Easter weekend. The good, the bad, and the ugly

[Circle C]

Our three day weekend started out like most others. Mandi and I were heading out of town to hunt some grain fields. Loaded the horses, and dogs, and we hit the road Thursday evening. Stopped by uglydog ranch to see the progress on our newest addition ( AB/dogo pup), then headed to our rendevous point to meet our friends.   While waiting on our buddies to show up, I picked up a local paper, and found a guy selling cedar boards/slabs. Having wanted to build our round pen with cedar, I made a call, and we cut a deal on the slabs. This now means we have to stay in the area until Friday am to load boards.  Our buddies finally show up and we hit one field. No hogs, but the deep soil, and mud did get our horses minds right   Loaded up, and went up the road a ways to a pasture they are leasing.  We ended up putting about 8 dogs on the ground, all curs.  Rode a couple hours and the dogs rolled out. Bayed up a group, then the group split. Got to the first bay, stuck about a 125# sow. Rode to the next bay a few hundred yards away, and it was another small sow. Dogs rolled out again, and we waited. Then tracked dogs in three different directions. At this point it is about 2:00am. We got all but 3 dogs picked up in the next hour. Then we started tracking the other three, they were all together. While trying to figure out the best route to get to them, the bay broke a couple of times. Hog finally gave them the slip, and we got close enough to the dogs to call in two of them at 5:30am. One dog still out. We decided to catch some z's in the truck then look for him in the daylight.

Friday AM:  Mandi and I head out to pick up the cedar slabs, we loaded the front 16' of the stock trailer about 31/2-4' high with cedar. then put the two horses in the rear. head out to meet our friend to track his last dog. He called and said he picked him up that morning. Hunt total was two sows, and some wore out dogs. 

Friday PM: Mandi and I were heading to meet Sean to get some video of his pup, and have dinner. Running on 105 between Navasota and Conroe, we made it to about Plantersville @ about 5:00pm when the tranny blew on her truck. 6spd locked up, and left us stranded. Made some calls, and Matt (Matt_Aggie)dropped what he was doing, came and picked up Mandi and the stock trailer and hauled it all the way back to our house. We had another truck and trailer come out and I got the truck loaded and made it home at midnight. 

Saturday AM: Got up and started unloading cedar slabs, and cutting them to length. The sides on the round pen are 6', We managed to cut and erect about 60' worth of cedar, still have ~100' to go. 
At this point things are looking up, still bummed about the transmission, but trying to be optimistic about things.

Sunday AM:  We go pick up a backhoe and dozer and begin digging a pond in the back of our property. Rocking along, we have three people operating. Mandi's dad on the how, I am on the dozer pushing, and Mandi on the tractor doing some dragging.  Close to dark, I decide to use the dozer to cut a ditch between me and my neighbor to the East. Heading from the back of the property into the bar ditch at the  road.  He dad is pushing with the dozer, and some dirt ends up in the ditch, I decide to take the tractor in the ditch and pick it up with the front loader. All is good.   I have a front bucket loaded with heavy gumbo, and a box blade on the rear. As I am heading up the other side the tires start to spin. I push in the clutch, and start rolling back, I came to an abrupt stop. Here is where things turn to crap. The force of the heavy tractor pushing against the box blade put the top link of the three point in a serious bind. It ended up ripping a 6" x 8" chunk our of the rear axle housing on the tractor.  I can now see the gears, pto, etc. Trashed the housing.

Weekend totals.
two dead sows,
one dead Dodge 6spd
one dead Kubota tractor.

On the plus side. I had a great time hunting with my buds, and spending time on Easter digging a pond with family.

Matt,
  Thank you again for coming to our rescue.

[Mike]

Man that sucks... but at least y'all caught a couple of hogs!

I had some good steak and shrimp when we got back from the hill country!

[aladatrot]

On a good note, my "unbroke" hog hunting colt Cooper did very well on his first hunting trip. It was his 8th ride EVER, and only the 2nd time he's been ridden outside of an arena. He handled the dark and shadows (full moon) very well, and rode right up to a squealing pig. I guess living with Delta, my wild caught hog, was a good experience for my little hog hunting pony. The only issue I had with Cooper was when I'd ride him up and high center him on mesquites. They'd rub all up in between his back legs as he'd plow over them in the dark, and he'd speed up a little to get off of them. Coop was a little worn out Friday morning, and I had to dig out some mesquite thorns from his chest, but we had a grand time and I was proud of him. He may not be a mule, but he's well on his way to earning some longer ears!

