Monday I’ll have a regular update …

We’ve had family in town the last couple of days, so life’s been busy. The past week we also picked up Ann’s new Ford F-350 Lariat Dually, which will allow us to do some heavier towing, such as moving cattle around, pulling a tractor with our tilt trailer, and potentially towing a heavier jeep (more on this next month if everything goes as planned).

We happened to get lucky that Ann was at the Ford dealership testing out front seats on Wednesday when the new Dually was delivered from the factory, only to be declined by the person who had ordered it and put down a downpayment. That was good news for us, as there is an 8-10 month wait on these trucks. Ann loved the comfort of the seats, so that pretty much sold the truck. (We had been looking at a Cherry Red Silverado Dually 3500, which we really liked, but the seats weren’t very comfortable).

Here are just a couple pics:

This past week I also got this last of-the-big bunkhouse projects completed. The rear of the house wasn’t very good looking. The crawl space access had a wood lid that tilted down towards the house, so water could run into a portion of the crawl space. In the middle is a septic pump that moves waste from the bunkhouse to the septic tank. To the right of that is the crawl space access. In front of both items is an area where the septic pipe from the pump drops into the ground (so needs to be covered.

Perhaps the biggest challenge was using reclaimed, deformed and twisted pressure treated wood to build this. Between cutting down he pieces and using clamps, I was able to straighten the wood enough to make it usable.  Now instead of two different doors for accessing the pump and crawl space there is one larger door.

Before:

After:

Barney noticed that this CJ-3A has a non-punched governor hole that looks slightly different from a standard stock body. This *might* be another item to look for in an aftermarket body. He noted that he isn’t 100% sure this green body isn’t stock, but it’s something to look for when reviewing a jeep.

Anyone else notice this on aftermarket bodies? Or, anyone notice that the shape of the stock stamp changes over the years, making this observation less dependable for spotting aftermarket bodies?

This photo of a red body is Barney’s jeep with a non-stock body. Now how rounded the surface of the bump is:

This is the green body from this post. It too appears rounded on the surface (and the inside looks like it has additional texture):

Note that the green body seems to be missing the “notch” along the top seam of the dash, which suggest also this isn’t a stock body .. see notch above hand brake in pic below.

This is a stock 1947 CJ-2A body. The Governor bump is flatter:

More info:

Peter shared this ” domino machine” that has a jeep-look to it. It auto-arranges dominos so they can fall in an orderly manner.

It’s been a long two months, but the bunkhouse exterior remodel is almost done. In the last week I have finished up the side deck and the front step. Unfortunately, the first time I installed the front step posts I was off by half an inch on one side and an inch on the other. So, I had to dig them up and re-position them. Ugh … anyway, I got everything fixed yesterday.

Yesterday, instead of doing updates,  I felt my age as I moved 65 bales of hay in 95 degree heat from the neighbor’s pasture to our place. It proved to be a good workout! We’ll likely buy all of his next batch (last cutting of the year) as well, making us well-stocked for the winter.

Tom Cruze has been a busy body. Here he is checking our the huge nectarines that have emerged (to our surprise). It seems trimming the tree this spring did wonders for both the nectarines and the peaches (also much bigger than last year).

When not climbing, Tom Cruze continues to be “one of the dogs”. Here he is showing the girls how tough he is. He’s also begun accompanying the girls outside to close the gate (a nightly excuse to take the girls for a walk). The first pic is pre-mayhem:

Continue reading →