wolc123

Those stories remind me of one of my old neighbors, who’s been gone for quite a few years now. He was real particular about his tree stands and he called anyone who he didn’t know “aborigins”. One opening day morning, he walked up to his stand in the dark, to find it occupied by one who he said “looked like MR T”, with lots of glistening gold jewelry hanging from his neck. As he stood below and looked up, the trespasser asked “do you know what time it is ?” My neighbor’s reply was: “Yeah, it’s time to get the hell out of my stand”. He was a good guy and I miss him and his hunting stories. He traded me my first cultipacker (probably my second favorite foodplotting tool, right behind my 2 row John Deere 246 corn planter) for a case of genny cream ale.

You’ve made me hungry, just looking at that. My wife was away this year, on Valentine’s Day, so she hasn’t pickled my deer hearts from last season yet. I’ve got two of them in the freezer, along with several beef tongues. I’ll try to get her to pickle them up before the end of the month. It looks like we may be heading up to her parents in the Dacks the last weekend in March and they really like the pickled heart. The tongue has always been my favorite though.

I’m hoping we get some warmer weather on the weekends, so I can comfortably work out on the barn on my broken down antique Ford and Farmall tractors. Too darn cold again today and tomorrow looks to be worse. I just fetched another bucket full of firewood from the woodshed up to the house with my John Deere loader tractor. I’m hoping to get at least one of those two antique tractors running, so I won’t have to do all of my planting work, with the John Deere. I especially like the old Ford 8n for plowing, because it has hydraulic “draft position”, which the JD lacks. That makes it much easier to maintain uniform plow depth. A nice thing about plowing with the 4wd JD though, is that the mud holes don’t even slow it down. It will easily pull that little 2x12” moldboard plow thru standing water. My low lying farm sometimes takes a as long time to dry out in the spring. The JD also has great hydraulic power on the loader, and that has always been able to pull or push me out when I get too deep in the mud for it’s loaded R1 tires. The old 2wd Ford 8n also has a little more ground clearance, so I liked that better for cultivating sweetcorn. It’s been pulling my 3 point cultivator crooked, since I leaked all the calcium out of one rear tire, so now I mostly use the Deere for that also. I always use the Deere cultivating my rr fieldcorn, because I run a 12 volt sprayer with it (the Ford is still 6 volt). I apply roundup to the rows at the same time I’m cultivating with that. The 2 sprayer nozzles are up on the loader frame.

I’ve still got the original sales receipt and product catalog from there for my 51 8n (I’m the second owner). My dad moved off the family farm in Wolcottsburg, to a little place outside of Swormsville, after he got married to my mom. Our neighbor across the street at that house bought that 8n brand new from Yoders. Those Fords were for the rich folks back then. That neighbor was the top paid union guy at “the gyp”, the largest employer in our town at that time. Grandpa couldn’t afford a Ford, so he went with a new JD M from Choats in Alden. Dad would drive grandpas JD , M, with its mounted 2-bottom plow, home to plow our little garden every spring, and then he would borrow the neighbors Ford 8n with its 3 point disk, to work it down. When that neighbor passed away, his widow offered it to me at a good price, back in the mid 1980’s. That was my first tractor. He had only used it on his small garden snd ours, so it had very few hours on it. I’m hoping I can get it running in time for spring plowing this year. It really is fun to plow with. It plowed better the last couple years than it likely ever did, because I accidentally drained the calcium out of the furrow side rear tire. That evened the traction and it pulls almost perfectly even now. It’s got some mysterious electrics issue going on. I’m hoping that a new 6 volt coil I bought at NAPA corrects it. Like I always say, the best thing about owning an old Ford and Farnall (my cub had a similar issue now also) is the appreciation they give me for always having a JD available to get the work done.

The 9n’s were geared too low in reverse for plowing with a backward facing back blade. The 8n’s were perfect though (same ratio as 3rd in forward while the 9n was the same as 1st). I used one for many years for snowplowing that way and it worked great with loaded rear R1 tires with chains. Much better than it did with a factory front plow. That took too much weight off of the back end.