Then the truck broke and bummed me out. I love that truck, but it could have chosen a better time to break. Sean was cooking for us, and we missed out because of that *&$%@)^ (pick your expletive) truck! I bet he doesn't offer to cook for us anymore until we get a better truck :O(

M

[BRUTE]

Man... you wore me out reading that. Makes me want to take up golf. Dogs and horses, that's a double wammy.

[HIPOCKETS]

Sounds like truck & b-- hoe ABUCE to me..

BETTER LET MANDY TILL & PLANT THE GARDEN...LOL

[Sean]

aaahh no worries mandi, there will be other times and ya'll will get invited again sorry ya'll ran into so much trouble though

[jml]

Sounds like a pretty expensive weekend. Sorry about your bad luck.

[Circle C]

Here are a few pictures of the round pen, cedar, and tractor carnage.

[Ladogos]

Sorry to hear about your Tractor. At least you had a good hunt and caught a couple of hogs.  I like the wat the pen turned out also. How long do you think that ceder wood will last ? Do you thik it will last as long as say ,  oak , or more likepine.   

Marvin

[BRUTE]

Round pen is looking good.

[Circle C]

Marvin,
 
    I really have no idea how long the cedar slabs will last. If they would have been cedar poles, my answer would be past my lifetime. If I get 10 years out of the slabs, I will be pleased.  Still have a lot of work to do on the pen, I have not wired the bottom of the board to the pen, and I need to bring in about 40 more tons of sand for better footing. As it is, we have 96 tons in a 50' pen.

Should have the tractor ready to roll within the next couple of days. Going to weld the casting back together, then re-engineer the top link attachment so that it attaches to the ROPS instead of the cast housing. I about fell over when I got the price on the rod. $120.00 PER POUND.  Here is what the rod is supposed to be able to do
."a bare rod that color matches gray cast iron, and amazingly enough,
a rod that can be used to weld oily or burnt cast iron or weld
steel to cast iron (MG-289).  One application shown is welding a steel
plate over a hole in an engine block!"

[matt_aggie04]

Pen looks sharp brother, splain the sign for me though?  I think that the slabs will last a really long time and for the price you complain haha.  That hole looks NASTY!!!  By the sound of the rods that you bought they ought to do the job of patching it back together.  I have never seen that area break out on a tractor before but there is a first for everything.
Matt

[Circle C]

Matt,

   The sign "No turn out Please" is to remind the people who board horses at our place that the round pen is for working a horse in, it is not a pasture/ turn out.   Just telling them does not work, they need a sign to remind them     

   On the broken tractor. I have been told I can screw up an anvil. I am beginning to believe the person who told me that


I also have a friend that  each time I screw something up, says " See Chris, that's why you can't have nice things"  Truth is, I buy nice things, they just don't stay that way for very long!

Here are some more pictures of my mishaps.....



This machine had 40 hours on it when I buried it.

[aladatrot]

Chris, if you are going to post the pics of Mr Brown's brand new 550 Deere, you should also mention where it got stuck.

That Deere got stuck in mud past it's tracks in Pearsall, TX in the midst of a three year drought. That old tank had been dry over a year. Dozer managed to find a little mud - probably the only mud in south texas that year.

When they brought the other Dozer out to unstick this one, I asked Mr Brown's assistant if he'd ever seen a Dozer stuck that bad. He said "of course". I asked him if he'd ever seen one stuck like that in Pearsall, he said "nope".

M

[BRUTE]

Too funny.

My buddies do theirs down in a creek bottom, they say the deeper the sand the better.

[Circle C]

Here is a picture of the repaired tractor.  Problem is, got it welded up, only to realize there was a piston that came out of the lift cylinder while the cover was off. That and we welded the top cover to the axle housing. Now I get to break out the grinder, and open the case back up. Put the piston back in, and reweld the cast housing back on.

Are we having fun yet?



Here is a before picture

[Bryant]

If it makes the situation any better, I will say that I'm very impressed with your welding skills!

[matt_aggie04]

Well bud at least you figured out what it was I guess.  That stinks you gotta do all that work but it least when you get it back together it will be functional.

Matt

[jml]

Chris, instead of doing all that grinding why dont you just hook up the boxblade then fill the bucket up and let it roll back into the ditch and bust it open again, I bet it will be alot faster than grinding it open.

[BRUTE]

If it makes the situation any better, I will say that I'm very impressed with your welding skills!

 and patience...