Not a great weekend. I had been having trouble with my tractor for a few months. I have posted about that before. Last week I changed the hydraulic oil and removed the filter. Friday afternoon on my way home I rode my BMW R1150RT to Paige TX to buy a new hydraulic oil filter. They didn't have one and sent me to Giddings to get one. Well darn, that's further out so I went. Opened the door to the auto parts store to find an empty building. After looking around I saw there was an opening into another half of the building that was in operation. It looks like the auto parts place is cutting itself in half. Sign of the times I suppose. I asked for a hydraulic oil filter for a 1990 Ford 1720 tractor and the sales guy immediately went to work. I had expected a puzzled look and a "you want a part for a TRACTOR?" kind of question. They had one and I bought it. Had a nice ride home, put the filter on the kitchen counter (where all new things end up) and went off to do other things.

Mimi is improving. For the last 3 days we have been opening a small door that would allow Mimi out of the barn and into a large paddock. We've planted corn, sunflowers and other grains, grasses in there for our Buck, but he has been demoted to the outside for the time being. Mimi gets the good stall. She has finally emerged to the outdoors of her own volition. Of course we MIGHT have lured her with corn and apples and other treats. She brought her kids and they are having a great time learning to rototill dirt, push stones and food around and scamper around fighting with each other. Mimi was a bit more conservative and looked around and retired back into the indoor portion of her stall.

I got around to replacing the tractor's hydraulic oil filter and refilling the oil. Of course the tractor needed more than the 5 gallons of oil I had on hand, so a quick trip to Tractor Supply and another 39.00 dollars solved that problem. Put the oil in, started the tractor - it is still very hard to start - the goats were in the dogleg field so I had a chance to scoop some muck! What fun! Open the gate, shoo the mating peacock and peahen out of the way, start the tractor, realize that the tractor's left front tire is flat, run for the air tank, realize the air tank doesn't have enough air in it to fill a tire, turn on the air compressor to fill the tank to fill the tire and wait. Once there's enough air I run back to the running tractor and fill the tire. Yay! Success! I drive into the barnyard, scoop some muck, back out, put the tractor in neutral, put the brake on, remove seat belt, jump off and close the gate because after all this time the goats have returned. Jump back on the tractor, put my seat belt back on, put the tractor in reverse and....nothing. It doesn't move... just a faint whirring sound. All 3 gears and reverse. Nothing. I poke. I prod. Nothing. I took off part of the dashboard to look at the gearshift linkage. Nothing. Oiled it anyway. Nothing.

I was disgusted.

This afternoon while we were enjoying our late afternoon custom of sitting out watching the goats, I was bothered by a decaying animal matter smell coming from Mimi's stall. This tied in with the hundreds of flies that were swarming there yesterday and today. I was thinking there could be an afterbirth under the hay in one corner. Nope. Worse. I found 2 decaying piglets. Got them out of there immediately. Removed any hay that might have been in contact with them and powdered the area with Diatomaceous earth. Tomorrow the flies will be gone and Mimi will be more comfortable. So she had 6 piglets total. That falls nicely into the 5 to 8 for a potbellied pig.

As we walked back to the house after goat watching, I said I'm going to try the tractor again. Kristi watches as I start it and futilely try to move the tractor. She looks at it and says "What's this" pointing at the range selector lever. I told her what it was, shifted it into a different range at the same time noticing that it seemed to be in neutral. Put the tractor into gear and it worked fine.

S^#T!!