Tractors

[heavyhitterokra]

Tractors

Until 2013, we used to work our garden with a team of mules and a team of Haflinger garden ponies and nothing else.  My neighbor, Bill Trammell would show up here at 7:00 am, with a team of mules pulling a yellow and green wagon with a spare team of Haflingers hitched to the back. 

The wagon would be loaded with a double shovel plow,  a lister, and a dismantled section harrow.   We'd head straight to the garden and get to work with the plows until the spare team would get fidgety, then, we'd trade teams and keep on going.  By day's end, both teams would be so worn out that they'd stand dead in the harness without a fidgety bone left in their bodies.  By the end of the day, Bill and I would be in similar shape as the two teams were.  It was hard work.  It would take us about two weeks to plow everything under, harrow the weeds out, rake up the bermuda sprigs and load them on the wagon to sprig the pasture, and raise all of our planting beds to be covered with plastic.  At the time, we were the only Registered Certified Organic Garden in Cherokee County.  The 13th in the entire State of Oklahoma.  For that reason, our Certification always sports the number 13.  Once we had finished plowing our own garden, we'd head down the road to plow the neighbors' gardens too.  We'd plow five farms per season, plant potatoes on all five, then return on July 4th to harvest them all as a community effort, where there would be a big fish fry and potato fry at the end of the long day.

We did that every year until a friend of ours felt sorry for us and loaned me his 2040 John Deere tractor.  

By the Spring of 2015, (two years later) I took an early draw on my retirement and bought myself a 2615 Massey Ferguson.  That was a tough decision for me, but I got to thinking, "Why wait until I retire to buy myself a tractor when by that age I'll be nearly too old to use it.  (I'll be turning 60 this season).  It was a good decision.  We retired the mules and ponies and use the tractor exclusively, now. (Bill is turning 70 this season).  The mules and ponies are about 20 or so. 

I have about a quarter acre garden (about 150' x 150' feet square).  It used to take Bill and I two weeks to break that with a team of mules and lay off our Plasticulture by hand.  Now, I can do all of that in about two days.


This year, I grew a cover crop of Red Clover, Hairy Vetch, and Rye.  I planted it last August, so it had plenty of time to grow before Spring.  When I turned it under this morning, it was 25" inches tall.  It took me about 5 passes to work that all under with the Bush hog tiller attachment that I now have on my tractor.  I can't image how long that would have taken using the garden ponies or the mules! 
Old 'Earl' breaking our garden back in February of 2011.

Old 'Red' getting ready to go to work in March of 2021.

The Bush Hog Tiller.  It's a 60" inch, reverse rotation model.

My winter cover crop this morning.

My clover was 25" inches tall when I started.

It took most of the day and about 5 passes to turn it all under.  That was a pretty good day's work.

[woodeye]

A very nice setup you have there. Isn't it amazing how good those tillers work? I've had mine since 2009, not the same brand but it is a 5 footer. I'm still in awe of that thing. I was using a 5 hp walk behind tiller until I bought my Kubota in 2009. I got the brush hog, tiller, and wanted a turning plow but the salesman talked me out of it and sold me a potato plow instead. I use the potato plow a lot, but I sure wish I had not listened to him about not needing a turning plow.

I did get the front loader and it has been a Godsend to me. I've used it extensively for all kinds of stuff around here, not just loading dirt and such, but for being an extra man. For instance, last month when the heatwave hit, my window air conditioner went kaput. I ordered another one, it was delivered 2 days later. The new a/c weighed 112 lbs. and as old as I'm getting, I can only lift 107 lbs.  It was a 3 man job and I was the only man that showed up for work that day. Anyway, I managed to unbox it and scoot it into the front loader of the tractor, raised her up to the window slid her in there.  Could NOT have done it without the tractor and front loader. As it was, it was an easy job...

[macmex]

I've found my old tractor to be a wonderful help, and for some of the same reasons. It's such a huge help when I'm doing firewood or moving compost.




My tractor is a Long 445, constructed in Romania in the mid 1970s. It's no where near as agile as a Kubota but it is sure a blessing to me. 

[woodeye]

Man yeah, that is all that is necessary. I like that, plus that log splitter you are towing would sure be a big help.

I can't swing a splitting maul nearly as good as I used to be able to. I had to downsize a bit and cut the wood for my smoker about 6 or 8 inches long. You can barely see the little splitting maul I use nowadays, it standing upright on a chunk of wood on the tarp in front of the chair in the 2nd photo. Stacked it green in my garage 2 years ago to dry out...

[heavyhitterokra]

Woodeye, what kind of smoker wood is that?

[woodeye]

Jul 1, 2022 12:33:38 GMT -6 heavyhitterokra said:

Woodeye, what kind of smoker wood is that?

HeavyHitter, I don't know how in the world I missed reading your question. Whoops, my bad...

In the tractor bucket and on the tarp are pecan.

