Rolinco Road Ramblings: Happy New Year!

We've had a rocky start to our New Year. Hope it's not an indicator of things to come. I prefer to think of it as getting all the bug a boos out now, so that the rest will be free sailing.

Reynald and Alicia have been working in high gear, in high heat, to get the new set of drills ready to go, and do some repair work on the original set. The temperatures have been in the mid to high 90's for over a week, which makes it hard to keep up a fast pace, but they have done just that.

Friday morning we hooked up the tractor to the air cart and drill and discovered that a return hydraulic fitting, that we assumed was there, was not. Several phone calls and more than a little panic, produced the correct tools and fittings to make it work.

This is the new hydraulic fitting.

The dark circle on the right is what we needed to remove, before the new fitting could be put in. There were two dark circles like this. The new fitting is in the one that we removed.

Next we discovered that the shaft monitor sensors didn't work. More phone calls and more panic, to discover that they had been wired wrong. The smell of smoldering wires is not a good sign!

This is a shaft sensor. It is supposed to tell me when this shaft that runs the straw pickers, is not turning. If the shaft isn't turning, it means something is stuck or plugged, and that can cause a big, big mess!

These are the shaft sensor monitors. They are now toast and need to be replaced!

We decided we could live without the shaft monitor, at least for a few days, and moved on to fill both sets of drills. Thankfully, that process went just fine.

Filling the drills by the house.

There was something about this sight that captured my eye. I think it was all the different angles and lines.

The view from the top of the air cart.

By this time, is was late in the day, and we decided to call it a day and get a good start in the morning.

But then, another problem. The satellite guidance in my tractor was too old to accept the software from the newer version, and we needed to have that in order to seed in tandem as we planned to do. More panicked phone calls and a our super helpful and attentive satellite guy came out to help switch out monitors and load software.

OK, now are we ready to go? I got a lesson in how to seed, (after all these years, I have never run the drill!) and we were off and running. UNTIL, we stopped after four passes to check on everything and discovered that two hoses that deliver seed to the boots had been damaged, and three or four other hoses were plugged. The pin sensors that are supposed to set off an alarm if a hose is plugged, didn't go off!

But worse than that, the new hoses that Reynald and Alicia worked so hard to install were not at all the right kind. They were too flexible causing bends and sags that would not allow the wheat and fertilizer to flow freely. The two that were damaged, sagged in the the hydraulic cylinders and got chewed up.
Now there were some really panicked phone calls, trips hither and yon for new hose, which turned out to be the same as the ones that didn't work, until finally, the correct number was dialed, the correct type of hose was located, and Alicia and I spent several hours yesterday, replacing all the hoses!

These are the bad hoses.

You can see how droopy and saggy they are.

And these are the correct hoses.

Reynald seeded with the original set all day Sunday and a partial day on Saturday, so at least some seeding was happening!

Today stated off pretty good, until the auger on my air cart sheared off a bolt, and plugged and required yet another repair! That took about three hours! The good news is that the repair worked, and the rest of the day went off without a hitch! We seeded 400 acres, and didn't get started until noon and had to stop shortly after 7pm because the days are getting shorter!