Daddy Daughter doings.

Dad's mower was on the fritz.  He had taken off the wheel and hub, and asked if my husband could take a look at it.  He did, and a conversation ensued which I basically gathered, one of the axles is bad, we need to do x.

Not being able to assist much, I went into the house, so I wouldn't drop his Father's Day present.  Husband and I found him a 24 hour clock, with day, date, temperature, alarm... Pretty much think it could make coffee, if we found the right plug in.  Hee. 

Anyway, Mom and I were talking, and the guys come in.  Husband says he's going back to the house, and would I mind staying back and helping Dad get the tractor ready so it can be driven up on the trailer. 

Well, sure.  Hey, it's Father's Day, and I can have time with Dad?  Works for me...  We go out and I realize that I have on a light gray shirt. 

Urk.  Well, that's why they make cleaners, right?  So, we start working on getting the wheel lined up, at first I was holding the trouble light, then I started helping adjust the wheel while Dad worked with the jack so we could line things up.  Then we found which tools we needed, and after a minor boo-boo on my part, ratchet was backwards, and I was REMOVING the bolt. 

A-hem. 

A quick click, and we were good to go.  Adjusted the bolts, and chatted about when I was in high school auto shop, and about some times I had to take my car to a shop, as I had no place to do work on it myself.  The dingbat at the shop had tightened the bolt so tight, he'd nearly stripped them, and used an air gun to do so.  It was a charmer trying to get them OFF again... Sheeesh...

So, we got the wounded tractor back on it's way again, and soon enough Husband showed up, and they loaded up his tractor.

Dad and I both mused, that was a good day, we'd not done that for a while, and it was fun.

And, amazingly, I managed not to get any grease on my shirt!  My hands looked like I'd dipped them in India Ink, but the shirt was fine...

The Gate.

We have had trouble with our gate to the field since we've moved in.  The post holding the gate was in poor shape, and it hasn't been helped by wet, and cold, and digging, and general age. 

So, Husband surprised me while I was gone, and fixed the thing.  This was SO nice!  The post was leaning badly, so the gate drug in the dirt.  This made it hard to open, and harder to make absolutely sure it was closed.  We had several "chicken leaks", they would catch it any time I hadn't managed to shut it completely. 

He had to take down the post, which was more undoing the fence from it. 

He said the bottom... Was GONE. 

It had just been more or less holding position by the fence, and a support we'd put until some good weather to fix it occurred.  He had a new post, and put it in, re-upped the fence, put the gate on straight, no dragging!  We have to latch it now, before, it was like a plow, so it didn't move, willingly.  Now, I have touched it with one finger, and zzzwing, off it goes. 

So nice!!

The chickens enjoyed the after effects, in that Husband need to dig out the hole for the post, and so there was dirt they could scratch, as well as worms... Told him, had I been home, there would have been a race, because I would have put the worms in the garden!

And an added benefit, we can have the chickens in a large area, the main field, or in the hen yard. We have a second latch, on the small enclosure, and now I can enclose them, as I did the other day.  I want to see if any of them are hiding eggs.  If there is a significant amount of eggs the next day, I have my answer.  Otherwise, I guess they were a bit more freaked out than I expected from Husband's work day. 

So, I went to the coast, and came home to a present from Husband. 

Cool, isn't it??