Red licorice isn’t even licorice.

How’s the used tractor market down there? You guys must have some 40 year old Ferguson 30/35 tractors around? I understand those things are eternal.

You might be surprised how light ground predators can be, especially on a lawn.

A skidsteer is worse for being a rough backbreaking ride.

How many bushels this year?

I used to make a lot of tomato sauce for the winter when the kids were still at home. Many quarts. These days with just me and Grandma around I freeze my tomatoes, because it’s fast and easy, and use a quick fresh tomato sauce recipe these days.

And no 200 dollars either!

The horror of it all!

It could be a coyote, fox, or hawk also. Lots of predators city people seldom see living around you.

That’s deck life. One board at a time.

You should ALWAYS strive to look cool on your mower. Why else are you wearing those cargo shorts?

A man can’t look smashing while standing next to his lawnmower and wearing a polo, cargo shorts, and sketcher/New Balance tennis shoes if that mower don’t look clean and sharp also.

They are if all you want is a larger lawnmower. I use a little JD 1023r as a lawnmower. But it also has to do things like mount a landscape rake to a 3 point hitch and even a 6’ blade for road maintenance. And move things like small wagons and trailers. Some people put front end loaders and snowblowers on them too. Not something you can do with a zero turn.

As an old medic. It’s been my experience if you do tip/roll one of those larger mowers, you don’t get to post about it.

****I did 2 fatality calls like that.

That is true job security. Being able to undo everyone else’s screwups. Such work kept me gainfully employed for 45 years.

Self checkout has gotten better. Back in the day they didn’t work for crap. But it’s still often a matter of luck of the draw and whether or not there is a god somewhere that decides to piss on your parade that day.

In the immortal words of Dirty Harry, “Do ya feel lucky punk? Well, do ya?”

Oh come on, there’s got to be a dollar general somewhere at the end of your driveway.

For those that don’t know, Dollar General is an infestation of a chain store. They are almost ubiquitous in small rural towns. They can act as an old time general store selling everything from candy, to clothes, simple household goods, and milk and a few other more shelf stable groceries. And it’s all of less quality than a temu steak. They are also ineradicably poor employers. With low pay, no benefits, and worse staffing.

Yeah, backhoes are hard on things. I’ve always been a bit leery of mounting one on a small tractor. You start digging rocks or stumps and you can easily break something. I think your repair will hold up very nicely. I do hope the electronics hold up for you. But, you sound as if you get more use out of your tractor than I do mine anymore.

I’m trying to convince myself that I need to sell my skidsteer. I’m getting too old to get in and out of that thing. I’ve already tore up both my knees, I don’t need to break a hip. So I’m not putting enough hours on it to keep it.

An invigorated manufacturing sector is a post war thing for the winners of said war. Not so much for the losers. And there is nothing like a good war to speed up human knowledge and advancement. I hope Ukraine wins their war. I understand perfectly the conditions the Ukrainians are working under for foreign made parts. Here in the US, we are working under nearly the same conditions. Except with less shooting at the moment. Terms and conditions apply. And subject to change at a deranged whim

Farmers around the world are some of the most self-reliant people you can meet. They have little problem figuring out workarounds and modifications to equipment and even designing new things from scratch to meet their needs. So what the Ukrainian farmers are doing ain’t new nor remarkable to other farmers around the world. Every farmer does similar things out of sheer self-defense to keep farming. It’s a mindset and culture unique to farmers for the most part. It’s what pushed me to figure out how to make my repair cheap and easy. And now that I’ve seen what’s up with this blower motor, I know how to repair the resistor coils too.

That Ukrainian listing for the 3 speed resistor leads right back to the Italian manufacturer of said part. It isn’t a Ukrainian made part. And thanks to Trump pissing off the world, I’m not even sure I could buy one from SPAL directly in Italy either. And their website isn’t setup for consumer use. I think they are BtoB only. So I didn’t pursue either option.

In any case, that resistor is for a 16 year old machine that is no longer in production for a number of years now. And JD has moved on to different HVAC designs that they DO sell parts for. It’s just that none of them crossover match to my tractor. So I can either chose to buy new old stock at high prices or be smart and fix the underlying problem. So just like the farmer I grew up as and did as a second job, I chose substituting my time and labor and cheap parts for a repair I will probably never need to do again before I die. Well, maybe I will need to do that other blower at some point. Those parts do tend to simply age out after enough years.

Interestingly, there was a design change over for the blowers mid production run of this tractor for some reason. They went from a unitized 2 blower design to two separate blowers like I have. So that’s different yet. Plus 4720 now refers to a sprayer at first search and not my tractor anymore. The parts are still there, but it’s the second result now.

Outstanding!

That’s a Scorigami for sure!