Tractor's giving me fits

10/24/09 Saturday
Having trouble with the tractor. Been out running the disc and things were fine but all of a sudden it doesn’t want to pull well. The rear tire on the left spins and digs a hole. I’ve tried this and that but to no avail. Here’s where having no background with tractors at all becomes a problem. There are all kinds of adjustments to turn and move but I don’t have a clue what they do, or even if I do I don’t know if that’s needed. So it’s frustrating to say the least. I’m halfway through and everything has been fine till now. I greased all the bearings again but everything was spinning just fine. There’s something called a “Draft control” on the tractor next to the control that lifts the three point hitch. What’s a draft control? Do I need it?

I’m tired. Been on the tractor for about five hours. Just want to take a nap but won’t. There’s five gallons of gas, well a lot less now, but I want to run it till it runs out of gas because otherwise it all leaks out anyway. And I hate to waste. So came in to grab a drink and think this through as I write. Thinking’s done and haven’t figured anything out. This laptops bothering me. It’s been turning itself on by itself. Ran spyware but haven’t found anything.
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I went out to take some pictures and saw that the bucket was full of dirt on the tractor. That made me feel pretty dumb. I’ve been fighting this tractor for hours wondering why the rear wheels no longer got traction and would just spin. You can’t see the inside of the bucket when you’re driving it so I had no idea it was full. There’s a few hundred pounds of dirt there that lightens up the rear of the tractor. So odds are that was the source of my problem, at least I hope so. It’s dark out now so I’ll have to find out tomorrow after church. Tomorrow will be a busy day. There’s a presentation on radical Islam at the church tomorrow night that we definitely want to attend.

Had a busy day today too. Ran to the farmers market to pay for the other disc we are getting. On the way home I got a call from the old man. His wife called to let him know about a fair amount of firewood that was being given away. She knows we heat the house with wood so wanted to let us know about it. I went on home to grab a pair of gloves and let Cherie know about it. She went with me to get the wood. There’s a lot of it but some of it is in pretty bad shape having been out in the weather for years. It’s all elm wood, which isn’t the best wood for a wood burner as it smells bad and causes a lot of creosote buildup in the chimney, but it burns and makes heat. So we loaded up Cherie’s truck with the wood. It’s so nice when people do things like that, simple things like remember we heat with wood and give us a call when they see some we can have.

There was a great sunset tonight. Took a bunch of pictures. The hard part is deciding which one to post. So here’s the winner.