I could sure go for one of those BUC Ruben’s, but it looks like I’m going to have to settle for leftover crockpot roasted neck roast at home for lunch tomorrow in WNY instead. It sure does smell good right now. I turned it down to “keep warm”. Just got in from several hours of moving snow and firewood, so I worked up a pretty good appetite. The 2 pb&j sandwiches that I had for lunch just didn’t quite cut it. It’s a little early for supper, but I’m not sure how long I can wait before having at it. I’ll try holding off until 5:00.

My father in law had a big on the back of his 125 hp cabbed 2 wd tractor, back when he lived in WNY. He must not have cared for it too much because now that he’s moved up to the NW corner of the Adirondack park, and takes care of the snow removal for the roads and about 25 residences, around a little lake up there, he gets by with a big hydraulic adjustable v-plow on an open station 65 hp 4wd tractor. That plow mounts in place of the loader bucket on the loader frame and is controlled with the bucket control levers and maybe one additional remote cylinder. I think it’s about 9 ft wife when straight, and tilts to ether side or forward or backward facing V. I also gave him my old 3/4 ton 4wd Chevy pickup, which he fixed up and mounted a plow on. He used that the first 2 years up there, but has been using the open tractor more the last 3 or 4 years. He may be wishing for a blower and the cabbed tractor now, with all the snow the have been getting this year, but I haven’t heard. They are a little north of the usual Lake Ontario snow belt, so maybe it’s not been too bad, where they are. The first year up there, the drifting was always horrible across the road on the north end of the lake, which runs north-south. The next few years, I helped him put a snow fence across the beach on that end, which helped a lot but was also a lot of work (mostly for me driving the posts). The last few years, we have laid out a bunch of floating docks across that end, after pulling them out of the water in the fall, with his tractor. They work almost as well as the snow fence and no extra work required. How nice it is to not need to drive all those damn snow fence posts with the pile-driver when I’m up there on my annual October early ML huntcation. I also used a back blade on my 8n for the first few years at our house. I was a lot younger then and it didn’t bother my neck that much. It does a little more now but it’s a lot faster with the bigger blade on the back of my larger 4wd tractor. I do prefer plowing the lighter snows with the front blade on my old Farmall Cub. Too bad it, and that old Ford are both broken down right now. It’s a real challenge keeping those two brand of tractors running. Owning them certainly has given me appreciation for always having at least one John Deere available, for getting the real work done. I’ve never had too much trouble with the bucket loading up with snow on my John Deere 4120 loader tractor. It usually all shakes out pretty good when I dump it. I just finished moving two mountains of it from the ends of our driveways in fact. That bucket holds about 1/2 face cord of firewood, which I hauled up to the house from the woodshed after I finished moving the snow. There was hardly any snow stuck in there, after a couple hours spent moving it. It also works good for moving butcher waste back to my coyote/crow bait carcass pile:

Maybe so maybe not, but He certainly does help the helpless, which all of us really are. Some more than others I suppose, and I’m certainly one of the more helpless ones, as one here is always pretty quick to point out. Without 60 years, of near continuous miracles, I’d have never survived childbirth.

Ah, but it is: Just pack one of these little books and pull it out when the going gets tough. scratch one “fatted calf”

There really is only one “foolproof” hunting scheme, that has always worked for me. The best thing about it, is that it works for fishing too. What is that…. : total dependence on our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Not one single time, have I deployed that method, and not been successful. It’s written right there in the Good Book, that God populated the earth with fish, fowl and animals, for the primary purpose of feeding mankind, and that JC Himself has the final say of where all of those living things end up. Any other tricks and schemes are nothing but a bunch of horse crap. Keeping things right with Him is the only way to go. I’m slow roasting a little “rainbow stew” for dinner later tonight right now and boy does it smell good in the house: Merle Haggard would love that if he were still around. That’s a whitetail doe neck roast from my woods with taters, carrots, silver queen sweetcorn from my garden, powdered beef gravy mix, and genny black cherry vanilla kellerbier.

