Done seeding!

Hello all,
  Once again, I have not posted for many days, and my only excuse is I have been tremendously busy... ;-)  Hope that is good enough...

   We finished our seeding here last Friday! (not yesterday, 8 days ago...) So glad to be done with that, and now we can move on to other projects... The Lord has blessed us with beautiful weather this year, and even sent us a shower this morning. :-) 
 
 I have been keeping busy with shop work mostly, now that we are done seeding.   Going to have to go through the haying equipment and make sure that is all ready to go for the busy haying season...   We also have to check on the fences in our pasture, and move the cows up there soon...  So much to do -- we are sure never bored around here!

A couple of days ago I got a chance to go outside and take some nice pictures, so thought I'd share a couple of them with you.  :-)  Here is a sneak peak at my latest project:

Our apple tree blooming:

"The Lonely Dandelion"

A nice bleeding heart in the greenhouse:

Do you see it?

The Monarch:

Hope you enjoy my pictures!
   Andrew B.

A great day in the shop!

Today was a very productive day in the shop. It was raining on and off all afternoon, so we had plenty of time to work inside...

 First on the list was getting Cora's car finished up; we had been working on changing the water pump and timing chain, and were almost finished, just waiting for one more part... :-) So it didn't take too long to finish that up this morning, and Cora was able to drive it in to work this afternoon!  She is quite happy. :-)

 Our next project is a 2001 Dodge Intrepid, which I bought several weeks ago... The previous owner told me that he had been told that the oil pump was bad, which would pretty much mean the motor would need to be rebuilt or replaced... However, after some extensive testing this afternoon, we were able to determine that the oil pump is fine, but that the water pump is on it's way out! So now I just need to get a bunch of parts to fix it up, and put it all back together... :-)
 I was also thinking I was going to have to buy all new tires to put on the car, as one of the previous owners had taken the proper tires off of the rims, and just put some other mis-matched and totally rotten tires back on, in order to be able to roll it around... However, after looking up what size tires were supposed to be on there, we discovered that we had a set of used ones that had been pretty much just given to us, but that were still quite usable! Isn't it amazing how the Lord provides for us? :-)

 Well, best get to bed now,

   Andrew B.
   
    PS. Don't forget to sign up for my Giveaway!

More grain cleaning.

The last two days I have been grain cleaning again, as I got a call from a neighbor who wanted some cleaning done... Today was kind of nasty, due to a very strong wind blowing all of the dust and gravel from the yard around...   I have been rubbing my eyes all afternoon!

 I think we are actually done with grain cleaning now, except for a couple hundred bushels for another neighbor, and our own grains... Now we can finally get on to our field work!

  Tomorrow is supposed to be a rainy day, so we will probably be working in the shop once again...  If everything goes well, I should have Cora's (My sister) car running by the end of the day!   It had a bad water pump, which on this particular engine is driven by the timing chain, so it is quite the job to change it out! I got a bunch of parts in Bismarck on Tuesday, so all I need now is a bit of time to work on it... :-)

  Best get to bed,
     Andrew B.

Grain cleaning...

Yes my friends, the busy grain cleaning season is upon us again... So far this year we have been blessed with beautiful weather; it is nearly 70° out right now! Our grain cleaning list is once again a long one, so we will probably be at this for the next couple of weeks...
 Here is a picture of my cleaner as it looks right now:
Picture does not want to upload...


Hmm, going to have to figure out how to upload pictures from my tablet.

 more later,
   andrew b

For sale: SOLD!

Hello all!

 We have had another busy week around here, but I guess that's kind of normal... :-) A good bit of our activity came about through the excellent website www.bismanonline.com, which is THE online classified ad website for the entire ND area, and reaching into the neighboring states and Canada as well!  Here is a brief overview of how it influenced our week:
 Wednesday: I listed our 1985 Chevy Caprice Classic on BMO. About four hours later we received a phone call from somebody who wanted to buy it, if we could meet him in Bismarck.  SOLD!
 Thursday: I listed my 2001 Dodge Stratus on BMO.  Got a call less than three hours later, the guy said he wanted it and was on his way to pick it up! SOLD! By the time he got here, I had already got two more calls on the car!   I also spent part of the day working on a computer for a guy who found out about me through BMO... :-)
 Friday: Dad and I drove to Minot to pick up another project car. Yes, I did find it on BMO...  While on the road to Minot, I got a call from somebody interested in the '02 Dodge Intrepid I had listed on BMO, and wondering if I could meet him in Bismarck that evening. It worked out that Mom was able to bring the Intrepid to town, and then catch a ride home with us as we came back through Bismarck.  SOLD!   Friday morning, Cora hit a deer with her van on the way to work, so we will probably be selling that on BMO as well... :-)

So, we sold three cars in three days -- not bad, eh?  I think that is our record for fastest sales though... :-)   I guess I need to get another one running, as we are kind of short on vehicles now!

