Good Thing I Went To The Farm Expo

I spent some money today. I needed a hydraulic fertilizer pump for my tractor and they were on special at the show. I saved $150 on that bad boy. I can't find a good picture of the pump, so you'll just have to imagine it. 

I also bought a hydraulic top link for the 3 point of the tractor. I paid $400 less than the John Deere dealer wants for theirs. 

Not sure if you can really see what it does there if you don't already have an idea... 

Basically, we attach a lot of our implements to our tractors with the 3 point hitch, seen here:

The top link is the, well, the top link of the 3 point that is attached to the tractor. This one shows the standard top link. These need to be adjusted when you're doing certain field work - field cultivating, cultivation, hilling, etc. It has to be adjusted manually and can be a real pain in the butt because you have to make sure it's not carrying any weight when you go to adjust it, and you obviously have to stop and get out of the tractor every time you want to adjust it. Also, most of them don't move without a very large wrench. They get a lot of dirt and fertilizer and crap in them and basically hate me. I usually end up cussing a lot when I have to adjust one. The hydraulic top link eliminates all of that by operating through one of the tractor's hydraulic remotes. I can adjust the top link now with a lever from the cab. It's not absolutely necessary, but it makes adjustments very easy, especially since you can do them on the fly. Instead of guesstimating the right amount of adjustment, I can watch the adjustment while I'm still working. And I cuss less.

Yeah. I'm a farm equipment geek.