Getting a cheap lawn tractor

 For many years I have been mowing the orchard with a slasher mounted on my tractor. This was perfectly fine while the fruit and nut trees were little more than sticks in the ground but as they got bigger I had to stay further and further away from them with the mower lest I break branches off.

Another problem was that when it rained there were some areas where the ground got very soft and the weight of the tractor would break through the surface and I'd end up with a lot of deep ruts. Not a good thing.

I tried to mow the orchard with my nice ride-on mower with the catcher that I use to mow the house garden but it just wasn't up to the task. I also didn't want to ruin it so I started looking for another solution. Just going out and buying a heavy duty mower wasn't an option. 

As luck would have it, one of our friends moved to another part of the country and asked me to look after her ride on mower while she got sorted in her new place. When I collected it the mower had some defects that I fixed up after getting it home. The main thing was that the mower deck had a fair bit of rust so I cut that out and welded new steel back in.

This was a 17hp mower with a 38" side discharge deck which did very well mowing the orchard and driveway. Sadly after about a year our friend had bought some land and needed her mower back so the search was on for a similar mower.

It took a while but eventually I found a broken medium duty Husqvarna ride on that was for sale on an auction website and bought it for a modest amount of money. The transmission was thought to be broken so I had researched how to fix a hydraulic transmission and felt that was something I could do.

After picking it up and getting it home I put the drive belt on the transmission and to my delight the mower drove right off the trailer and into my barn. I did find out at that time that the biggest problem was that all the steel transmission mounts were torn and the transmission was hanging onto the mower more by luck than design.

Taking the transmission out was simplicity itself; I took the mower deck out from underneath and then just lifted the mower up and the transmission just fell out. 

There were some minor issues with the transmission but my local John Deere dealer was kind enough to give me the replacement part free of charge (thanks Tony!). 

The mower deck needed fixing as well because of rust and botched previous repairs so I bought some steel for that and welded it in.

I took the deck apart, stripped it, welded the new steel in, sanded it, and finally primed and painted it. After that is was time to do something about the transmission mounts. I fabricated three new mounts and welded two in while the third is bolted onto the front of the transmission.

A quick squirt of paint and it was time to put all of the bits together again. All of that took just a few hours each day over 3 weekends. Rescued the old battery with some long and slow charging and I now have a 22hp 42" side discharge ride on mower that cost me slightly more than a third of what a fully working secondhand mower would have cost.

And it works wonderfully well. The first mow was through more than knee high grass and the mower never missed a beat. From here on in it will get an easier life because I've now caught up with the mowing again and the grass won't get that long again.

 Wellington Folk Festival 2020

Some pictures of the 2020 musical weekend away.

Almost ready to depart and parked in front of my workshop

We left fairly late in the day so when we finally got done setting up camp it was night already

The next day we got into the site setup work, putting out signs and marking the camping areas as well as the market stall areas. One of our regulars was there nice and early setting up their shop for the festival - and we got a few Ginger Beers from them before they even opened shop - Yeah Hardieboys!

Once the setup work was done we could sit back and enjoy the beautiful weather

 

And we enjoyed a wonderful twilight as well (as you can see the sun isn't quite gone yet)

Of course we enjoyed a night time Hardieboys Ginger Beer as well.

Finally, on Monday, on the way home we stopped briefly at the summit of the Remutaka Hill Road (555m) for a photo-op. From there we rolled home and parked everything up and started the cleaning. All in all an almost 300km round trip.

Back into it

Well, I've been back in the classroom for almost three weeks now and it's kind of tough to get back into the swing of things after the few months break I had over the summer. I almost wish that there was a summer school you could go to so you not only don't get out of the study habit, but you also accelerate getting your qualification.