The wood stacked in the garage is post oak. My favorite smoking woods are hickory and post oak mixed. It makes a real strong flavor, but that is what I want because my taster and smeller ain't as good as they used to be. 

I also cut and split some blackjack oak, but I haven't tried any of it.

[heavyhitterokra]

My favorite smoking wood is pecan; it's not as bitter as hickory. However, it takes a combination of woods to get the very best flavors. For that, I use red oak as my base material, until I get the desired amount of coals to last a few hours, then I add pecan, and top that with just a little bit of hickory. I try to never let my heat rise above 250 and slow cook things as much as possible.

[woodeye]

I've got this Humphreys smoker, and I still haven't tried smoking squash in this year. But that will happen sometime this weekend. I'd smoke meat at the same time if I could find some at a reasonable price. Not gonna happen soon with beef, but I like whole pork loins and Cook's hams, etc. I don't have any red oak on this place, but it sounds like it would be good to try...



This is the Flame Boss control I use, the controller works with wifi, I can watch the temp on my cell phone. I can be shopping in OKC or wherever and check the smoker temp, or change the smoker temp if I want. I'm usually just sitting in my recliner when I run the it though. The only temperature I have ever used is 225°, but I can change it to whatever temp I need to if the situation calls for it...

[heavyhitterokra]

Nice smoker!

If you smoke any squash, be sure to rub it with oil and sprinkle it with seasoned salt first, they are kind of bland, just smoked with no seasoning. The little ones about 4" inches long are best. I smoke a lot of pork ribs here. They run about $2.25 per pound, so for about $12.00 I get enough meat to feed 6 people. (Two ribs each). Pigs have 13 ribs. I smoke them for 2 hours, then finish them in the oven for two more hours. Sometimes, when it's too hot to turn on the oven, I wrap them in foil and go 4 hours in the smoker with mostly coals. Four hours of smoke makes them a little bitter otherwise. I unwrap them the last half hour or so, to get a little bark going on the surface. (That part has to be played by ear) when they are the color I like, I pull them.

Pork Boston Butt is another cheaper cut that always turns out good for pulled pork sandwiches and such. I smoke those for two hours, then put them in the crock pot overnight. I very rarely smoke any beef; it's too expensive.



These are just a few photos we snapped with the smoker that we built back in the summer of 2020.  It's made from an old 24" inch by 48" inch air tank.  This is the room where we normally scuff and buff, but we pulled all the cars out of the bay to do some welding inside where it was cooler.  this part of the shop is air conditioned.  It was about 100 degrees outside at the time. This used to be the old air tank for the paint booth, but it developed a pinhole leak in the bottom and no one trusted it not to explode, so we replaced it.  It had been in service since back in the 1970s.  Man, was that thing built well!  It turned out to be made of 1/4" inch cold rolled steel.  It was as heavy as a tank when we were finally done adding do-dads to it.  No pun intended.

It took us about a month of weekends to put it together, but we created a lifetime of good memories in the making of it.  We didn't have any sort of plan, we just started cutting and welding things out of our heads and this is what became of the giant pile of scrapyard parts that we had available to us at the time.

This was the day of reckoning; the smoker's maiden voyage.  It was 6:00 am, we had about $200.00 worth of meat to get ready to eat by lunchtime, on a brand new smoker that we were not yet familiar with.  It was kind of a scary challenge, but as it turned out, this smoker holds right at 250 degrees all day long on its own.  I've never seen a firebox so easy to maintain; 250 is just its natural groove.  When the wood fire burns down to coals, that's where she likes to be.  Very convenient and definitely not planned.

The day we got it finished, we got together up at the shop and put on a BBQ for the whole crew.  For size reference, those are solid core/no-flat  4.80/4.00-8 wheelbarrow tires.  This thing is HEAVY!  We considered putting duels on it but had already spent more money on it than we intended to.

The boys at the shop and their wives, enjoying a really good meal together.  We smoked 4 racks of ribs, 5 pounds of hot links, 5 pounds of bologna, and 4 gallons of baked beans that day.  It was August 6th, and hotter than Hades, but man, was it ever worth the effort!  That was a really good day.

[woodeye]

Ah, good to know. In that case I'll use this on the squash. It's my favorite for spare ribs, boston butt, baby back ribs, country style pork ribs, etc. After the cut of meat is washed, dry it on paper towels, then use oil to slick 'er down. Sprinkle this seasoning on it fairly heavy, then let it rest in the refrigerator overnight. Fire up the smoker next morning, and smoke 'em. I too wrap the ribs or hams or whatever in foil halfway through what I figure is the cook time. Depending on the time of the year, I finish them in the oven. Right now I would wrap them and finish them in the smoker.
This is my favorite...

[woodeye]

WoW! HeavyHitter, Great story behind an outstanding smoker build! 

I'm sure it was a ton of work, but one thing is certain, you'll enjoy the fruits of your labor for the rest of you life.

Awesomeness abounds...