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David and building chicken tractors

So today is humid, windy and cold, the perfect day to work in the woodshed.  I need to build three additional chicken tractors (and repair six), after a quick fence inspection (one of us does this every other day).  As I started cutting, David hobbled into the workshop.  He was actually at the office to have some forms signed.  Personally, I think he just wanted to get out of the house for a few hours.  I wonder how he got there...he cannot drive!

The woodshed is a nice space, it smells of wood, we just had a bunch of cedar posts delivered and the smell of cut wood and glue is always nice.  I always keep a bit of animal glue, it's not warm and doesn't smell much still it's nice.  David is sitting on one of the sofas petting a shop cat (we have a dozen cats around the farm which control the mice population) as I started measuring and cutting wood for the chicken tractor.  It takes about 4 hours to build a tractor.  They are 10x12 feet, mainly because that's the length of wood we purchase.  Chickens peck at the wood so we don't us treated lumber, we use untreated pine, which doesn't last forever (hence the needed repairs). 

David thinks that the transmission bolts on our Case 220 tractors may be counterfeit (not a 7220 as I thought).  He said he called Case and after two years these bolts should not have seized.  Case is concerned because both these tractors were built in China.  Apparently, our Case dealer wants to take away one of our tractors and inspect some of the crucial bolts -- they will lend us a different tractor, David wanted to discuss what model to test and David thought we should try a 280 -- it could be very useful for the new farm.  It's almost 75hp more than our current model.

Jennifer's daughters came running into the woodshop just before lunchtime to tell David, that his wife was in the office looking for him (which explains how he got here).  They had wanted to sign his cast, but it's a plastic affair so the girls got nowhere with that idea.  

Good time to go home and have lunch with my wife.  I want to take my time with the chicken tractors, now that we have hired Jennifer my workload has diminished considerably.  This afternoon I have to set up my new computer.   I cannot go to the new farm, I promised Jennifer to give our forman some operating space.  I know that my wife would like to go on holiday, January is a good time, we just need to find a hot and sunny place.  We were planning to South Africa, but our friends who had just been said they didn't enjoy the place at all, they were constantly feeling at risk.  Decisions, decisions...


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