Progress

Hello again!

We have had another busy week, but since I posted last Tuesday, I will just continue from there...

Wednesday was spent in sorting off Cora's calves from the rest of the herd, and then hauling them in to the Napoleon Livestock Auction. Mom and Jacob were in Bismarck, so Dad, Cora, and I had to work with the cows by ourselves... Thankfully the animals all cooperated, and we got all the calves to the sales barn without incident.

Thursday afternoon, Cora and Jacob went to town to watch Cora's calves go through the ring, but by the time they got there, they were already sold! O well...

Dad and I spent Thursday and Friday working on my grain cleaner, as that is top priority right now. We have to get it ready to run before the grain cleaning season starts, which could be as soon as the end of the month. We have been making a good bit of progress, although we are still a long way from done... Yesterday, we finally got the generator set in place on top of the goose neck, but it still has to be bolted down and wired in. Then we have to reposition the large fan beside it, which then needs to be bolted down, wired in, and re-ducted; we have to figure out how to mount 3 augers, a tip scale, and a hydraulic system to run the rear auger and a drag auger; how to modify the building framework so that all of the augers can be folded in, and still be able to close up the sides... Get the picture? We have definatly made some progress, but there still is a long way to go. :-)

Got to go,

Andrew B.

I'm Back!, Pictures, and an Update...

Well, I'm back. This probably isn't a surprise to most of you, as it has been posted on my other family members blogs, but I thought I would say it anyway...
Like I said in my last post, on Friday we were going way up North to look at a grain cleaning unit that was for sale up there. On the way up, we made a little detour into Minot to pick up a certain giveaway there:

Cora has been wanting a Basset Hound for quite a while, and when she found one for giveaway on http://www.bismanonline.com/, she had to 'Pounce' on it. :-)
Here are some pictures of the grain cleaning unit that we went to look at:

We spent over an hour looking at the cleaner, trying to decide if it was worth what the guy was asking for it, and if so, what we would all have to do to it in order to make it work with our operation... The verdict? Yes, it was in fairly good shape, and it didn't look like it would be too hard to get it going again, so we called the owner, and made a deal; we would be back up on Sunday to pick it up.

Now, seeing as it would only be about 10 miles out of the way for us to go visit some friends of ours up there, (Who we don't get to see very often, because of the 200 mile trip,) we were able to go visit them for an hour or so. Then we had to head for home... Correction: Then Dad, Cora and Jacob headed home. Seeing as we had to be in the area again on Sunday, I had the opportunity to stay with the Bartlett's for the whole weekend!

I had a very fun time at the Bartlett's. Friday evening we spent playing games; I taught them how to play Pit, and they taught me how to play Stratego. (Which I enjoyed so much, I made my own from cardboard as soon as I got home. :-) ) I don't have very many pictures from my time up there, but you can check out the Bartlett's blogs, as they posted a couple of me... They are linked to on my sidebar; ND Homekeeper, Adventures of a Turtle Mt. Hillbilly, Mr. Flatpicker, Out in the ND Boonies, and ND Wood Hauler.

Here are some pictures I took while I was out at chores with the Bartlett's:

The Bartlett's dog, Samson.

Peter, milking Sandy.

Mrs. Bartlett, doing ?, and Peter straining the milk...

More later...

Andrew B.

I'm Leaving...

Hi,
Just a quick note to let you all know that I won't be posting here for a couple of days. Tomorrow, we are going to look at a grain cleaner way up by the Canadian border, (Long story, more on that later) and if all things work out, I will be spending a couple of days with some friends up there. So, bye for now!

Andrew B.

Well, the Weather Outside is Frightfull...

But inside it's so delightful, and since there's no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! Not like it really cares what we think, from the looks of things! :-) We have got quite a bit of snow the past couple of days, along with a good bit of wind, but at least the temperature hasn't been too bad. Here are a couple of pictures of Dad pushing snow a couple of day ago:





I have been working on a couple of projects recently, none of real great importance. :) Here is a picture of my attempted replication of This machine. Note I said "Attempted", which only means I haven't gotten very far with it yet... So far it is just a large pendulum.



Another Lego project: The Giant Turntable.





I have to confess, I found the idea for this turntable on the Internet... It is basically a large roller bearing, and can hold a VERY LARGE amount of weight. I have even stood on it, and spun around quite easily! Those big wheels are from the Lego Star Wars set Hailfire Droid, #4481.

I enjoyed reading this book we got from the library:



It is a story about a man and his dog, who venture into some very wild territory in search of a downed aircraft, and it's two passengers. Will he find them? Can they get back out after a massive landslide? Is Garridge actually crazy? You will have to read the book to find out...

In my spare time, I have been watching the Film Workshop DVDs that I got recently from Advent Film Group.



These discs are a recording of a live 2 day workshop that was presented at Patrick Henry Collage earlier this year. So far, I have finished the first disc, and am enjoying it thoroughly! If you are interested in film making, I would highly recommend this resource! The set is currently available on the AFG Website for $150.

Well, I had better get going,

Andrew B.

Dictation!

Hi all,

I have been playing with speech recognition lately, and so I thought I would try writing a blog post that way. It really works quite well, although it does make a mistake once in awhile. So far I have only had to fix one thing; it didn't know what a blog was! The other day when I was training it, it thought I said Jacob was a chicken!

Well, Jacob is bugging me to go play a different computer game, and now he's telling me to delete this sentence, even though it's the truth! HaHa! If you haven't ever tried talking to your computer, you should give it a try sometime. It's really fun! And, you can generally talk a lot faster than you can type. Speech recognition is a built in feature in both Windows Vista and Windows 7. It works with most word editing programs, although it has a problem working with Blogger. In order to use it on this post, I had to first talk it up in an e-mail and then paste it to Blogger later.

Well, I need to get going.
Andrew B.

I am trying dictating.

Hi all,

 

I have been playing with speech recognition lately, and so I thought I would try writing a blog post that way.  It really works quite well, although it does make a mistake once in awhile.  So far I have only had to fix one thing; it didn't know what a blog was!  The other day when I was training it, it thought I said Jacob was a chicken!

 

Well, Jacob is bugging me to go play a different computer game, and now he's telling me to delete this sentence, even though it's the truth!  HaHa!  If you haven't ever tried talking to your computer, you should give it a try sometime.  It's really fun!  And, you can generally talk a lot faster than you can type.  Speech recognition is a built in feature in both Windows Vista and Windows 7.  It works with most word editing programs, although it has a problem working with Blogger.  In order to use it on this post, I had to first talk it up in an e-mail and then paste it to Blogger later.

 

Well, I need to get going.  

    Andrew B.  

Much Better

Hello again!

I am feeling much better today, and so is Cora, although we are still fighting the flu around here. Jacob got pretty bad during the night, and Dad isn't feeling the greatest either... Your continued prayers are much appreciated. :-)

God Bless,

Andrew B.