It was great to have had the time off though because it allowed me to do a lot of jobs around the farm, catch up on my work at the church and also help out a friend tidy up his father's estate. My friend's father was a hoarder and had 40 years worth of collecting in his sheds, the garage, under the house and also in the ceiling. There were also piles of wood stacked outside as well as loads of steel. Once we cleared out four of the sheds I demolished them and took the materials to the rubbish dump. In the end we took well over 10 ton of things to the tip and at the end of each day I took about a ton of things home with me to add to my collection. My ute (pickup truck) and trailer got a very good workout. When it was time for me to go back to class there was still some stuff left to do but at least we managed to cut the job down to size and my friend is managing to carry on sorting things out by himself.

We started off with two weeks of lectures and the pace at which we set of was so fast I was struggling to keep up. I can only imagine how the rest of my year is coping. At the moment we're doing pharmacology, pathophysiology, health assessment and clinical skills. We are writing care plans, developing priorities for the first 24 hours of care on admission and exploring a range of diseases and how they might be treated.

Today was a great day, I spent all day in the library (no classes) and just read one of my text books. I got through almost six chapters which I have been able to summarise onto six A4 pieces of paper. Time well spent and it will make it easier in the future. I enjoyed doing it too, so there is hope yet that I will, once again, get into the study habit. Tomorrow I have a few things to sort out in town before I go back to the library and carry on summarising my text book.

This weekend there will be no, or very little, time for study because we are taking our shop to the Masterton Agriculture and Pastoral field days which are on from Friday to Sunday. The Wairarapa Folk Club is providing the music so I'll be busy going back and forth between the two places to make sure everything runs smoothly. I'm hoping to be able to also get some time to play my bass and do some singing. I might even get to play my harmonicas.

Busy times once again, but we're having fun!

Fixed the tractor and made a scarecrow .... or a scare hawk in our case

Got the part back from the tractor place and installed it, got through the ditch and rotary hoed the bit I wanted to dig over and then drove back through the ditch and into the shed. It took a bit more digging to achieve all of this because both times I needed to reduce the ramp angle in the ditch to be able to drive through but I got it done. The tractor place did make a mistake when the assembled the bit in that they forgot to put the wheel studs in the hub. Luckily I'm pretty inventive and figured out a way around that problem without having to take the parts back again. I have no idea how much the repair bill is going to be, they're sending me a bill next month.

We have loads of newly hatched chickens running around and this is proving all too tempting for our local hawks. Since I'd rather nor shoot the hawks we decided to build a scarecrow.

Of course I wanted to build a scarecrow with fully articulating joints and one that I didn't have to rebuild every couple of years. So I put my thinking cap on (always a dangerous thing) and came up with a plan that involved me cutting up a whole lot of galvanised pipe I had hanging around. It took eleven bits of pipe of various lengths and a bit of ingenuity to make the joints and I had a all singing and dancing skeleton ............ but no head. At least a bit of pipe wasn't going to cut it as a head because it is really difficult to put a hat on a piece of pipe.

So I went and found an old piece of telephone pole and set to it with a chainsaw to do the rough carving. Then I sharpened up a few chisels and got my wooden mallets and carried on carving by hand. I ended up with a rather Hermann Munster'ish head but once I put the cap on it it didn't look half bad. Certainly good enough for a scarecrow.

I then put a few screws in its head and hung the head from the pole I had prepared to hang the scarecrow on. That looked rather amusing having this head dangling around. However fun it might have been the next task was to dress the skeleton and hang it from the head.

The results look pretty good and will be even better once we have stuffed the clothes with old hay. the idea of hanging the scarecrow and having moving legs and arms is so that it moves in the wind and the hawks are less likely to realise that it isn't a human standing there.

Here's hoping it actually works and we don't loose any chicks to those hawks. Otherwise the gun will have to be pressed into service. I wonder what roasted hawk tastes like?

Tractor + ditch = broken axle

There is a wee problem with the tractor at the moment. I was going to rotary hoe a part of the farm and getting there involved going through a ditch. Not usually a problem with a 4 wheel drive tractor with agricultural tyres with superb tread. Except that this time the rotary hoe hit the bank I had just come down and the tractor got stuck.

