Prairie Days 2011: Saturday!

Hello! I am finally getting around to posting a couple of the promised pictures and video clips from last Saturday... Please excuse my negligence...

 Saturday morning started out early with a rain shower, but thankfully our tent didn't leak! After a short stop at the campfire, which had already been started by James B, I spent some time visiting with some friends. It didn't take too long to get to the table after the call rang out; "Fresh Pancakes for Breakfast!" One of the many traditions that has started at prairie days is that of making fresh pancakes over the campfire, and I have to say it is one of my favorites! ☺

 Shortly after breakfast there were several demonstrations going on, as well as things for people to participate in. Isaac K, from over at Green Pastures Farm, did a demonstration on trapping, Mr. and Mrs. D. staged a Spelling Bee, and there were archery lessons for anybody who wanted them... 


I started this post this morning, but never got the time to finish it up... Now it's bed time, so I will quick post a couple of video clips from Saturday, and maybe I can post a better description of our day another time... :-)

First, a video of a skit that Jacob and I did:



And another skit, this time with my Mom's cousin's family as well:



And I mustn't forget our special guest, George Washington!  More about him later...



That's all for now, Goodnight!
   Andrew B.

It Works!

We finally got around to finishing up with our transmission overhaul project today! I don't remember if I mentioned it before or not, but we have been working on the transmission on our old '85 Chevy C10 pickup.

We had tried working on the transmission one other time, but weren't able to get it working... So this time we took it completely apart, and essentially rebuilt the whole thing. That was our first time rebuilding an automatic transmission, so were a little bit nervous about it working correctly.  But after we got it all together, and got enough oil put back in, we took it out for a little drive and it appears to be working correctly! :-) Now we will just have to wait and see how long it lasts... Hopefully as long as we have it!
 It probably would have cost between $1,500 and $2,000 to have it fixed at a repair shop, but we really only stuck in about $150 in parts, so by doing the work ourselves, we probably saved around $1,500!

 That's all for now,
   Andrew B.

Prairie Days 2011: Friday

Hello All!

I will start off my official review of the 9th Annual "Prairie Days" with a photo of the welcoming sign posted at the entrance to "The Park":



Once again, our family had a very enjoyable time at Prairie Days, both being with old friends, and meeting new ones. This year we had the opportunity to meet some fellow bloggers, the K. family from Minnesota, so that was a lot of fun!  Be sure to check out their blog "Green Pastures Farm" 

 Prairie Days started out on Friday this year, with the special addition of an Appleseed shoot! If you are not familiar with the Project Appleseed program, be sure to check it out at http://www.appleseedinfo.org/.  It is basically a marksmanship class, with the special addition of some history of the American Revolution... Very interesting, and also very helpful!   My good friend Jonathan, (From "High on a Mountain") is the ND coordinator for the Appleseed project, and also a "Shoot Boss" -- the head instructor for an Appleseed event.  Seeing as there were quite a few people registered to attend, and none of the other instructors were able to come, he asked me to be a "Range Safety Officer." Basically I made sure that all of the guns were unloaded and safe, and helped with some of the demonstrations... It was a lot of fun! Here you can see me in the official Appleseed sweatshirt and cap:

I also like this photo of Jonathan and I:

Here is a photo of the shooting line:

And everybody down at the end of the range examining their targets:

 Here you can see everybody in the house for lunch, and a quick history lesson:

We actually arrived at Prairie Days on Thursday evening, in order to be there right away Friday morning. Here are a couple of pictures of us boys setting up our tent:

 Thankfully we didn't have any really bad weather, although it did rain some... Glad our tent didn't leak!

 That's about all I have to say for Friday, but check back soon for the rest of my review!

  Andrew B.

Back to normal...

Just a short post to let you all know that we got home from Prairie Days yesterday evening, and our company left this morning, so we are all trying to get back to "Normal" life again... :-) Check back soon for lots of pictures and video clips!
 ~Goodnight~
    Andrew B.

One Week Till Prairie Days!

Dear readers,
 I would like to take a couple of minutes to extend a special invitation to each and every one of you to join us at our good friends, the Dagley's, for their 9th Annual "Prairie Days". I know many of you can't come, but I am sure you will get to see many pictures and video clips in the upcoming weeks... :-) If you would like to read more about Prairie Days, check out the official Prairie Days website at www.wix.com/prairiedays/2011

 This year has the special addition of a one day Appleseed Shoot, so bring your rifles and learn how to shoot like the great founders of our country! For more information about the Appleseed program, check out the website at http://appleseedinfo.org

 Looking forward to seeing many of my friends next week!
 
   Andrew B.

Project MPG: An introduction and first steps...

Today I finally got around to starting a project that will most likely last me the rest of the summer, and perhaps even the next couple of years... What could possibly take so long? Well, its a long story that began about 5 years ago when I first got interested in alternative energy...  But that is a story for another day. :-) For now, we will stick with what this project is about:

The goal of this project is to improve the fuel efficiency of my pickup. A lot. Here is a run down of the specs as of this morning:

• Year: 1998
• Make: Dodge
• Model: Ram 1500 Sport, 4X4
• Engine: 5.9 Liter V8, Fuel Injected.
• Transmission: 4 speed Automatic
• Mileage: About 135,000
• Current MPG at last check: 14.6 MPG (Mostly highway)

That should give you a pretty good idea of what I am starting with... I really can't complain as to the mileage I have been getting with it; I have actually gotten as high as 16.4 MPG on a long road trip, but it usually averages around 15.  Now for a few things I would like to point out, that may be affecting the fuel efficiency:

That visor/light bar looks really cool, but I am sure that it causes a little bit extra drag... (Bad)

LT 245/75R16 tires instead of P 245/75R16s.  LT stands for Light Truck, which is a heavier duty tire than Passenger... I run these at 55PSI. Higher tire pressures mean less rolling resistance... (Good)  While we are in the tire section, I would like to also point out that this is 4 wheel drive, which usually means decreased fuel efficiency vs. 2 wheel drive, because of the extra weight and mechanism to turn...