  That's all for now!
    Andrew B.

Where does time fly?

Hello!
  You might very well be wondering what has happened to me, due to my recent lack of blog posts... I assure you I have only been extremely busy, and haven't had the time to sit down and write what I have been up to. :-)  So, I will take a little time now to give a brief update of the past couple of weeks:

  The second weekend in January found our family at the Crystal Springs family camp, for the annual "Spring Fever Family Camp" hosted by some friends of ours, the S. family.  We had a very enjoyable time visiting with friends,

 making new ones,

playing Volleyball;

and ping-pong;

eating good food;

and listening to the excellent guest speaker, Kevin Swanson from "Generations With Vision"!

Thanks again for all of your hard work, S. family, and all of you who helped out too!

  Dad, Jacob and I have spent several days over the last two weeks over near Spiritwood, where we were working on taking apart and removing two grain cleaners from an old elevator...  It was a lot of work, but thankfully we have all of the pieces home now, so now we have to work on putting them back together...  :-)   

 Last weekend, Dad and Mom went to Aberdeen SD. for the Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society's (NPSAS) annual Winter Conference.  On Saturday, I went up to Minot to help out with an Appleseed shoot, which was a lot of fun! I am an Instructor In Training with the Appleseed program, so am working hard to learn what I need to know to advance towards being a full instructor... :-)

 I have also been busy helping out with the Ron Paul 2012 campaign, attending our district reorganization meeting, making some phone calls to supporters, etc.  We still have a long way to go, but it is a good cause!

  In my spare time I have been working on a 2001 Dodge Stratus, which I picked up really cheap because the engine would not start.  It really wasn't a serious problem; the water pump had gone bad, and caused the timing belt to break... I have it in running condition again, although there are a couple of things to work on yet.  For instance; the back windows will not go up or down, there is a dent in the right rear door, and it needs a new battery... But at least it runs! ;-) 

  That's all for now,
     Andrew B.

Plenty of projects, and very nice weather!

Well, it appears like our beautiful weather is finally giving way to old man winter...  The past couple of weeks have been exceptionally nice, with very little to no snow on the ground, and temps in the upper forties and mid fifties!   Last night a cold front moved through, and brought a little bit of snow, a strong North-West wind, and temps in the single digits -- much more seasonal weather for this part of the country!

 Yesterday we went and helped some friends of ours with working their calves.  Mr. K. had got run over by a calf several weeks ago, and hurt one of his ribs, so was not able to do some of the harder work... Thankfully we had beautiful weather, and everything went pretty well.

 My most recent car project is pretty much finished now, and I have been driving it around some...  I took all of the old decals off myself, then went to a place in Bismarck and had them put "Charger" where the word "Sheriff" used to be:

 I also got a wheel alignment, and my air conditioning recharged, so it's ready to roll! :-)

  Here is something else new in our yard:

It's another grain cleaning unit, which Dad recently purchased. We are intending on removing one of the cleaners and puting a different one on, so we have plenty of work to keep us busy...

 Here you can see it sitting next to dad's other cleaner:



Looks like we'll have another busy winter/spring!
   Best get to bed,
      Andrew B.

Shop with indoor pool!

I have been writing a lot about our shop, but have avoided mentioning the fact that we have an indoor pool...

... table!

   Sorry, that was kind of misleading, but it has been a bit of a joke around here and I couldn't help sharing it with you. :-)

 We actually got the table for free, as someone was giving it away over on www.bismanonline.com, and we happened to be the first to call about it...  We have been having a lot of fun playing on it, and have already noted an improvement in our playing skill!

 Want to come play a round with us?  You are all more than welcome! :-)
  Andrew B.

What we have been doing in our shop...

As promised, here is a quick update of what we have been doing in the shop. :-)

  I started work on my Charger,  taking out the engine and pretty much the whole front end...  Here you can see a snapshot of the project just getting under way:

A day or two later:

Here you can see a few of the parts removed in the process:

After totally disassembling the engine, my suspicions were confirmed -- the main bearings and crankshaft were severely damaged, and a couple of the connecting rod bearings were so bad they had even spun...   After checking around with several different places, I decided to buy a used motor from a junkyard, rather than trying to rebuild the old one. Here is a picture I took of the used engine I bought:

Dad has been working on one of our tractors, as there is a bearing that is literally falling apart somewhere in the transmission, we just haven't been able to find it yet!

More to come!

  Andrew B.