Another very wet day...

The past week has been nothing but a big wet mess! Today it is raining again, so we are all trying to work inside as much as possible... Here is a video clip I took a couple of days ago when Jacob and I went out to check cows:



Most of the snow has melted again, but that just means there is even more mud... We are praying for nicer weather, both for calving, and so we can get back to cleaning grain...
 Thanks for stopping by!
    Andrew B.

It Works!

Yesterday morning I put the rest of the plastic back on my new four-wheeler, and then started it up and took it out for a drive... Yup, I got it fixed and back in service! None too soon either, as the weather has turned our yard and cattle pens into one big slop hole, in which our other quad would be helplessly stuck... :-) We have already been using my new one to check the cows, so it is being put to good use. Four-wheel-drive is an increadable invention!
 I got a little time this afternoon to take apart the (Bad) transmission that I had taken out of my four-wheeler, and found the following:

Here is a close up of the wrecked bearings:

 Yup, that one's a gonner...  The really stupid thing is you can't just replace the bearings as Honda doesn't sell individual parts for the transmission; You have to change the whole thing! Sooooooooooooooooo.......  $1,305 and a lot of time, and I have my four wheeler working again! Sure hope it works for a long time... ;-)

  Got to go,

    Andrew B.

Cleaning grain...

Yes, the season is now in full swing, and I am as busy as can be... I am staying with some friends while cleaning 6,000+ bushels for them, which is going to be a three-day-project… At least I am hoping to get done tomorrow, of I don't have any more trouble. I say "more trouble" because shortly after I got here yesterday, after I had run for about half an hour, the engine on my generator decided it didn't have to run anymore… the strange part is that it would start and run just fine for about 10 seconds, then it would simply peter out and die. I was thinking it was the injection pump, untill I called down to a place that works on injection pumps and the guy there told me to check the fuel return line... I did, and found out that a fitting I had thought was a regular elbow was actually a check valve with a very small passage way through it that was restricting the fuel flow! After removing that fitting, istarted the engine, and it ran just fine! PTL!
That's all for now, as I am trying to type on my iPod and it is a little difficult. :-)

More projects, and another episode of "New Wheels!"

Hello all ye out there in Bloggerdom! Once again I have not posted in several days, (A little bit more than my 4.66 average... :-) ) and you might be wondering what I have been up to...  I have actually been busy with several different projects, including working on my grain cleaner:

... and helping a lot with putting up the frame of our greenhouse:

As you can see we are building it right onto the South side of the storage shed we have been building, so we really only had to build three walls and the top...

Here is what it looks like from the top:

We were planning on putting on the plastic yesterday, but it was too windy out and would have been hard to get the plastic fastened down...

 And here is my newest project:



 It's a 2001 Honda Foreman 500 Rubicon, which I bought from a neighbor for $500... What's the catch? The transmission is bad... :-P   You can see in this picture that I had already started tearing it apart:

The engine/transmission assembly is now completely taken out of the quad, and sitting on the bench in the shop in several pieces... :-) I already ordered the parts for it, but I probably won't get a chance to tear the engine apart the rest of the way and get it all put back together for a couple of weeks, as we will be very busy with cleaning grain starting Monday...

  Of course we have also been busy with calving, and trying to keep up with tagging all of the calves... Here is a little video clip I took of Jacob and Cora just coming in from checking on the cows:

That's all for now, check back soon...
   Andrew B.

I feel a bit "Foolish"

Today I realized that I missed my 2nd "Blogger-versary"! It was on April 1st, which made me feel really "Foolish" ;-) So, here are a couple of interesting statistics about my blog:

• 157 posts, not counting this one,
• 156 returning visitors last month,
• 732 days since I started blogging,
• 7,036 page loads,

 Now for the fun part:

• 732 days devided by 157 posts = 4.66 days average between posts.
• 7,036 page loads devided by 157 posts = 44.81 average views of each post.
• 7,036 page loads devided by 732 days = 9.61 average views per day.

