Doing it Right!

Every day we pass judgment on the things other people produce.  When folks paint artwork or make music or any one of a thousand other things, we judge their competency.  It’s the same out here in Redneck country and some of the things we judge are those that can be seen from the road.  It might be the quality of fences, the health of the herd, or the shape of your hay bales.

For the past week I have been driving by what I like to call the “weeping bales.”  They are the saddest bales I’ve ever seen and the consensus is that they should have been hidden in the barn before anyone had a chance to see them.  Today I stopped to take a photograph of them and discovered why they haven’t been stored away.  They are not tied and would fall apart if lifted!

Thanks to the efforts of Gary K.,

even using one of the most troublesome balers in the county, we were able to turn out some pretty fair bales, thereby keeping our reputation in tact.

Gary says he can do better so the two of us tore into the John Deere Baler yesterday and replaced a hydraulic pump, removing several million parts to do so.  I must admit, I had doubts that we would ever get it back together but Gary pulled through again.  He seems to have some innate mechanical aptitude that allows him to do these things.  He’s the same guy that tore into the mower gearbox last week.  This is the gearbox, and we removed every part and replaced all the gears!

I used the mower yesterday and it purred like a kitten through 20 acres.  Tomorrow we will try the baler for the first time since replacing the hydraulic pump.