we started bucking the logs we harvested and getting them close to the barn where we are gonna do the cutting. We are having the logs sawed here due to cost. Lumber from the lumber yard will range from $1.50-$3/ board foot. We can have it cut here for $.26/bd.ft. It will be rough but for a barn structure it is perfect.

I have not been able to get the back tires of the tractor loaded with ballast liquid yet so I had to come up with a way to get some ballast weight. To do this, Steven and I decided to add a bar to the trailer hitch i rigged up for the tractor to hang the front suitcase weights onto.

Steven is in the background left, Willie, another friend, is on the right.

I simply welded the bar to the top of the hitch frame. This hitch is the base frame from a bolt on 3 point hitch that I purchased at an auction. The weights I purchased with my original tractor.

Rear shot. You can see the hitch in the center. I use it to hook up to the farm trailer I have. I am going to add another ball to the top of the main frame post to be able to move my gooseneck trailer around with.

Picture with one of the weights removed. I bent the mounts last year trying to pull out a stump....yea, it was a bad idea. I need to hammer them back out strait and re-enforce them but they are working for now.

Picture of some of the logs. This is about 1/4 of what we have down. The rest is at Steven's farm next door. We will bring it over as needed when we start cutting. My son, Alex, checking out my days work! After this photo he promptly went to the tractor for a ride.

Lisa, coming out of the house to help build a fire to cook lunch. We made hot dogs on the fire pit grill. They were home grown all beef hot dogs. Very very good!

We went down in the pasture for a walk while the fire got going. Took a couple apples along for piggy treats. That is our boar walking past Steven in the pic.

My new droid X has a pretty cool feature called panorama assist. You can take panorama shots with it. This is a pic of the area down in the loop of the creek where the cows and pigs spend the hot summer days. This area is full of willow trees and is cool and shaded in the summer.