[AT] Red tractor day

Sat Jan 3 10:35:43 PST 2015

Dean:
I have a 1/4 mile of fence line with over half looking like that picture 
of yours.   I am lucky though, as my Cat 110B excavator is still running 
fine though leaking at the bucket cylinder!  (That is a $60 and 12hrs 
labor repair for me. )  When you grab hold of one of those Bois D'Arc 
trees to pull it out, If it does separate from the ground it will have 
roots going 50 to 100 ft in all directions.  Most of the time they are 
connected to the next trees and on and on........  If you can get a skid 
steer with a tree saw you could make pretty short work of it, and save 
your  Walnut trees.    I know we have discussed it before, but those 
thorns will be a real pain on rubber tired equipment.  I use a product 
called Liquitube in my non-ballasted tires to take care of those pesky 
thorns...

I wanted to get my fence lines cleaned out and repaired while Dad was 
still living to give me some help.  However, he would not hear of it 
since he sold all our cattle and was hell bent on selling off this 80 we 
live on..   I was always going to move to the larger farm South of here 
about 50 miles, but one problem after another with squatters caused me 
not to get it done.  Now that I cannot stand for more than 5 minutes due 
to my back, I have to get all the fences replaced.  A job that is nearly 
impossible for me unless I can do it from an equipment seat...

You have a great place, I wish you well in getting it shaped up to your 
needs.

Cecil in OKla

On 1/3/2015 11:32 AM, Dean Vinson wrote:
> Thank you, gentlemen.  I am indeed lucky, and I have indeed worked hard, and
> also been patient.   This coming summer will be the 20th anniversary of my
> finding and joining ATIS, and I think probably dozens of times over the
> years I've posted some variation of "I still hope to return to rural life in
> a few years" or "One of these years I'll move back out of the suburbs."
> I'm profoundly grateful to have finally had the opportunity--and for a place
> like this to have come on the market when I was in a position to do
> something about it.
>
> My fiancee (I've been able to introduce her to a few of you at Portland or
> Greenville) and I have known for some years that we'd end up together and
> wanted to find a nice old farm, and for a long time we'd entertain ourselves
> on a nice Saturday afternoon by driving around the countryside and looking
> at farms and farmhouses, learning about the various areas within feasible
> commuting distances.   A few years ago as my youngest finished high school
> we started looking more seriously, and I got more serious about getting my
> former house ready to put on the market, we began working with realtors and
> going to farm auctions, etc.   Looked at lots of places, and although I
> would have been happy with many of them she had a more dispassionate eye and
> was able to point out things that really weren't what we wanted, so we kept
> looking.
>
> In the summer of 2013 we found a place at auction that we both got very
> interested in just because of the setting--the house and barns weren't much
> to speak of but the land and woods were as perfect as one could ever
> imagine, lots of beautiful gently rolling USDA prime farmland, spectacular
> hardwood woods with a nice little creek, long tree-lined driveway, no big
> highway within earshot, red-tailed hawks lazily circling overhead, etc.   We
> went to the auction to bid but the opening bid from another bidder was above
> our upper limit, so that was that.  But the disappointment at not getting
> that beautiful place was strong and stayed with us, so we resolved that the
> next time we found something really special we'd do a better job at
> researching what it was really worth and what we could manage.   Couple of
> months later this place came to our attention.   It's a longer commute than
> we had planned and farther from extended family, and the woods don't hold a
> candle to that other place, and the price was more than what we'd previously
> felt comfortable with, but the house and barns are beyond what we'd dreamed
> of and the setting and serenity are certainly wonderful.   Took a week or so
> of discussions and sleeping on it and figuring out just how it might be
> workable, but in the end we went for it and I have never had a moment's
> regret about doing so.
>
> And Dean VP, indeed, I love that 620 and have never had a moment's regret
> about purchasing it also!   I had it out just the other day--I really only
> needed to move the brushhog from where I'd parked it to another spot since
> I'd decided to rearrange things a little, but then once I had the brushhog
> hooked up I figured I might as well go clean up some scrubby undergrowth
> from an area I'd recently cleared of obstacles... sure is fun.
>
> As for dozers and clearing the osage (yes, aka Bois d'Arc, also aka hedge
> apple), well, I think I'm constrained to a lower-intensity approach for the
> time being.  (I'm not *that* lucky.  :)
>
> It's certainly a ton of slow-moving work to tackle that stuff mostly by
> hand, but there's no particular rush.   And the mass of big osage trees
> conceals two very good-sized mature walnuts, and I'm discovering, in at
> least a few areas a whole bunch of much younger walnuts.   So part of what
> I'm doing is clearing out away from them, giving them some room to breathe,
> which means careful hand work in the vicinity.   Well suited to a
> low-budget, slow-moving approach.
>
> Although, the other day, when one of the endless and thorny and flexible
> young osage branches whipped back and hit me on the cheek as I was dragging
> its host branch out of the tangle of adjacent branches, I did contemplate a
> more nuclear option...
>
> Dean Vinson
> Saint Paris, Ohio
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
> [mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of Dave Rotigel
> Sent: Saturday, January 3, 2015 10:13 AM
> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
> Subject: Re: [AT] Red tractor day
>
> I would think that Dean, like so many who live in our great country, found
> that the harder he worked, the luckier he got. Strange how that seems to
> happen when people have the freedom to follow their own path in their own
> way!
> 	Dave
>
> On Jan 3, 2015, at 9:46 AM, Richard Fink Sr wrote:
>
>> Dean all i can say when i see photos of your place is WOW. How does
>> one family get so lucky. And tractor still looks good R Fink PA
>>
>>
>> On 1/2/2015 5:51 PM, Dean Vinson wrote:
>>> Yesterday and today were comparatively warm and dry, so I spent quite
>>> a bit of time cutting back the osage orange hedge, a very small
>>> portion of which is visible at the far left side of this photo.
>>>
>>> http://www.vinsonfarm.net/photos/farm_panorama_20150102.jpg.
>>>
>>> Hauling the cut branches to an increasingly gigantic burn pile is a
>>> job for the red tractor rather than the green one, since the red one
>>> is easier to get on and off, easier to back up, and typically has the
> little wagon
>>> hitched to it anyway.   The green one comes out when I need the rear
> blade
>>> or the rotary mower, both of which at times have roles to play in the
>>> long process of cleaning up this hedgerow and the 5 or 10 yards on
>>> either side of the main line of trunks that has become overgrown with
>>> the sprawling osage branches.
>>>
>>> Here's a view of an area I haven't yet begun to work on.  The thorn
>>> briars that seem to accumulate under those branches are a nice added
>>> bonus, in case I manage to escape most of the thorns on the young
>>> osage branches themselves.
>>>
>>> http://www.vinsonfarm.net/photos/osage_orange_20150102.jpg.
>>>
>>> Dean Vinson
>>> Saint Paris, Ohio
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