The title pretty much says it all. There will be a lot of farming related posts here as well as some ancient family history and photos. Another family history blog I have is at....
http://nevardblog.blogspot.com/
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@B110
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Is There A Limit?
,,,to my stupidity? I doubt it some days. Hitching up to the sprayer the other day getting it ready to go and I could not get the hydraulic drive pump to turn. Tried various ideas and came to the conclusion it had seized up over winter, although its not an old pump. It was a long and difficult task disconnecting to various hoses and fittings so that I could get at the impeller with a socket to turn it. After fighting mosquitos and other hindrances I found that the impeller was free and easy turning.
Re-assembled the whole thing and tried again, still nothing. Patience long gone I somehow stumbled onto the realization that I had the hydraulic hoses plugged into the opposite circuit to the lever I had been working. An easy fix but I can't believe I could overlook the most basic possibility.Just too stupid.
Managed to get a field of canola sprayed, without GPS. The $3000 guidance system has become nothing more than a decoration as it quit working last week. No local places work on them and mailing it to the next province does not look like a good option right now with our Canada Post strike going on.
Guess I will have to depend on my aging eyes to tell where to drive in the field.
Grass continues to grow out of control in my yard as I have had not had time to spend on the lawn tractor. Yesterday evening with high hopes I made a start cutting but after a short time the front axle collapsed on the faithful old John Deere 111. Its looking like a big dis-assembly and welding job so I guess the grass will grow a while longer.
At least spring seeding is done and early crops are up and looking good. Fields have dried up considerably from the muddy mess we started with a month ago.
I have a raven inivicta 210 and I use FarmerGPS (www.farmergps.com) to get guidance from a tablet PC. I suppose you have read of my complaints about the PC. The FarmerGPS program is great. I've heard of people running them on netbooks so in theory you could blog and get guidance at the same time. If your present antenna is Ok you could use it with the program. I also tried a cheap garmin 18 USB antenna off of ebay which worked really well for spreading fertilizer but not so well for 7.5" accuracy while planting. That being said, my GPS keeps losing the satellites so it could be solar flares or just that the Raven 210 is getting pretty old technology. If it makes you feel any better I hooked the hoses up backwards on the silage chopper so when I went lower the header I would instead start to dump the tub I was towing behind the chopper. And while I was talking on the phone I didn't realize I was shooting silage over the endgate of the truck for 100 feet. Guess that is just how it goes.
Gorges, I wondered the same thing after reading Ed's post but I don't think so. Haven't heard of anyone else having a problem like mine. Budde, this modern complex equipment is great while it works but when it breaks down I can't fix it and start thinking how simple farming used to be.
Your GPS wouldn't be reacting to the solar flares that Ed Winkle's talking about would it?
ReplyDeleteI have a raven inivicta 210 and I use FarmerGPS (www.farmergps.com) to get guidance from a tablet PC. I suppose you have read of my complaints about the PC.
ReplyDeleteThe FarmerGPS program is great. I've heard of people running them on netbooks so in theory you could blog and get guidance at the same time.
If your present antenna is Ok you could use it with the program. I also tried a cheap garmin 18 USB antenna off of ebay which worked really well for spreading fertilizer but not so well for 7.5" accuracy while planting.
That being said, my GPS keeps losing the satellites so it could be solar flares or just that the Raven 210 is getting pretty old technology.
If it makes you feel any better I hooked the hoses up backwards on the silage chopper so when I went lower the header I would instead start to dump the tub I was towing behind the chopper. And while I was talking on the phone I didn't realize I was shooting silage over the endgate of the truck for 100 feet.
Guess that is just how it goes.
Gorges, I wondered the same thing after reading Ed's post but I don't think so. Haven't heard of anyone else having a problem like mine.
ReplyDeleteBudde, this modern complex equipment is great while it works but when it breaks down I can't fix it and start thinking how simple farming used to be.