All About Pocket Knives

Out the window to the back yard and the pond we seem to have a dozen or so Sparrows putting on a show. Saw one Blue Jay.

Starlings don't typically show up here until late winter - February or March. They come in flocks of hundreds and take over the bird feeders, usually accompanied by a few cowbirds and red-wing blackbirds. They run off all the songbirds and can empty two or three feeders in less than a day. When they arrive I sit on the porch with a pellet rifle and kill as many starlings as I can until they catch on. They fly to trees out of range and wait until I leave, then come back to the feeders. We play this game for several days and then they move on.

Ken

Our Glorious Moon ...................

Male and female red bellies at the suet.

A cardinal landed on a railing outside the window. Before I could EVEN try to get a picture it was gone. Day late and a dollar short.

Breakfast inside and outside. In the last photo you can find the uncommon Harris Sparrow.

My new project - a 1949 Farmall Cub. Something to keep me out of the pool hall this winter. Just brought it to its new home.

Ken

That's a pretty neat tractor, Ken.
I don't know anything about them but I like them.
What do you have to do to make it right?

The little Cub brings backs some memories of some 60 years ago. We had a Cub with a side mounted sickle bar mower. You had to raise the bar from horizontal to vertical by hand to move down the road. After picking it up, it was then secured with a rod and a big wing nut. The big issue here was not to place your fingers around the blades as the bar might shift and there goes the fingers. I see yours has a belly mower. I've never did any row cropping with a offset engine but lots of the old timers said there was nothing better for cultivating crops as all the work was in front where you could see what was going on. Every thing was manual, no hydraulics. I thought I was in hog heaven when it got traded for an 8-N Ford!
Thanks for showing your new toy!
Treefarmer

Thanks guys. Phillip, I'm sure the thing would give an OSHA inspector a heart attack! It's got exposed gears, belts and other assorted mechanical hazards galore. But that's the way they made machinery in 1949.

FRJ wrote:That's a pretty neat tractor, Ken.
I don't know anything about them but I like them.
What do you have to do to make it right?

I guess it depends on your definition of "make it right". As of now the battery is dead and it has old gas in the tank. So I'll start there and see where it goes. From what I could learn it has been sitting in a shed since the the prior owner died almost 2 years ago, at age 94. He used it to mow his place until then. Short story is, nobody wanted it and they needed to get it moved. It was free to whoever would haul it off.

We'll see where it goes from here but after I get it running I'll be looking for a set of cultivators for it. If nothing else I'll use it to cultivate my garden and mow a little. Maybe eventually I'll restore it and drive it in the 4th of July parade.

Ken

It seems like a handy size to have. And a good price too.

I guess I like the simplicity and power and durability of tractors.
I guess I think that because I really don't know anything about them.

Wow! That was quite a deal, people are really strange when it comes to disposing of some items after a death. Don't know the circumstances but do know the little Cub is probably worth at least $1500 and probably more. Two of my brothers-in-laws responded to an add for "Free wood" and ended up with a whole work shop of free power and hand tools. The folks sold the furniture in the house but gave away thousands of dollars of perfectly good shop tools just to clean it out so they could sell the place.
Ken you done good, brother!
Treefarmer

WW2 Special Service Baseball Glove & Ball

Keith

Ken, great project. Like Joe, I know nothing about them but find them fascinating, great looking machines.

Keith, that glove and ball are awesome. A family connection?

The glove and ball are really cool.

A Texas friend with her new horse Rebel.

QS,
What color is Rebel? We used call a horse that color a gray dun. He is a fine lookin' critter!
Treefarmer

Around these parts a horse that color is called a grulla.

Ken

treefarmer wrote: He is a fine lookin' critter!
Treefarmer

I'm pretty sure Quick Steel's friend is neither a "He" nor a "critter"...

Ken, Grulla is a new name to me. Had to look it up, a Southwestern term for a dun colored horse. I assume the two "ll"s are pronounced as a "y"? My wife had a grey dun with the dark dorsal stripe and the tiger stripes on the shoulders, he was pretty horse.
TFL, I guess we were on different pages.
Treefarmer

Sometimes what I write is a lot funnier inside my head...

I don't play guitar but this thing is gorgeous!

Haven't shown this photo of Ransom for a few years.

My little work place