Farmerjan's journal - Weather

[farmerjan]

No, @Baymule no PT yet. I asked. Not until the boot is off and then they will be working on more flexibility I guess. It is still pretty swollen.... it feels like it has a bandage around it still from the swelling but they said it is normal for the type of surgery and for the time frame. So I am going to try to move it more when the boot is off and it is "up" to help keep the swelling to "normal" limits. It moves but the range of motion is very small compared to the other. I was looking at the difference when on the bed with them both out in front of me. As long as they say it all looks normal, then I guess they are the experts. That is why the clutch is still hard because the ankle doesn't flex to push in the clutch like I keep expecting.

 

[thistlebloom]

Wow Jan, you have quite the stable of trucks! I have always had a truck since I bought my first vehicle, a 67(?) Datsun, from a friend, who I later married. My newest old truck is an automatic, the first I've ever had. We have an 04 Tacoma, the most basic truck ever that I used to use for work. It's built for a small Asian woman. Really small. My 6'2" Kid#1 would help me with work sometimes and had to fold up like a jack knife to fit. He borrowed it once and had a heck of a time shifting for the same reason you described. His feet wanted to cover all the pedals at once, lol.

It sure is good to hear that you are improving every day. I'm convinced you didn't feel horrible pain after your surgery because you don't baby yourself. You work hard and do what needs doing in spite of how you feel and I think that forms a mental fortitude and toughness. Good for you

 

[farmerjan]

My ranger is too small for my 6'6" son too. He has to watch hitting his head getting in, and then has to watch the pedals. Yeah, got too many trucks sometimes, but other times we seem to need most of them. The red bale truck was a "mercy" purchase from a guy who needed money and had to sell it or we probably wouldn't have bought it. The r&w automatic he bought thinking that I could help with the hay moving, then turned out to be a godsend when he could finally drive with his broken hip..... and he could feed so didn't feel like he was so helpless with all the animals. I m not an automatic vehicle fan overall, mostly because of using them to pull different trailers and all. Plus, you can't roll an automatic off a hill if the battery is dead like you can a straight drive..... and there have been many times that the batteries have been dead for one reason or another. But we never buy anything new, and when we need another one, the one we are replacing is usually not fit for anything but to crush it. We had an early 80's f250 that we bought and it had 469,000 on it when the floor got so rotted that we had to junk it because the fumes coming up through the floorboards would make you sick. It literally rotted off the frame. The engine was starting to have some problems too so it was a matter of time before it was going to just quit or blow up. We beat the living out of that truck and it just kept on going. Buried it in snow and mud and everything else. Pulled it out and kept on going. That was before we had the 4x4 tractor that we bought from the friend's estate that died from cancer.

 

[Baymule]

Gee I feel under trucked. We just have one. LOL A 2004 F250 diesel Lariat 4 door. I drive a 2008 Buick LaCrosse. The tractor and the mule are both diesel, so we bought a 500 gallon tank. We buy on road diesel for it so we can fill the truck, if needed.

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

We buy on road diesel for it so we can fill the truck, if needed.

Miss @Baymule, where do you get your diesel? Does the fuel supplier drive out to your farm, or do you have a trailer to pull the tank with?

 

[farmerjan]

Many people here have a tank they can put on their truck and get like 50-100 gallons. They will fill it and then use it to transfer fuel to their different pieces of equipment, and some will take it home and put into their tank that they have at home. I think most of them have left it on although I guess you could take it off. Here, we can get fuel delivered and they will fill any of the tanks. You have to tell them what you want delivered and different companies will charge differently. I am not sure I would want to pull a trailer with a 500 gallon tank and I am not sure legally you could do that.

The best thing about getting the on-road diesel is that like @Baymule you can also use it for your licensed vehicle legally as well as the mostly on farm equipment. There is one other plus to it, is that without the dye in it, it will burn cleaner in the vehicle than the fuel that has the dye in it. One of the reason to always try to buy kerosene that is not dyed....... if you use a kerosene heater as a back up, the kero with dye in it will cause the heater to not burn clean and will gum up the wick quickly. It is more expensive to use on road diesel all the time, but the smaller the engines, the better they will burn without the dye.