Again, this is not normally a problem, a bit of sweat expended swinging a spade and we're away again. Not this time though. After I had done the needed digging I tried to drive forward out of the ditch when .... a small 'bang' and I lost drive to the front wheels. Of course I stopped what I was doing and investigated and when I used the front end loader bucket to lever the front of the tractor up off the ground .... the right front wheel fell off! Unprintable words spoken with some vigour and then into problem solving mode.

The tractor is still stuck in the ditch but the front bevel drive is disassembled and ready to take to the tractor fixing place. A plastic bucket is keeping dirt and moisture out of the axle until I can get the bevel drive fixed and then reassemble everything. In the picture you can see the two bits that should be one intact bevel drive firmly holding hands with itself. Looking at the broken shaft it looks like there might be a flaw in the metal. In the second picture you can see a little dark spot in the shiny metal on the left. That dark spot shouldn't be there. If that's indeed a flaw then the axle might have broken at almost any time.

Just what I wanted when I'm trying not to spend money. Ugh! Hopefully it doesn't turn out to be too expensive and hopefully the parts don't have to be flown in from Japan.

The really good news about this mishap is that the axle didn't break while I was mowing one of the more hilly paddocks. If it had broken then; the tractor would have rolled down the hill for sure and that doesn't usually end well for the tractor driver.

Very soon the sequel of me driving out of the ditch and rotary hoeing what needs hoeing and safely crossing the ditch again will be posted (I hope).

It's been a while

But ... I'm still here and I have finished the first year of my degree.

My results are:
Person Centred Care - Communications Skills - A+
Learning and Teaching - A+
Professional Nursing - An Introduction - A+
Bioscience for Health Professionals I - A
Skills for Nursing: The Fundamentals - A-
The Nursing Context I: Society and Health A+
Bioscience for Health Professionals II - A+
Clinical Practice - Passed

I'm happy with this.

Now I need to use the break between the first and second year to read up on a few things, do a bit more research and get myself ready for the next lot of courses. Lots of reading over Christmas.

Hopefully this coming year I can give more frequent updates. During this past year I have felt that I needed to dedicate my time exclusively to my course work. We'll see how we go next year.

The Christchurch earthquake

You will have heard that there was a major earthquake in New Zealand on the 3rd of September.

We were lucky to have felt it only as a mild tremor. Jenny was at home in Masterton and I was camping alongside the Huka river near Taupo. Both of us woke up shortly before the quake hit. I woke because I heard the rumble and thought it was a big truck driving past. Then we both felt the quake.

What an amazing thing that there were no fatalities in Christchurch, particularly when you see the massive damage to property. Something that is really mind bending are all of the aftershocks. I couldn't quite comprehend the effect of those until I say this animated map;

http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/

Mal Gibson bought my car!

Yes, REALLY! Well actually he bought it for his stepdaughter but he's been driving it because he likes it.

The car I've sold is the Nissan Terrano/Pathfinder 4WD for reasons of economy. The people who dream up new ways of frustrating the population in New Zealand (I think they're called policy analysts) have come up with a scheme to make driving a diesel car uneconomic in the extreme. What they have done is taxed diesel cars the same as diesel trucks because in their minds all diesel cars (like perhaps a Peugeot 106 diesel) cause the same amount of wear and tear on the roads as 20-30 tonne trucks do. So that made it unattractive to own a diesel car any longer and this really solidified our resolve to try and sell the car and buy a pick-up truck (called a 'ute' in NZ and Aus.) instead.

I put a "for sale" sign in the window of the car and Mal, who also comes to the Sunday market we go to, saw it and told me he was interested. I told him that we were only selling because we wanted to buy a ute and he told me he had a ute he wanted to sell. The result was that we put our heads together over a period of two weeks and hammered out a deal we were both happy with. In the end we swapped cars with me giving Mal a couple of old cellphones and car kits as well as a couple of old fax machines.

