Moving Day

[MiniDave]

I have a couple of acres out in the country that the wife and I were going to build our last home on, but health and other matters intervened, and now that the market has improved I put it up for sale. The property sold and will close in a week or so, but there are no contingencies and the money is already approved so I'm confident the deal will close.

I had a few things I kept out there, my ZTR mower, the trailer I used to move it between the property and my home and my tractor......it's a Yanmar 1602D compact tractor, 4X4 with lots of gears, a bucket loader on front, and a brush hog, box blade, and a roto tiller (which I've never used). It has a 3 speed transmission, a 3 speed drive and a 3 speed PTO! It can run in 2 or 4 wheel drive although it steers a lot easier in 2 even tho it has a differential. It has typical lugged tires which really tear up the ground when it's soft like it is right now but it's been extremely useful moving dirt, hauling trees and rocks around and so on.

It's also handy when you end up sliding the ZTR into the pond!

I already moved the ZTR and trailer and needed to figure out what to do with the tractor, when my daughter mentioned that she could really use it on her small farm. We struck a deal and tomorrow my buddy Clancy and I will be hitting the road early on the way to her place, about 15 min south of Asheville, NC.

Today we loaded the tiller into the back of his truck and the tractor onto Styer's trailer and we're ready to hit the road in the early AM. It will be a quick trip, out and back in three days total! Clancy has a nice super duty Ford diesel truck and hauls stuff (usually race trailers full of cars) all across the country so he's used to making good time on these trips. I have no idea what three days in the truck with Clancy will be like, but I'm hopeful we'll not be ready to kill each other time we get there and home!   ;D



More as it happens......

[MPlayle]

Good luck on the trip.  I hope you don't run into issues with any early spring flooding happening that way.

[MiniDave]

Hard to say for sure, but it does look like we're going to bring the rain with us all the way down, but sunny and fairly cool/cold coming home.

It was 65* (in Feb?!?!?!?!?) here today, it will be 30 or lower when I get back.

[tmsmini]

Thank Clancy for me for hauling an engine from Texas to San Diego about six or eight years ago.
Not sure if he will remember as I never met him. He dropped the engine off with Miike Spangler in San Diego and I picked it up from him in Sacramento.
Terry

[MiniDave]

He IS a traveling man, isn't he?

[BruceK]

Can't wait to get reports and pictures from the road! 

[MiniDave]

Terry, Clancy said he remembered bringing that one to Ca!

This was a very fast trip.....We left Tues morning and I was home by Thursday at 2 pm, I only spent about an hour at my daughter's house as a weather front was moving in. We didn't hit any rain the whole trip, but it snowed late last night and today in Hendersonville, NC. where she lives.

Jen was thrilled to get her very own tractor and rushed to get it into the barn before the weather hit us, and we jumped back on the road to get ahead of the storm. I'm hoping she'll send me some pics of her driving it on her little farm.

Unfortunately we had to move the trip date up a week to accommodate Clancy's schedule so I wasn't able to get all the issues handled before we loaded to go. There were two hydraulic hoses leaking and I really needed to replace the front tires as they were weather cracked, and the left front was flat when we got there. Lastly the blades on the brush hog were rusted tight and not even, so it shook when it ran, so she'll have to get some PB Blaster on them and hope they work loose again, or else she'll have to drop the blade holder and take them apart - I doubt she has the tools or ability to do that on the farm.

After we dropped the tractor off we noticed that one of the braces for the rearmost part of the trailer had broken! It's a simple matter to weld it back together but.....

As we were about 100 miles from St. Louis Clancy decided to let me take over the wheel, we pulled into a rest area so we could both take a leak and swap seats. When I got in I noticed the engine was running rough and checked the gauges - we were on fumes! There was a fuel station at the next exit not even 1000 yards up the road but it was an uphill exit and we didn't make it,. the engine died. Fortunately Clancy had a couple of gallons of fuel, but getting the system bled so the engine could start again was difficult....the procedure involved turning the key on for 5 sec, then back off - 17 times! then the engine started immediately and we made it to the fuel station at the exit. Once full we hit the road for home.

John will get the trailer welded up and it will be ready soon

Clancy leaves tomorrow for Nebraska which is why we had to make this a quick trip, then Sunday he heads off to Phoenix - the man does not stay home much!

We did a little over 1800 miles in two and a half long days, we ran about 65 on the way down and 70ish on the way home, unloaded. Gotta love a big diesel motor for towing! I figure we averaged about 12 mpg for the trip

First a before pic, then a couple from on the road, then Jen had a space cleared in the barn, and even got the door to close!

[tmsmini]

Is Clancy ever coming back to California to race this Sprite or Midget?
I think the year he hauled the engine for me, he and a group of friends raced at Laguna Seca in a HMSA race.
I missed it and don't remember why.
Terry

[MiniDave]

He's out there all the time in his SCCA autocross duties.  77.gif

[MiniDave]

Got this pic this morning of my daughter on her new ride..... 77.gif

[Jims5543]

I will be hitting the road early on the way to her place, about 15 min south of Asheville, NC.

Hendersonville?

Asheville is a pretty cool city, I had a vacation home 45 SW of there in Sylva for many years.  When we purchased in 2004 Asheville was just starting to transition / gentrify.  In 2004 the Mayor of Asheville got some heat, he made a statement to a newspaper that he could go outside at 10 PM shoot his gun in any direction and whomever he killed probably deserved it. Asheville used ot be over run with meth heads, while there are still a lot, the city itself have changed a lot too.

Tons and tons of Farm to Table restaurants, over a dozen breweries, lots of neat little shops. No chains, all locally owned.

I am going to be in Hendersonville this spring, we rented a 1950's era house on top of a hill, we are taking the inlaws away for a little retreat.

Beautiful part of our country around there.

[MiniDave]

Yes, Hendersonville!

It's a great little town, big enough yet not "BIG" like some - and close to Asheville for restaurants and such.

My SIL is an architect there and is well known and regarded in the community....he designed and built their house. Their place is on the southwestern edge of the town and even tho it's in a development of sorts, it's a little 5 acre patch - she has one milk cow, a bunch of goats, chickens ducks and rabbits. They grow a lot of their own food and of course get eggs and dairy from their animals.

They just had about 1 1/2 acres cleared of all the scrub brush and saplings so the cow and goats will have some more range, and she'll use the brush hog to keep it down - the area has a spring running thru it so she needs to move some dirt around and provide a course for the runoff to keep it from getting marshy....so she'll definitely get some use out of the tractor.

She writes a blog - https://www.changewaterfarm.com/post/a-car-s-purpose

Jeni Kelsch is a 40-something year old mechanic. She does not work on cars much, but is an expert in the field of fixing. In one short day, she has been known to fix a sibling relationship, a dishwasher, an unpaid bill , a missed appointment, and an adequate dinner. She can build a goat barn, drive a tractor, and give you a reasonable guess as to what ate your chicken based on what's left. She is well read, if skimming counts as reading, and her hobbies include, well, everything mentioned above. Striving to keep her priorities in check despite circumstances, she  adores her husband, loves her children, and likes the dog.  In the future she would like to be a better mother, wife, artist, and farmer and hopes one day not to get kicked out of heaven for her muddy boots, poor spelling skills and salty disposition.

[MiniDave]

My daughter reports that the boys and she all used the tractor today, they re-profiled and graded their driveway - she said it was great fun and it worked a treat!

[MiniDave]

My daughter has posted another entry on her blog, I really enjoy her writings.....worth a read.

https://www.changewaterfarm.com/post/the-cold-hard-truth