Senile Texas Aggie - comic relief for the rest of you

One of the good things about this forum is that we have shared experiences and all make blunders. Since many of us post about those blunders it is pretty obvious we can share those things with others and still smile about it.

farmerjan said:

I was afraid you were going to say you drove the tractor in the pond or flipped it over on the bank or something.

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Me too. So I guess losing $400 in tools was a pretty good "alternate screwup".

I once got my garden tractor too close to the pond facing it. "tractor" has turf tires, no grip in reverse up any sort of a hill, spins a tire and goes nowhere. I had to pull it out with my Prius (aka my 'truck').

when you said comic relief I didn't realize that you were boing to be destroying tools for fun. I grinned at your description but i'm really sorry that happened to you and all those power tools. as the others have said, lesson learned. just don't be like @Mike CHS and learn the same lesson over and again. his dog now has to guard him from the electric fence.
hope youall got some of that rain that came thru today, we've been needing it.

Senile_Texas_Aggie said:

Our problem right now is that we have no fencing worth a crap, nor do we have a livestock building to help protect them from the rain, predators, etc. Once we get all of that figured out, then we will see about getting some goats.

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Ah yes! Two major requirements for having animals on a farm . . . Shelters and fencing. Many here (DH and I included) have started simple with hoop huts and 16’ cattle panels, for temporary fencing. @Latestarted did that too.

We recently added a small goat pasture to our little 5 acre property, using about 14 or 16 cattle panels. This area will eventually be enlarged with woven wire, no-climb horse fencing, when we have time and energy. Oh, who am I kidding! It will probably be a while. Both of those are in very short supply!!!

Here are the dogs walking the perimeter when we first opened it up to the goat paddock. They are such good LGDs!




Our place came with a 3-sided run-in shelter, which we put a floor in, to give the goats and dogs a dry place out of the weather. One of our first projects was to build an 8x8’ hoop hut, using 2x4s and 2 cattle panels lashed together. A wire wall on the back, and a door on the front gave us a secure dog kennel. The nice thing about it is, that it is portable. Right now, we are using it as a shelter for our buckling.




Here we have it covered with a tarp, for our little Myotonic buckling, Danny Boy, when we first got him. We added decking in about 2/3 of the hut, so he would have a dry floor to sleep on.


Here is a little hut, we call, "The Mini-Hoopster", that DH built so we could move the ducklings from the barn to the chicken yard. We’ve used it for several birds since the ducklings first used it.

Senile_Texas_Aggie said:

So thanks to my Senile Texas Aggie I/Q, I managed to tear up $400 worth of tools and only got a small part of the overgrown pastures mowed.

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frustratedearthmother said:

That is a tough lesson learned - and most likely will NOT be repeated. Those really hard lessons seem to stick with you - like walking into an electric fence. (don't ask me how I know!) Good luck with the rest of your adventure!

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Latestarter said:

We've all done "stupid" things/made mistakes/forgotten im
portant stuff that has ended up costing valuable dollars but in the end, I guess they are valuable lessons.

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Baymule said:

Nothing makes you feel stupid like doing something stupid. You'll make mistakes, but you won't make THAT mistake again.

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As you can see, we all made expensive mistakes and/or done things we wish we hadn't. DH says the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. So, hopefully, you are only senile and not insane.

You and DH do good work DV.

Bruce said:

You and DH do good work DV.

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Awww, thanks Bruce. It has been a work in progress. Sometimes DH gets frustrated, feeling like the to do list is so long and we aren’t accomplishing anything. But then I start pointing out everything we have done, and he agrees that we HAVE gotten a lot done, in the 3-1/2 years we have been here.

Thanks so much to each and every one of you to offer words of encouragement after my stupid deed. And, yes, I am very glad I did not do something a lot worse, like run the tractor into the pond, or turn it over, or run over my foot or leg.

Thanks especially to Miss @Devonviolet for the pictures you provided. It will give us some ideas once we finally start to get ready for some goats and ducks and maybe chickens. I am sure that we will be reaching out to you, Miss @goatgurl, and others, for help in learning what we need to do.

As Miss @goatgurl mentioned, just like her we got some rain yesterday morning, but not enough to do much but settle the dust. After it stopped, I decided to tackle the south pasture (the one I took two pictures of recently; see https://www.backyardherds.com/threa...relief-for-the-rest-of-you.38161/#post-559866) with the tractor and mower. It was slow going, as the grass was really thick. I usually had to run in 1st or 2nd gear to prevent the shredder from bogging down. I had wanted to finish the area I was mowing before the end of the day, but I ran out of diesel before then. The reason I wanted to finish? I wanted to be able to post updated pictures showing a complete before-and-after. I went back this morning to finish the area, but it started raining again before I finished. So, Miss @farmerjan, you may still need to take some antacid before viewing the pictures, but hopefully not as much as before!

Where I mowed yesterday (blue area) and tried to mow today (red area):


Here is what the blue area looked like, viewing from the northwest corner looking east:


Here is what the blue and red areas looked like yesterday afternoon, viewed from the northwest corner looking south (Miss @farmerjan, please take your antacid before viewing the picture):


Again, thank you to each and every one of you for reading and commenting on our journey from suburbanites to farmers:


Senile Texas Aggie

Dude, you missed a tree!

Looks great, don't know why Jan would get heartburn from looking at the results! I'm guessing you are finding your "new" tractor to be quite useful ... and fun!

frustratedearthmother said:

Wow - that could have ended badly! Worst thing I did was drop a dead pig outta the bucket lol. Turns out it wasn't even me - the valve or something like that wasn't working right and the bucket tipped down every time it had a weight in it. But, I dropped that pig 3 times before I figured it out!

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Which is why I NEVER let anyone ride in the bucket if the tractor is moving. I worked on & repaired too many FELs to not know how suddenly a cylinder piston seal or control valve spool can fail, or a hydraulic line burst.

Senile_Texas_Aggie said:

After it stopped, I decided to tackle the south pasture (the one I took two pictures of recently; see https://www.backyardherds.com/threa...relief-for-the-rest-of-you.38161/#post-559866) with the tractor and mower. It was slow going, as the grass was really thick. I usually had to run in 1st or 2nd gear to prevent the shredder from bogging down.

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A couple of things.
1. Bogging the mower down is troublesome for sure, but even more so, make sure you aren't bogging the tractor engine down either. If the exhaust is constantly blowing black smoke while mowing, it means the engine is overloaded. Watch for unexplained drop in engine rpms and high engine coolant temp.
2. Try not to cut wet grass. It all sticks together, kinda balls up under the deck and makes it even harder on both mower and tractor to cut it.