Now we are the proud owners of our own "beaut ute" and, more importantly, we are out of the diesel trap. The beaut ute is a Ford Courier, 2.2 litre, XL single cab, 2WD (we would have preferred 4WD). The good things about it are that it is 5 years newer than the Nissan and will cost a lot less to run while giving us all the space we need to carry our wares.

And Mal? Well, he really is Mal Gibson but his speech is rather more refined that the Mal you're thinking of. And this Mal lives just a few kilometres down the road from me.

Reflections on the first three weeks

It seems almost impossible that I'm nearly half way through my practical placement at the private hospital but, none the less, time has marched on quickly. The speed with which time is passing is a measurement of how interesting and engaging it is to actually be out nursing people.

There have been many learning opportunities ranging from the simple things like making a bed with a patient in it to, at the other extreme end, dealing with the death of a patient. In between those extremes were counselling and comforting family members of a recently admitted patient, admitting and assessing a patient, simple wound dressings, taking vital signs, managing elimination for colostomy patients, writing a nursing assessment of a patient which is to be used by another agency to determine what level of support this person will receive, working with patients with permanent physical disabilities, as well as patients with mental disabilities, and more besides. I've also helped fix televisions, electric chairs and beds for patients, something that I get called to do because I just happen to be handy with that sort of thing.

Last night I worked with a patient who had a couple of TIAs (transient ischeamic attack) in quick succession and who needed oxygen therapy for a while to help raise the blood/oxygen levels to a more normal level. The Registered Nurse (RN) who supervises me was called to another incident so I ended up looking after this person myself. Aside from consulting with my supervisor on the flow rate of oxygen required I carried out the procedure unaided. I measured blood pressure and oxygen saturations several times over a period of time and once the patient had stabilised I stopped the oxygen. The patient had a peaceful and settled night after this.

It feels really good that my supervisor trusts my abilities enough to let me manage this sort of thing on my own but, by the same token, right at the beginning of my placement I learnt very quickly just how little I actually know and, consequently, I ask lots of questions to make sure that I do the right things.

All in all things are going well and I expect to come out of my placement with a wealth of practical experiences that will help me to put my theoretical learning into proper perspective and help guide my future learning. And, last but by no means least, this is a very enjoyable time right now, helped, in no small measure, by the friendly support and encouragement I am getting from my RN supervisors and the manager of the hospital I am placed at.

Nurse in the making

Since starting my Bachelor of Nursing in January I've had my head down in my books and my hands full trying to keep up with things to do on the farm.

I'm happy to tell you that at least one of those is going well. To date the worst result I've had back from my exams has been an A and the best an A+. As far as the farm goes, I'm just about able to keep up with the critical things but could do with help with the firewood and a few other little things.

At the moment I'm out on placement in a private hospital and am working mostly with people in palliative care but also with people with both physical and mental disabilities.

As you can see when I'm in my uniform I almost look like I know what I'm doing. That aside there are two and a half more years to go before I can graduate. When that happens I still need to sit one last exam set by the Nursing Council of New Zealand and when I have passed that I'll become a NZ Registered Nurse.

I still won't be quite out of the woods yet because I then have to do a six month "transition to practice" before I can consider my employment options and start repaying my student loan. Of course that will also be the time to decide if I want to go on with my studies and go for a Master's degree and perhaps specialise in a particular discipline.

For now I am concentrating on my studies toward my Bachelor degree. And it is now also time for me to go to the hospital and begin my afternoon shift.

NZCh Keeswey Mighty Carlo R.I.P.

This morning Carlo started showing the first signs of suffering. When he tried to walk he would fall over and standing was obviously a huge effort for him. He had up to this point quietly and stoically endured his sickness but this morning he looked like he was ready to go. During the night he had started whimpering from time to time and this became more frequent this morning. Obviously he was in some discomfort so we had to do something for him.