Interesting, but you are probably wondering if I am "Doing" anything for my Blogger-versary. YES! I am planning on holding another giveaway this year, but have not yet decided what to give away... ;-) Last year's giveaway was pretty interesting, and I don't know if I'll be able to top it or not... In the mean time, I would like to give each and every one of you a little "Gift" -- Links to some of my favorite COMPLETELY FREE programs that you might find usefull!  Here goes:

1. Most importantly, I would like to recommend AVG Free AntiVirus 2011. This is one of the few AntiVirus programs out there that is completely FREE! If you are getting tired of paying for protection for your computer, try AVG now! I have been using AVG for about 5 years now, and have had NO virus problems! Link to Download Page
2. Is your computer running slow? Getting error messages? Chances are your computer's registry is cluttered up with obsolete and invalid keys. I highly recommend Piriform's CCleaner, a FREE registry and hard drive cleaner. Reclaim your lost performance and hard drive space today!
3. I am sure you have all herd of Microsoft Office, the industry standard word processing and spreadsheet aplications. What you probably haven't herd of is OpenOffice, "The Free and Open Productivity Suite" No need to spend $150+ on Microsoft Office when you can use these programs for free!
4. This one has something for everybody: DVDVideoSoft's FREE STUDIO  Want to download a YouTube video? Change that .WAV to a .MP3? Make a 3D Picture or Video? Convert a .MPG to a .AVI? How about burning a quick DVD? Watch that movie on your iPhone/iPod/iPad/Blackberry/Smartphone/MP4 player? Back up those precious photos to a CD or DVD? You name it, you can probably do it with this grab bag of multimedia programs!
5. If you have multiple computers around your house, and get tired of trying to keep those important files current on all of them, this one's for you! FreeFileSync, a simple but very effective program that allows you to syncronize several folders at once.
6. Have you ever decided to try renaming 50 files in order to make them easier to find? You probably found it was more work than it was worth... Here is a simple program that can make life a lot easier: AdvancedRename. Easily rename multiple files with just a couple of clicks!
7. Ever wonder how hot your computer is really running? Check out SpeedFan, a nifty little program that will monitor your computer's temperatures in real time! Or, if you have a newer Intel processor, you can also use RealTemp, another nice temperature monitoring program...
8. If you've been around computers for a while, you have probably seen a file with a .ISO extension. These are direct images of CDs or DVDs that you can use to burn another CD or DVD. Ever wanted to get at the contents of those .ISOs without actually burning them to a disk? Check out MagicDisc, a FREE virtual disk program that allows you to mount a .ISO image just like if you had put the CD in a CD drive...
9. Can't forget this one: 7-Zip, one of the best file compression programs I have used, and also completely FREE! Opens just about any compressed file out there... Can't get better than that!
10. For you gamers out there: Ever wondered what your favorite game would look like in 3D? Now you can find out! Armed with a simple pair of Red-Cyan glasses and the free iZ3D driver (Free for Anaglyph [I.E Red-Cyan] use), any DirectX powered game can now be viewed in 3D! Also works with Google Earth and other DirectX programs!

Of course there are many others, (iTunes, VLC Media Player, K-lite Codec Packs, Audacity, CPU-Z, Prime95, Windows Live Essentials, Microsoft Money Deluxe Sunset,  etc...) but I have to stop sometime... ;-) I really need to get to bed now, so will say goodnight!
  Andrew B.

Starting Grain Cleaning...

Hello all,

 I am sorry for not posting here for so long, but things on the farm have been keeping me pretty busy. We are getting into the calving season full swing now, so we have to keep an eye on the cows... We have already had a set of twins, both of which are doing quite well! Here is a short video I I took several days ago, when we only had three calves:



 I have also been busy getting my grain cleaner ready for use, as there were still a lot of things to be fixed... I do have all of the cleaning machines running now, but there are still a couple of places where grain leaks out that need to be fixed. Here is a picture I took of my cleaner the other day:

Here is a picture of the control panel, with all of the start (green) and stop (red) buttons:

 I did my first job of the year yesterday, cleaning wheat for our neighbors about a mile away. I was really happy with how good the cleaners worked: the grain was quite dirty going in, but I was literally able to clean it to food grade quality! That's 99.9% purity, or 1 weed seed out of every 1,000 wheat kernels! Now to get all of the leaks stopped up, and I will be ready to get to work full time... :-) Here is a picture Cora took of me yesterday:

And here is a short video clip she took with her camera:

   That's all for now,
        Andrew B.