Double Post!

Yeah, twice in one day. Lucky you!

Dad mentioned about a month ago that he thought he had seen Grandpa's old Chevy sitting up at St. Paul Equipment. One day, we were headed up to O'Neill to look at a tractor, so we swung through St. Paul Equipment, and sure enough, there sat Grandpa's blue truck, affectionately known to us as "The Bomb." It's an '88 Chevy K3500 4x4 with a 454. $500 and some help from my cousin Jake, and it's home again:

The key tumbler is all busted to crap, but a needle nose pliers works. We drove it around the farm yard a little bit yesterday when we got it home. I have some tires in the barn I need to put on it, it needs a fan, and I should probably fix the steering column so I can use a key. I'd like to get it running decent so I can use it to pull the seed tender/fertilizer trailers next spring. Guess it depends on how much time I have on my hands after I get the house done and Shay and I get moved.

Dad and I ended up trading for the tractor we went to O'Neill to look at. We traded in our John Deere 8120 (which had 190 horsepower) for this John Deere 8320 (which is rated at 215 horsepower - it's probably close to 230). It's an '02 and has 6500 hours, so don't be getting any ideas about us "rich farmers." I didn't get a picture of it while it was on the trailer, but I got a few after we got it unloaded. Here's one:

And here's the 8120 loaded on the truck, ready to head down the road:

It was kind of sad to see it go, as it was my first tractor. On the other hand, I'm pretty excited about the 8320. Hopefully it'll be a good tractor for us.

House Update

This is the bedroom. New ceiling tiles, ceiling fan, and painted. The two pieces of shiplap there are the beginning of the accent wall that Shay wanted and I was not so excited about. Here are some of the pieces of shiplap after some stain and a couple coats of varnish:

The shiplap is original to the house, which means it's really freaking old. Matter of fact, it's so old that nobody makes it in this size anymore. It's 1"x10" pieces of pine that have notches cut on the top and bottom. They then fit over one another. I'm using 1 1/2" staples and 2" brad nails to attach them to the studs. Here's where I admit I was wrong. The pictures don't do the wall justice. It's going to look awesome when it's all done.

To give you an idea, this is what the shiplap looked like originally:

We also had carpet installed in the bedroom on Wednesday:

Soft water and insulation have been installed, too. It's kind of nice to see things coming together. Here's the view from the front porch:

Some Stuff, Some Things

There's been some more work done on the house - did some painting, ceiling fan, a light fixture, sanded and stained some shiplap. The Culligan guys came last Friday, the guys from Builders are coming today to blow some insulation in, and the carpet installers are coming tomorrow. It's nice to see a little bit of progress. I was about to go insane for a couple of days there. I usually handle stress pretty well, but for some reason, this house thing is getting to me. It'll all get done. Some day.

I also need to go up to St. Paul Equipment one of these days and load up my latest purchase. They had one of Grandpa's old pickups on the back lot, so I gave them $500 for it. They said they had it running and drove it around the lot, so that's a plus. It needs tires, but I have a set in the barn, so we're good there. It also needs a fan, and when it got repossessed, they broke the key tumbler all to crap, so I need to figure out how to fix that.

Dad and I also bought a new (to us) tractor, and that should be coming soon. The salesman was hoping to line trucking up for Friday. We bought a John Deere 8320 and are trading in our 8120. With Dad going 12 row, it will be nice having the extra horsepower. Our 8120 put out about 190 horsepower. They were supposed to dyno the 8320, but I haven't heard what it did. I'm guessing around 230-235. I think I should put a straight pipe on it, but Dad isn't thrilled with the idea...

We're Back

I suppose I should've warned you all that we were headed to Vegas for a few days this week. We left Sunday morning and got back yesterday morning. Our flight left Vegas yesterday at 6:15, so we were up at 3:30 local time, which would've been 5:30 here. We just kinda lounged around the house yesterday when we got home. We had a good time - went to the National Finals Rodeo, gambled, ate, gambled, etc. Shay's parents took us downtown to the old part of Vegas, which I really enjoyed. I had been to Vegas once before, but we didn't go to that area. I actually like it a lot better than the strip. The Blackjack tables are a lot more fun and the cocktail waitresses come around more often. And they actually put whiskey in your drink. We had a good time, and I would share pictures, but they're on Shay's camera, which is in her purse. So.


Today it's back to the grindstone. Culligan is coming over to install a water softener in the house, and Wednesday the carpet installers are coming, so I need to finish getting the bedroom ready to paint so Shay can paint it Sunday and Monday. The bedroom is going to be really cool by the time we're done with it. We couldn't reuse all of the shiplap in the living room, because we couldn't find any new stuff to patch it with, so my brother Sam and I pulled it off of a couple of walls last Saturday and insulated behind it (I think I've mentioned it before, but the house has never been insulated, which will also be remedied). I saved as much shiplap as I could, because Shay wants to use some of it on one wall of the bedroom. I guess it's called an "accent" wall. Once I get the wood sanded and finished, I'm sure it'll be cool.

Hope all is well with everyone.