Images

 Relaxing after a hard days work

 Working Hard

 Loading the Air Seeder

 Jetstream Seed and Super Grouper

 The Seeding Rig

In the Mirror

A Little Weekend Maintenance

Fencing to be exact, and my type of fencing is to pull out the posts and get rid of the fences all together. My brother was kind enough to come out today and help me remove a fence that was in disrepair. He removed the wires last weekend (what wires were still there that is) and today we got rid of the rest. Using a chain on the bucket of the Belarus front end loader we pulled out all the posts. The chain was tied to the arm of the loader and then tied around the post. I lift the bucket and the post pulls out of the ground. Some come easily, some not so easy, but in the end they all come out. The picture is as I am pulling up on the post.

Once the post was pulled out we loaded it on the back of the ute to take back to the yard. Here on the farm the boys start learning essential farming tasks from a young age. Here my 10 year old son is driving the ute and his brother is watching as we move along the fenceline.

From the tractor seat looking down the fenceline.. I guess you could say this is the before shot, with wires removed but posts still in the ground. I just drove along the fenceline pulling out each post as I was going.

The end result was the view I had out the back window of the tractor. You can see where the fence was.. but no more fence. Now the two paddocks can be worked as one, and that paddock will be about 140 acres or 60 hectares.

Prickle Chain Repairs

Actually there were a few other jobs I got stuck into before the prickle chain repairs, come to think of it the prickle chain repairs where more of an after thought.

First up I fed our four mobs of ewes. Then spent a few minutes cleaning up a few stones from and old wall that collapsed a few months back. Next up refuel the John Deere 4440 and a quick trip to town with it to unload a boom spray for the rural shop. It was supposed to be quick, but the truck was a few hours later that it was supposed to be, so not such a quick trip after all.

It was after all that that I thought I'd shorten the chains on the prickle chain.. they were a bit loose ya see. So there it is in the yard behind the 4440. The chains can be seen (this is in the folded position - usually they sit flat on the ground) and it easy to see why it's called a prickle chain. The chain does wear over time so it gets looser and looser. The solution is to cut out a few links, join it up and you're all set to go.

Disconnecting the chain was the hardest bit. Those bolts hadn't been undone for a while, and they get pretty rough treatment running so close to the ground. The whole chain rolls as it is dragged over the ground, and the "prickles" do their job. So the bolts were quite tough to get undone, but once I undid it (there is one for each section of chain) I could just unhook the chain and cut out a couple of links with the angle grinder.

I'm still trying to undo the front section (the left side - the right side is visible too. Cutting the links. I took two off each section of chain.

John Deere 4440 and Cunningham prickle chain (in folded position)