Hello everyone!
I hope this message finds everyone well and enjoying holiday time with Family! I have come to the realization that things will never slow down and/or I will never be very busy so I am gonna just start rolling with it. That being said I realized yesterday that it has been a month already since my last post and wanted to share some updates.
I will start off with some pics of Zeus. The first pic is from our vacation in the beginning of August, just 4 short months ago. This was when we arrived at the outer banks and my wife was getting everyone some lunch. Zeus was sitting in the passenger seat watching the people outside the truck. The second pic was taken yesterday while waiting on my wife to run into the store to get some cheese from the Minerva Dairy.
Please note the height of the headrest on the seat and the height of Zeus's head. He grew so much in just four months! He is 76 lbs now as well as tall enough to put his paws on my chest and look me almost eye to eye when standing on his back feet.
These two pic were a couple of days ago. He and I ran to town for some oil and diesel fuel. He likes to sit on my lap while I am driving. He is way to big to ride completely on my lap like he did when he was a tiny puppy so we compromised and he puts one paw on my lap and, believe it or not, he can see out of the windshield while setting like this. It has got to be kinda humorous to see us at a stop light like this!
I was able to grab a quick pic at a red light. He was not greatly impressed!
We also got to make a last minute hay run to the Cleveland area yesterday. I had a customer who was running out of hay and straw quickly due to the cold weather that came earlier this year. Been waiting all week for the ice to dissipate so I could actually get the trailer out of here to haul the hay. Once again I am so happy to have my truck fixed and running properly. Zeigler Diesel did an awesome job and the truck is running like it did the day I bought it. Was so nice to be able to haul a load of hay without being nervous the entire time that I would be stranded because it wasn't running correctly. Thank you again Justin and Doug!!! Keep up the awesome work!
We have had two litters of piglets out of two of our new gilts. The first was the blue but and this is her litter. We also had one of our Berkshire gilts farrow a week after this litter was born. She had 4 live ones and two still born. The best part is they are close enough together that the piglets are sharing both sows for eating so they are growing really fast. Once we get this all figured out we are gonna try to get the sows to farrow either all at the same time or in two different groups two or three months apart. We are having to keep these two gilts and litters penned up because the four that are left from the litter last month are too big to be with these piglets and just a little too small to wean them off. If they are all born within a week of each other it is easier to plan for an work through and also much much easier for weaning and feeding when they all are running together and about the same size.
We also got to visit Wisconsin at the beginning of the months for two of our best friends wedding. The kids got to make some really great friends and I got to meet the family of my buddies new wife.
It was awesome to be there for them during this awesome time of their lives. I know they will do well as they compliment each other fabulously and they have a wonderful family to support them any time they need it.
You know being die hard BUCKEYES and being in Wisconsin we had to do an OHIO pose for the photo booth. The brides sister in law photo bombed us but we still got three good ones in the strip!!! LOL!!!
About two years ago my buddy wanted to make a present for his future wife. He does construction work so I gave him one of our cherry bench slabs. We went out into the woods and found two very old tree stumps for legs. I finally got to see the finished product before we left for home. I must say he did a phenomenal job!
I will wrap up my post with this little story. I was working on my milk tank/sprayer to fix an axle issue yesterday. I purchased at an auction and it is just an old dump truck that someone cut the front off of and made into a trailer to haul a water tank. It is pretty rough underneath and I am having to do some pretty rough, very redneck, not worthy of any praise, welding to keep it together. I already deleted the springs on one side early in the fall because they were completely broken and the axle was falling off. Well, the other side is now going as well and since one side is welded solid I need to make the other side solid so it doesn't break everything loose.
To do this I needed to torch a lot of stuff out of the way and then do some rigging to blog the axle solid. Now, There is absolutely no way to clean any of the parts I am welding so I am having to keep the welder quite high to burn through all the junk and rust to get to the metal I need to join.
Now, we have lived in this house for over 12 years now and we have burned the little screw in fuses out many times here and there. However, I have never burnt one of the main fuses coming into the house.....until last night.....after all the stores were closed....if they would even have these fuses anyways.
Here is how you burn this fuse. First of all, we have a 60 amp service to the house. That was common 75 years ago and since the previous owner was an electrician he knew how to make it work without any problems. Also, because it was only 60 amp service, back then you got a reduced rate on your electric. Today the average service to a house is minimum 200 amp and many are 400 if they have shops and stuff like we do here on the farm. So, I am welding through 60 years of junk in the shop, there are two 500 watt heat lamps on for the pigs, kids and wife cooking in the house, water well turned on as well as the furnace on top of all the lights that were on.....fuse blown! This happened at 6:30 on Christmas eve. It was only one pole of the service so we still had 120v to part of the house, however, the furnace and water well are both 240v so they were not going to turn on. We also did not have any backups. I only knew one person to call in a situation like this, a great friend of mine and someone who has helped me on more projects than I can count at work as well as at home. Jeff Fisher of Fisher Power and Electric. He was, and is, the only person that had this ancient fuse, not only in stock, but was available so I could stop and get a couple from him. My wife sent him a jar of Homemade vanilla bean raspberry jelly and a jar of homemade jalapeno jelly as payment.
I will be sure not to make this mistake again and will weld in shorter segments with breaks as well as be sure that unnecessary items are turned off when I am welding. I will also be checking into addressing some of the electrical issues we have here with all that is going on. I have been trying to hold off on upgrading our electric service until we build a new house, but, we may not have a choice!
Have a wonderful day with family today! I will be writing my annual new years day post next weekend. Be sure to watch for it.
Happy Holidays everyone,
Kenny