Here you can see an aftermarket throttle body spacer. This was installed on it when I bought the pickup, so I really don't know how much of a difference that makes.  I was also told when I bought the pickup that the engine has a performance cam in it. Weather or not this is true, i really don't know...

Ok, now on to what I did today:

Here you can see it in the shop where I am working on it. :-)

First thing I did was to replace the thermostat, as I believe the old one was faulty... The engine seemed like it took a long time to warm up, and maybe even ran a bit too cool, so I decided to go ahead and change it out...  Here is a picture of the old thermostat sitting on the box from the new one:

Next on the list was the Oxygen sensor, as the "Check Engine" light had come on a couple of days ago, and the code that the engine showed was related to the Oxygen sensor...  I was going to pick up a new sensor when I was in town the other day, but then I found out that there are actually two of them, and I didn't know which one was bad... After a little checking, I found I needed the front one, so Dad picked up one for me in town today.  Here is a picture of the old O2 sensor:

Now that the routine things were out of the way, I could get on to the actual modifications! The first thing I am going to try is a new set of spark plugs. But not just any plugs, these are called "Pulse Plugs", so named for the unique way they store the incoming electrical energy in a capacitor, then dump that energy across the spark gap in a much more powerful "Pulse."  This is supposed to ignite the fuel/air mixture more completely, thus causing a more efficient burn... You can read more about Pulse Plugs at the manufacturer's website: http://www.pulstar.com/  You can also check out this page over at FreeEnergyNews: http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Pulstar_Pulse_Plug 

 I am really expecting to see an improvement in horsepower and efficiency, partially because of the technology in the Pulse Plugs, and partially because the old plugs were in pretty bad shape. Here you can see one of the old plugs, which is pretty much corroded off!

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the Pulse Plugs before I put them in, but here you can see the plastic cases they came in (I just put the old plugs in them as I switched them around):

You can also see a better picture of the ones I ordered over at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Pulstar-be1i-Iridium-Pulse-Spark/dp/B003MOA25O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=automotive&qid=1307506316&sr=1-1

  That is all that I have done as of today. I have a couple of other things I would like to try as I get time and money, but I also would like to do things step by step in order to evaluate their effectiveness...  I will be reporting back with my results from time to time, so check back often! I thought about starting a blog dedicated to this topic, but thought I would get more exposure by just writing on here... What do you think?

 Best get to bed,

   Andrew B.

Pictures!

I finally have a little time to post some pictures of the damage caused by the thunderstorm that came through last Friday:

 I got to looking through these pictures and thought of the words to the old hymn "... His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form, and spreadeth His might on the wings of the storm."  To see the damage that a simple storm can do, really makes you realize how small and insignificant you really are:

These pictures were all taken in and around the small town of Kintyre, ND, which is only a mile and a half away from our farm... Here is a picture of what used to be a grain bin at the local elevator:

The wind also destroyed the front door:



Needless to say, we are very thankfull we didn't get very much damage from that storm!  It did however loosen up a little tin on one of our pole barns, which flipped up in a little squall we had this afternoon:

Here is a quick picture of my garden tractor, all put back together and ready to mow lawn!

 Check out my next post to see what project I started today!

  Andrew B.

Projects, and the results of a large wind.

Hi all,
  We have been busy around here, but I guess that's nothing new!

 Wednesday morning we got all of the cows and calves into the corral, then after allowing the cows to go back out of the pens, we tagged all of the calves that we hadn't got tagged earlier. After letting the bigger calves back out with the cows, and putting the small ones in a trailer, we opened the fence and started walking the herd up to the pasture.  First the cows thought they had to stop in the alfalfa field and have their breakfast, but we did manage to get them moving after a couple of minutes...  We did get them up to the pasture without too much trouble, except for getting three different "vehicles" stuck... (One of the four wheelers, Jacob's dirt bike, and some friends who were helping us got their Polaris Ranger stuck too...) Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures, as we were too busy chasing cows to take time to take pictures...

 We have also recently gotten around to bagging up some of our wheat for sale, both in 50 Lb bags, and in 10 Lb bags...

Now I need to work on updating our farm's website, www.seedsofhonor.com to reflect the availability of our wheat. Anybody need some wheat?

 Here is a picture of another of my recent projects:

The engine finally went out on my John Deere garden tractor sometime last fall, so I decided to put in a remanufactured engine. Here you can see me working up the garden with it:

I am still working on breaking in the engine, so haven't put the hood back on yet. :-)



Here is a picture of me and a lamp that was given to us because it wasn't working... Dad and I took it apart, and I was able to get it working again. It only needed a little bit of soldering on a circuit board inside, as one of the solder connections was bad...

I was going to post some pictures of the damage after a large thunderstorm/windstorm that came tearing through the Kintyre area early Friday morning, but I guess that will have to wait till I get more time. Right now I need to go help dad work on an old plow that we are going to use to plant a bunch of potatoes in the field this afternoon...

 Andrew B.