With heavy hearts, but enormously thankful for the years he was with us, we decided that the best thing we could do for him was to take him to the vet.

He slipped away peacefully in our arms and is now buried on the hill overlooking the farm right next to where, years ago, we buried Lara. Together they are watching over us.

NZCh Keeswey Mighty Carlo was well named because he had a mighty character, was mighty loving , had mighty energy (especially when it came to food), and was just so full of the joy of life. He just loved living on the farm and we're certain that of the three homes he lived in this was his favourite home. It is fitting that he's here to stay, forever keeping vigil on the hill. A fitting place for a watchdog.

Our boy is about to leave us

Our lovely Carlo is slowly but surely slipping away from us. The tumour in his mouth is making it almost impossible for him to eat and he doesn't really want to eat any more.

Carlo is 12 years old and has been a loyal and loving companion to Jenny and I. We will both miss him when he finally goes.

I am hoping and praying that he gets to live out the full allotment of his days without us having to step in to relieve his suffering. At the moment he's not in pain but you can tell that he's so very tired now.

Over the last week or so I've slept on the floor with him because he so loves to have company during the night. I know that last night he didn't sleep very well and today he has spent most of the day laying in the one spot with his eyes open. As far as I can tell he hasn't slept today and I think that perhaps when he does go to sleep tonight that he won't wake up.

Donald arrives on Elwinfarm

Today (while we weren't looking) Donald arrived here on Elwinfarm. Donald is the new son of Millie, the older of our two female alpacas.

Without further ado here are the pictures;

A bit of craftwork

Well perhaps not so much craft as work. Here are two of my recent creations.

The first is a Rimu walking stick I carved as a Christmas present for a friend who has recently had a knee replacement. It didn't photograph very well so it is difficult to see the spiral carvings that go around the walking stick. I made the initial shape on the lathe and then hand carved the spirals.

The second is the second ever bone carving I have made. The first was also a Celtic cross but I gave that to a friend for a Christmas present. I liked the way it turned out so I made another one. This time I polished the bone a little but I'm not so keen on the way that looks. I think that perhaps I'll have to keep this one for myself.

Christmas Day in the country

We took the horses down to the Waingawa River on Christmas day. Our friend Linda lives right next to the river and she took this picture of us as we were leaving to ride home again.

We have lift-off!

In the 4WD gearbox saga we have finally come to the end, at least for now.

Last evening, about 30 minutes before I had to go into town for a church council meeting, I finished the repair job on the Nissan Terrano. No time for a proper test drive, and only barely enough time to change out of my oily clothes, have shower and get changed, I jumped into the car and took it into town.

All is well, no funny noises and it seems that nothing fell off. The meeting went well and after the meeting there weren't any pools of oil to be seen under the car. The drive home was, likewise, uneventful.

I think that we can call the car fixed. Perhaps this would be a good time to sell it, except that then I'll only end up buying somebody else's troubles in whatever replacement car I buy. Better for now to stick to the troubles I know.

The two wheel drive four wheel drive

My 1992 Nissan Terrano is finally mobile again. Taking the broken gearbox out was a simple task, accomplished in little over five hours. Five hours that is if you put all of the time I spent on it in one continuous string. In reality it took several days because the rest of the world keeps on marching on and continuing to make demands on my time with other tasks that have to be completed as well.

Putting the replacement gearbox in was an altogether much more complicated matter. First there was the problem of picking the 80 kg gearbox up off the ground and lifting it into exactly the right place underneath the car. Obviously I wasn't going to do that with just brute strength. In the end I used a small one ton chain hoist that I have. I made a frame that fitted over the hole in the car where the gear levers come through the floor to hang the hoist from. Then I hoisted the gearbox up and tried to get everything perfectly lined up so I could slide the gearbox into place. In the end that took me several days, the equivalent of maybe four hours. Amazingly it actually took me less time to put the gearbox in than it took me to get it out. Once I had it in place it took maybe another two hours to get everything connected up and bolted down.

