Parker's Report: Week 13

Week 13:
August 1-5, 2016

                  Monday was a pretty normal day. I fed the horses and cleaned the barn before heading out to my bush hog. I finished the back side of the North Pines that I didn’t get to finish last week. Then I moved back over to the Long and began cutting on the other side of the large, tree-lined ditch/creek that splits that pasture in half. Late in the afternoon, as I outlined along the tree line I came across a large dead tree branch hanging down in my path. I attempted to miss it but misjudged the distance and ended up catching the branch on the cap to my radiator. It pulled it up. Frustrated with myself I took the tractor back to shop and called Seth to let him know what had happened. I had also lost one of the screens on the side of the tractor but had found it because I had almost driven over it. However, when I got back to the shop I realized that the other one had come off as well. This was aggravating because I didn’t know how either screen had come off, let alone where this one had. When I got to the barn Tuesday morning, Willie, the gray gelding, limped up to the barn obviously lame. I cleaned his hoofs out looking for rocks, checked all his joints for swelling, and felt for heat- a sign of injury. I could find nothing wrong. I gave him a scoop of bute with his feed. When I went to let him out of his stall to go to pasture he wouldn’t leave. I called to him and tried to shoo him out but he just stood there. I left the stall door open while I went to switch wires on the pasture to give the horses new grass. I was hoping that Willie would come on out on his own. When I got back up to the barn he was standing in the exact same place. I gave him some hay and filled the water buckets with fresh water and left him in the stall for the day. Then I went and got on the John Deere Gator and set out to search for the missing tractor screen. This took almost all day. I drove up and down every other row scanning for the screen. Finally, in the Long pasture right beneath the dead tree branch that had caught on the radiator cap there was screen in about 20 different pieces. I picked up every little scrap I could find and took them back to the shop. Then I grabbed the 4555 to finish bush hogging the Long. I was on autopilot and forgot to check the coolant. I got all the way out to the pasture and it began to overheat. Dark clouds were building overhead and it being so late in the afternoon that I went ahead and called it a day. I checked Willie before I left. While he was more active than he had been that morning he was still pretty lame, so I left him in the barn with plenty of hay and water for the night. He was much better Wednesday morning so I let him out to pasture with the rest of the horses. I drove down to the shop to grab some coolant and Zack called me over to help him and Mr. Mike at the grain bins. Some corn had piled up in one of the bins and wasn’t falling down into the auger. Zack climbed in the bin to knock the corn down. I stood by the man hole and communicated between him and Mr. Mike on when to turn the auger on. Once the corn was knocked down and went to the tractor and put the coolant in it before I continued cutting the Long pasture. On Thursday I moved to the Motorcycle at the request of Seth. I left a little early to take the radiator to West Point on my way home. Friday I finished the Motorcycle.

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