First cutting of Alfalfa, DONE!

Hello all,
  It has been quite a while since I have taken the time to post here, mostly because I have been really busy with making hay... And in my spare time, I have been working on my car. :-) I have been making good progress with that project, although there is still a lot more to be done... More on that later...

 Today we finally finished up with our first cutting of Alfalfa! We would have been done a couple of days ago, except a large wind blew around all of the windrows on our last 100 acres, so we had to spend a lot of time raking it all up again...   Thankfully we were able to salvage most of the hay.  Now that we are done with the Alfalfa, we have to work on haying the ditches, then it will be time to start on the second cutting of Alfalfa again... Never a dull moment while working on a farm!

 Here are a couple of pictures of my car project:

 Hmm, looks a little bit sad...

Whoa! What happened to the wheels!

Oh, there it is!


Wow! What a mess:

Transmission parts!

CAUTION: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!
(At least not without a good service manual...)

 Feel dizzy?

  Apparently there was a bearing that went out in the transmission, which then took out several other bearings, a couple of bushings, and essentially the entire planetary gear system... If you look closely in the following picture, you can see the smashed teeth on the gear:

One of the many bad bearings:

I have got the transmission pretty much all back together now, although I am still waiting for a bearing and a couple of special spacers that I ordered... I also have to replace a couple of seals in the differential part of the transaxle as well... But it is coming along quite well!

 Best get to bed now,

    Andrew B.

New wheels! Episode 5...

(Introduction:  .... La ta ta ta    ta DAH!...)   "Welcome back for the 5th episode of 'New Wheels', your local auto show featuring everything from fix-um-ups to the latest in style and design. This week we will be checking out the newest addition around the studios, a 2000 model Chrysler Cirrus!"

Well, that might be a good introduction for a radio show, but maybe not for a blog post... :-) I never would have guessed this morning that I would own a car tonight... It is amazing how fast life can change! Here is a picture (or a couple):

I have been looking for a good deal on a nice little car for a while, and when I came in for lunch today I had a couple extra minutes so I looked at http://www.bismanonline.com/, (our local FREE online classifieds,) and saw this car listed for $475! Why so low? Well, the transmission is bad... And it has 165,000 miles on it, but what do you get for less than $500 anymore? Sooooooooo, seeing as I know that good deals don't last very long on BisManOnline, I gave the seller a call, and we ended up going up and picking it up this afternoon. Now I just need a lot of time to take it all apart and rebuild the transmission... :-)  There are a couple other minor problems, as in the front bumper and grill are in a little tough shape, and the radio has been removed...

I am just about done with my 4-wheeler project, which is turning out quite well! I have the motor all put back together and in the quad now, and have actually had it running for a couple of minutes. I am stuck waiting for a couple of little covers that I ordered, or it would be all the way back together by now... :-) It seems to run quite well though, PTL!

Best get to bed now,
   Andrew B.

A couple more videos and a new poll...

Hello all,
  Just a quick post to put up a couple more videos of the Garrison Dam, and also to inform you of the new poll here on my blog.  I would appreciate your feedback!

Here is a video of the Garrison Dam spillway:



And one of the powerhouse/regulatory outlets:



Enjoy!

Prairie Days 2011: Saturday continued...

Hello all,
 I am finally getting around to posting some more video clips from this years prairie days... Here we go!

First we have a video of my Mom singing one of her favorite songs, "You're the only Jesus":


Next up is a compilation of several different clips of a new feature of Prairie Days, the "Guess Who?" See if you can figure out who these people are supposed to be:


Here is a short clip of a couple of my friends playing with a Bull Whip:


And last but not least we have the entire first talk by George Washington! Enjoy!



~More to come soon~
    Andrew B.

A week ago... (WARNING: Long Picture Post!)

... we went up to the Garrison Dam to see the record setting water levels, and all of the consequential flooding.  On the way there we stopped at the park in Wilton in order to have a picnic! I had my camcorder along, and took a bunch of photos, so I will make my way through the day with photos:

The Wilton Centennial Park:

Had to laugh at this sign:

A nice spot for a picnic!

I liked this lamp post, thought it would make a good picture...

And the trees too! :-)

Another sign on the other side of the pond:

My beautifull sister:

The neat old bridge:

And the water fountian:

After lunch we continued on our way to the dam... Here you can see the Missouri river as we were driving across a bridge:

We finally got to the dam, and after finding a place to park, we walked around for a while and looked at all of the water... Here you can see the spillway structure, and how high the water is:

On the other side of the spillway, you can see all of the water pouring out:

Here you can read a little history of the spillway:

 This year has been increadably wet, and with the above average snowfall in Montana, the water in Garrison Dam is the highest it has ever been. In fact, this is the first time since the dam was built that they have had to let water out of the spillway!  When we were there, they were letting out about 61,000 gallons of water per SECOND!

 Here you can read a little history of the Garrison Dam:

 And a little about the powerhouse:

And a picture of the powerhouse, and a lot of water!

The next couple of pictures are on the full side of the dam, showing the intake for the power plant:

There sure is a lot of water around there! I am glad we aren't anywhere near all of that water...
  Andrew B.

Back to work...

This has been a busy week, but I guess that is normal... :-)

 Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday found us going to Bismarck for an agricultural class, which was very interesting...

 Thursday morning we worked on getting the corn cultivator and the hay cutters ready to go in the field, then after lunch Jacob and I cut hay, while Dad started cultivating corn... We were able to get two fields of alfalfa cut down, and Dad got quite a bit of corn cultivated too!

 Friday morning we got a sprinkle of rain again, so there wasn't much field work that could be done...  Mom and I went to Bismarck to run some errands, pick up a couple of things, and I had to deliver a computer that I sold... I ended up spending about two hours running around town trying to find a specific bolt I was looking for, but finally did find one. ;-)

 Now for a couple of pictures of my latest project:

 I don't recall if I posted this or not, but I sold my other four-wheeler a couple of weeks ago... I found another one in need of repair, which I picked up pretty cheap. So now I am working on repairing this one. :-) Here is a picture of what was wrong with it:

 Apparently what happened is the piston seized in the jug, which caused the bottom of the piston to break out, then the connecting rod/wrist pin smashed into the side of the cylinder a couple of times, breaking out a piece of the cylinder wall and bending the connecting rod... It also managed to push the piston high enough that it hit the valves, causing them to bend as well...

 I bought a used crankshaft and cylinder/piston off of eBay, so I have been working on putting things back together. I am still waiting for the valves, gaskets, and some other parts I ordered, but then I should be able to get it all back together. :-)

Here you can see about half of the engine put back together with the new (used) crankshaft already installed:

Here is the other half of the main crankcase assembly:

 And a couple of pictures of assorted engine parts that need to be put on yet:

I hope to get it running next week sometime, but it might not happen if the weather is nice and we can be in the fields... :-) I am sure there will be more pictures of it here in the future...

  Andrew B.