Putting the gearbox back in did make quite a few demands on my back and it has been rather tender these last few days. Still, with an end in sight I simply pressed on and got the job done.

At last the moment of truth had arrived and I started the car. No problems there, everything worked as it should. It was time to go for a test ride but not before I had checked every bolt to make sure I had really tightened them all down properly. Success, I had. First I drove up and down the drive a few times both in two wheel drive and four wheel drive high ratio and low ratio. So far, so good. Time to go out onto the road and try it out for real!

The road test seems to be going well, no funny noises and the gearbox is working fine in two wheel drive. Time to try four wheel drive. Going up a little hill ........ when suddenly with a grinding noise I loose all drive. Turns out that when at speed the car jumps out of four wheel drive as soon as a little load comes on. Problem quickly diagnosed and so it's turn around and head back home.

At the moment the car works perfectly in two wheel drive and low ratio four wheel drive but not in high ratio. Luckily I have another transfer case (this is the bit that makes the car four wheel drive and it is bolted onto the back of the gearbox) which I know to be in perfect condition. It does mean that I'll have to spend another few days on my back under the car swapping over transfer cases. At least that isn't quite as big a job as swapping gearboxes. Given how my back feels at the moment I think I may wait until next week before I start on that though.

Weekend rest

The gearbox is having a weekend rest because on Saturday and Sunday Jenny and I are busy with the various markets we go to.

This morning we got up at 5 am to go to the Featherston market. It yielded a fair to middling result. It looks like there is quite some promise in Featherston and we'll continue going there for the foreseeable future.

Tomorrow we get up a bit earlier to get ready for the market in Masterton. Once we're set up there I head off to church at around 9.45 am, leaving Jenny to run things until I get back at about 12. We have built up quite a good client base at Masterton and are slowly become one of a few "destination" stalls that people come to specially every week.

In the meantime the gearbox is gently swinging underneath the 4WD hanging from a chain I used to hoist it into position. And there it will wait until Monday when I'll have time to get into the repair job again. If all goes well I should be finished by the end on Monday and have the 4WD four wheel driving again.

Gearbox progress

Another day and another step forward. Got the broken gearbox out of the car today. Referred to the workshop manual frequently and working carefully and methodically I quickly got to a point where the manual was of no use whatsoever.

Eventually with the judicious application of a few expletives and a little bit of brute force I managed to free the gearbox from its entanglement. In the end I used a block and tackle tied to the towbar and to the back of the gearbox to winch the gearbox backwards far enough so it was free from the engine, at which point I knocked the jack out from under it and let the whole lot crash down onto the wooden planks I had put there for that purpose.

Job done without damage to self or car. Satisfied and feeling I earned my peanuts this evening. Tomorrow comes the altogether much more difficult task of putting the reconditioned gearbox in. Alignment is somewhat more critical and a softer more deliberate approach is called for. Not sure yet how I'm going to lift 80 kg of gearbox into exactly the right place and then slide the whole lot forward into the engine but somehow I will do it.

While I was under the car and had access to the clutch I checked that and, thankfully, that looks to be in excellent condition.

At least that year studying automotive engineering at the ATS in Apeldoorn wasn't entirely wasted (grateful thanks to parents).

The easy bit is done

In the ongoing gearbox saga I've made some good progress with the easy bits so far. I found a recently reconditioned gearbox to swap into the 4WD and have just picked it up.

It does, of course, weigh much more than I can safely lift on my own so I used the small crane I have for my tractor to get it out of the car.

If nothing more urgent comes up I'll start taking the broken gearbox out on Tuesday and, all going well, I'll have swapped the other one in by Friday.

The forecast for the rest of this week is permanently black oily hands, possibly clearing on Friday.