 

[farmerjan]

Cold and dreary, cloudy and damp. We had .2 inch of rain last night and we are supposed to get more. Was 41* and up to 47* so not a big change.
I made soup and grilled cheese and of course, burnt the grilled cheese because I can't move fast enough to get back around to the stove to flip them. GRRRR. Oh well, just took and scraped off the worst of the burnt and ate them anyway. Went out and did the chickens and fed the cats. Glad to come back in the house. Just chilly.
Gonna get out a jigsaw puzzle to do as I am tired of reading. I need to get the dvd player hooked up to the other TV so I can take advantage of all these movies. I just don't know if I can get around with this boot on to get behind to see what I need to do to change over all the wires/hookups. I hate doing stuff like this with electronics and electric wires and all.
Just heard that the governor has banned any "meeting" places of more than 100 people. Haven't heard anything new about the cattle sale on the 23rd... or about any of the regular cattle sales.

 

[Duckfarmerpa1]

@farmerjan ...so you’re a Ford gal, huh? I think that’s the first time I’d had a different view! Chris drives only Chevy’s because the parts are interchangeable. Not with Fords. Chris is a collector of trucks mostly,..vintage, vintage corvettes, and custom motorcycles...sever of his vehicles were on covers of magazines. But, he doesn’t buy them fancy...he buys them, maybe part done, and finishes the rest. Or even from the frame up. We have a paint booth and all. We have 6 semi trailers full of parts!! I would tell you the number of vehicles he owns, but, really, none of you would believe me. They arent mine...I don’t want his money, just him. I’m sure I will get most of them but I couldn’t care less. I’d probably never sell them. Here’s how crazy he is....he’s working on a truck now...very expensive...we aren’t allowed to drive it the two miles to the theater for storage once it’s done!! He wants zero miles on it!! What’s the point? We go to many many car shows and take different vehicles each time...bu5 we don’t enter...those days are over...we just take them for a joy ride. It’s fun, but then he has to change insurance, etc..so, kind of a pain. But, it’s his thing, and before the farm...that’s what he did all the time. The new ‘old’ tract owe just bought...he’s already taken it apart to sand and buff it, giving it a new paint job, getting new decals for it, etc. he’s a nut....

 

[Baymule]

Miss @Baymule, where do you get your diesel? Does the fuel supplier drive out to your farm, or do you have a trailer to pull the tank with?

We buy it from a place that delivers. The tank is passive gravity flow, so it is up on legs. Here is a sideways picture, just stand on your head and it will look right. LOL When we bought it, the guy brought it to us and a neighbor with a big cab tractor took it off the flatbed and set it up for us.

​

 

[farmerjan]

My grandfather was a chevy person and I was not allowed to drive his truck. I am a CHEVY JINX. No joke, it is well documented in my family. Every time I drove a chevy/gmc product, it broke. I mean it was a family joke. A former boyfriend had chevy's and I was driving his truck and the actual wheel and axle came out from under the truck on me. I realize that things happen all the time.... but it is just that my dad went to fords, and I have had fords ever since.... my ex was a chevy person and it seemed that we had constant problems. So, you just go with what seems to work. I like the older models of vehicles too. Getting over 2000 they are way too electronically dependent and people have gotten way too dependent on the vehicle doing the driving for them. Give me an older vehicle that we can work on and fix without all sorts of electronic testing to figure out what is wrong with it.
I do like the 2000 subaru forester that I bought off a friend who was going to turn it in and I paid her what they were going to give her on trade in. Sure we have had some issues with the replacement engine(s), but I got it with 150,000 m/l miles on it, drove it another 100,000 + miles with no issues... it paid for its self, and it is still in good enough shape to put another engine in and drive for awhile. It's no one's fault but the company that sold a warranteed engine that was bad, then a 2nd engine that was bad, and the problems we have had with that company. We are getting the heads redone on the 2nd engine and it will get back into the car, and I expect to get another 200,000 out of the car once it gets put back together.
To me, a vehicle is as good as the job it does for you. I don't care about fancy, and a truck that we use on the farm is there to do a job. We don't go out of our way to bang it up, but it happens and we try to take care of them but dents and things are a part of the deal with using the truck for WORK. I try to keep the subaru out of the field, but when I go to the farm to check on the calves and a cow comes alongside and then another gives her a shove and it winds up causing a dent....well that is just part of it. I try to mostly only take the trucks into the fields and such, but sometimes it is only sensible to take the car as I am on my way to other errands too, I am going to take the car.
I am glad that there are people who like different types/brands of vehicles. And are willing to restore and take care of them. We have one semi trailer with ford parts, and a slew of parts in the big pole barn he built, so I get what you are saying. I am glad that we don't have as much as you have.... we have enough "junk" of our own