Lee Loader

Had to drop my work on the 30-30 AI cold plus any reloading in general as prior the last frontal activity I spent 40 hours in my tractor prepping and seeding a 10-acre native grasses restoration project and 6 acres of food plots. A tractor can be a lot like a helicopter if you throw in the implements, one hour of maintenance for every hour on the tach. I spent another 40 hours of man hours in maintenance, cleaning, hauling stuff, etc; 80 hours in 8-days.









I have been doing some follow up after the rain as well, mainly pulverizing the debris left from the no-till seeder and packing it into the soil to prevent evaporation.



To unwind, I've been working on an ejection/function issue with my Savage 170 30-30 Win. Ended up needing to order some parts (I hope).

Nice Tractor. Isn't it nice that Kabota gold plates all of their parts. I have a little 3410 for yard work. $1K for a steering cylinder, and 2 weeks later $ 125 for a 4 foot metric hydraulic hose. If it had been english, the local NAPA could have fixed it.

Always have lots of respect for those who work the land.

I envy you RD. I always loved field / tractor work.
Only thing I never grew to like was man handling
hay bales, scratchy, itchy, sneezy, yuck.

larryw wrote:I envy you RD. I always loved field / tractor work.
Only thing I never grew to like was man handling
hay bales, scratchy, itchy, sneezy, yuck.

Annnnnnd......that's why you buy a tractor with a squeeze or farm hand. If you're doing large bales a set of forks will get you there too. I moved to 1000lb (approx) bales to eliminate that man handling part...

Your description of hale bales can also be used for (some/most) women......of course our wives are not included in said description

It appears your lads were there to supervise.

Make smoke,

Ohio3Wheels wrote:It appears your lads were there to supervise.

Yeah, they are all up in my business big time. Immediately after that picture, I took them home as I was starting up a seismic line, the line is a food plot, that runs about a half mile into rising terrain. Rising terrain here is limestone soils and rattlesnake country. I get about 300 yards up that line and sure as sunrise, a five and a half footer crossed the line in front of me. I'm not sure how my dogs would react and I'm not willing to find out until they have been to snake school. Been waiting for one to be announced through the various ag services but so far, not. They have the vaccine, but I'm not sure exactly how effective it is when one of these big boys knocks them off their feet. I suspect they are going to run about 50 yards and drop dead.

They went missing last week for half a day, I was really sore at them. Didn't do anything, but locked them up which they fully understood was not good. Kept them locked up in the yard for four-days pending trial. Held that yesterday and allowed them to stick with me all day as I was going to be on my feet. I wore them out, every time I caught they laying down, I did something to get them back up on their feet. They went to bed on their own last night before dark, some wore out dogs. They have seen me dispatch hogs and coons, I let them know that in 30 days I would have fawns on the ground and the fun is over. If I catch them with a fawn in their mouths, I will drop them like a sack of taters.

I also bought GPS trackers for their collars which should be here tomorrow. If they leave the boundaries I've set, I will get a text and a live map to them and they will go back to lockup. Both these fellows are really smart, they get what is going on and what is expected.

The cur is still delivering the newspaper for my dad every morning, up to the highway and back, hasn't missed a beat. Would love for the hound to find a job, but he is just not that kind of a dog. He does excel at napping. When they went missing, he was gone a full hour longer than the cur. I figured he laid down and went to sleep.

farmerjim wrote:Nice Tractor. Isn't it nice that Kabota gold plates all of their parts. I have a little 3410 for yard work. $1K for a steering cylinder, and 2 weeks later $ 125 for a 4 foot metric hydraulic hose. If it had been english, the local NAPA could have fixed it.

So far I've not had any components fail. I don't put a lot of time on them, my 8540 is seven years old with 1400 hours. How many hours were on that cylinder?

I've owned a Massey Furguson and Zetor, so far the Kubota is the best. The Zetor had several features that I liked; a castoring seat, air compressor, rear fender remotes, and others that are not possible with the Kubota. The Kubota is smaller, by a big margin, and 2K lbs lighter with the same HP which works well for me. The Zetor had component availability issues and a weak dealer network.

80 hours in 8 days. Ain't retirement great RD... You know of course that's more than you can get most "younger" folks to WORK these days ?? My "energy" level has dropped dramatically the last couple years, well, various reasons I suppose, but I do still enjoy tractor work. Spent a few hours on mine yesterday moving panels (front forks, don't much like carrying them by hand anymore ) and getting the arena cleaned up from weeds (it's more like a big "working" corral than an arena, 100' by 200', just the right size in case ya' fall off ya' don't have so far to walk back ta' the gate ) raked the sand (meadow rake on the back of the tractor, again, not by hand ). Setup a round pen on one end as I think I may be needing that pretty soon as the weather is starting to break for the better finally. Don't enjoy working horses in the cold and windy anymore. Well, never really did, just did it. Now that I think about it I actually don't like doing ANYTHING outside when it's cold and windy anymore...



Reluctant to mention it but as an aside, I'd like to thank you (truly) and others for your concerns and prayers for my latest "ordeal". A big thanks to Dan and Larry, good Pards. Going in for another MRI soon, then my Doc wants to have a confab with the surgeon the Oncologist and the Radiologist, (told her to leave that last guy out cause' I wasn't going through that sh!& again). Been through all this type stuff a couple times before as have a lot of folks right here, so, it just is. But thanks.

Horseman wrote:80 hours in 8 days. Ain't retirement great RD...

It is, isn't it!