Magic Touch

Jason and I seem to have some sort of magic touch lately, except it is more like a magic curse. We seem to break everything we touch. It is normal on a farm that something is always broken, but these days it feels more like everything is always broken. As Jason mentioned in our last post he spent most of the day on Tuesday spreading compost piles. He got about 70 loads spread before he ran out of day, and this morning he decided to finish the job and spread the last 30ish loads. He was close to finished when a chain broke on the manure spreader. 

Jason is pretty sure our John Deere manure spreader was made in the 1950's so we can't really complain about the broken chain. We bought it "new to us" last year for the whopping price of $600. Yes, we already know we are big spenders.  We have since spread over 200 loads with our antique spreader. As Jason said today, if it never spreads another load we more than got our money's worth out of our antique spreader. It doesn't change the fact that now we have to make the time to get it either repaired or replaced. 

The reason Jason finished spreading compost piles today instead of yesterday was thanks to a flat tire on one of the tractors that he had the pleasure of dealing with yesterday. Just like the last time we dealt with a flat tire on a tractor it happened at the third barn which is at the back of the farm. This is quite inconvenient since the air compressor and air tools are all located almost a mile away at the first barn. This meant Jason got to remove the tire the old fashioned way using hand tools, and of course there is always one lug nut that does not want to come off.

Using the front end loader as a jack to change the tire, necessity is the mother of invention.

Not a happy face from Jason but at least he has a nice, new tire on the tractor. And check out those classy shorts with a giant tear in them!!

After some grumbling and stomping about, accompanied with some poor choices for words, Jason had the tire off and was on his way to the co-op to get it replaced.  About twenty minutes later I received a text message from Jason informing me that the co-op was closed that day because they were doing inventory. I probably don't need to mention that the text message also contained some poor language choices.  He had better luck at his second stop and returned an hour later with a new tire. 

The good news in all of this was that Jason was able to use the front end loader on the tractor to lift the front tires off the ground so he could change the flat. He didn't even have to bother finding a jack. Good thing we had the hydraulics on that tractor repaired a few weeks ago since that was certainly a handy use for them. I say that with only a slight amount of sarcasm . . .

I won't bore you with the rest of our list of broken things like the chainsaw that does not want to start or the fact that our truck has apparently decided it's most favorite place in the world is in the shop with the diesel mechanic. We'll skip the additional tales of woe for now. However if our magic touch continues we just might feel compelled to write about them in the near future. Stay tuned.

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Gibson

Sam

Sebastian with Africa hiding behind him

Cuffie after a good roll

Cinnamon, Traveller and Maisie

Calimba and MyLight

Clayton and Kennedy grooming

Johnny leading the way in for breakfast followed by Lighty and Renny. Lighty felt they should be going faster so he decided to nip Johnny on the butt.

Donneur and Lofty