The season starts next week! Please plan accordingly.
Pick-up instructions were sent out this week. If you did not receive them please check your spam folder and if you still don’t find them contact me and I can resend them. Let me know if you have any questions regarding the instructions.
I recall speaking with a new member over the winter who keeps bees. I don’t recall who but if you are that person (or another person who keeps bees) and want to sell your honey to our members please contact me as soon as you can.
A few people have asked if we allow volunteers to help on the farm. The answer is clearly “Yes!” If you’d like to help out please contact me a day or two prior so we can plan an appropriate activity. The crew doesn’t work weekends (I do sometimes but try to limit it as much as possible) so weekdays are better for lending a hand. Besides, wouldn’t you rather be out in the perfect weather than sitting in cubeland?
Farm News
So the big news here on the farm — or should I say here at tractor and implement repair — is our continued need to repair tractors and implements. They say bison farmers are really just fence fixers since all they ever do is fix fencing. I’m feeling the same here but with tractors and implements.
So today we planned to prep the soil then plant the third planting of corn, the first planting of cilantro, the third planting of carrots, another round of green onions, another round of basil and the ornamental corn. All this should take less than a day. So I hopped up on the tractor, swapped the cultivator for the tiller and off I went to till the soil for planting the carrots. After I lined up for the first pass I engaged the tractor’s PTO (power take off for those not in the know). The PTO is the means for transferring power from the tractor engine to the implement on the rear of the tractor. Just as I engaged the PTO the tiller made a horrible noise followed by a clunk and the tractor engine died. Not a good start to the day.
I got off the tractor, remove the PTO shaft (this is the shaft that connects the tractor PTO to the implement) and tried turning the tiller by hand. It would turn about a 16th of a turn, then clunk to a stop. I could turn it back the same 16th of a turn to hear another clunk. Clearly this was not the way it is supposed to behave.
So into the shop I go to figure out what was wrong. After taking a few things off to access the area I thought would be most likely a problem — and if it was it would be time for a new tiller — I tried turning the tiller again by hand. Same clunks. Though I doubted the problem would be resolved by ensuring the oil level in the gear box was adequate, I decided to check it anyway as I thought about other things to try. I couldn’t see into the gear box so I took a screw driver and stuck it down into the hole. It seemed a bit low so I went searching for the gear oil.
Once I found the oil I rethought my process. If I needed to take apart the gear box it wouldn’t be wise to first fill it up with oil. So I stopped and decided to do more thinking. And if there is one thing that helps with thinking it is to repeat what you’ve already done since that doesn’t take much thought. So I tried turning the tiller by hand again just to clear my head a bit. But this time it turned and there was no clunk! What? I didn’t do anything and suddenly it was working again. Perhaps I somehow dislodged something somewhere in the process of trying to turn it by hand but where would this thing be? It wasn’t on the ground so it has to be somewhere inside the tiller mechanisms. I figured this was a good project for another day.
So I put it all together again and headed off to get the ground ready for planting. First pass worked great. Second pass — perfect! Third pass — still no problem. Then while turning for the fourth pass a squirt of power steering fluid shot out from the steering gear box on the tractor. Yikes! Why did that happen? So I tried turning again and same thing.
Now instead of having a broken tiller I have a broken tractor and a suspect tiller. I ordered a new gasket for the steering gear which will arrive sometime next week. In the mean time I’ll have to put a bucket under the leak and drive the tractor gingerly to avoid losing much fluid. Not an easy task when trying to plant parallel 200 foot rows of crops. There is a lot of turning.
That is all for now. I’ll hopefully get on a more regular newsletter schedule starting next Tuesday. In the mean time, do not hesitate to send in questions, comments, suggestion, new tillers or new tractors.
This week’s joke:
A farmer friend of mine got his tractor stuck. He drove it into a magnetic field.