I like a back blade facing backwards. Mine has shoes on it and doesn’t dig into the stone driveways too bad. I have a rear light on the tractor, in addition to the headlights, because most of my plowing is done in the dark. I move most of the snow with that and use the front loader bucket, mostly just for pushing up the banks at the ends of the driveways. The front loader pushes snow the best, in the “float” position, which is accessed by pushing the hydraulic control lever all the way forward until the bucket lowers all the way and trips the internal hydraulic detent switch. That allows the leveled bucket to ”float” over uneven surfaces. I can’t stand any type of snowblower. They are only good with light fluffy snow and when you have very limited space for storing it. I’ve got plenty of that. I’ll be heading out after lunch, to bucket the big snowbanks that have built up at the ends of the driveways, into the middle of our front yard. That’s always a fun job.

We’ve got the most snow that we’ve had in many years, at this point of the season north of Buffalo, right now. I just brought a grease gun and an extra tube of grease in from the barn, to warm up by the woodstove, for a few hours. The snowbanks are gettting built up well over 7 ft high at the ends of the driveways such that visibility is severely restricted when pulling our vehicles out onto the road. Im going to spend the afternoon making some “Wolcottsburg alps” on the front yard with my loader tractor. I do most of my plowing with a 3-point hitch back blade and normally don’t use the loader much in the winter. This will be a big job for it, taking care of our two driveways and my aunt’s next door. A good “warm” greasing before and after will do it a lot of good.

I’m not sure if I can make it up that way prior to Memorial Day weekend. Definitely can’t this weekend. I’m not sure if they will have enough of the snow cleared away for much parking by then. It don’t look like there will be much break in the temperatures, and the Lake Ontario snow-making machine, until next week.

Have they ruled out reopening ? I heard that the fire damage wasn’t all that bad.

I enjoy the winter and could never survive south of about Gettysburg PA. My Aunt, next door, has been spending winters in your area of GA with my cousin, since my uncle passed away, (3) years ago. He also liked NY winters. I prefer these real old-fashioned pre global warming winters more than the mostly lame ones that we’ve had since the early 1980’s. If I knew for sure they were going to continue a while, I’d look into getting another snowmobile. The last one I bought was a new 1997 Polaris XCF. After about the 3rd almost snowless year, around 2010, I finally sold that. Our winters have been so lame the last few years, that I haven’t even owned a registered 4wd vehicle the last (5). I am thinking of registering my Dodge Durango field car prior to next winter though, especially if it’s looking like it’s going to be another old fashioned snowy cold one, like we’ve had this year. I took that bastard for a spin out through the frozen snowy fields last week and it really did well in the deep stuff. It would be nice for running back and forth to work on the snowier days.

We were up to about another 8” today and I just finished plowing our two driveways and my aunts next door (took about 1/2 hour with my bigger tractor). My mom called when I finished and said visibility is bad over there (about 20 miles to the south east) and she doesn’t want me driving over. A local guy plows it for them for $30 a shot with his pickup so she’s calling him. He only does the one little driveway by their garage. I’m going over there Tuesday night anyhow, to pick up their suv for inspection at my buddies shop and for dinner, so I’ll clean everything up good with dad’s tractor while I’m over there then. The 8” of additional snow that we got later today would have been a bit much for my Farmall Cub. It probably would have taken me a couple hours to have cleaned all that up from the three driveways that I just did. The low fuel light started flashing on my tractor 2/3 of the way thru. Fortunately, I had a 5 gallon can of winter mix diesel in a can in my barn. Several of my buddies with bulk tanks have reported fuel freeze and gel issues this winter. That’s why I like getting it in 5 gallon cans. I still add a little power serve, from the white bottles, to each can in the winter. I use the performance mix with injector cleaner in the grey can the rest of the year, and have never had a fuel issue with my diesel tractors.

I am also very thankful for the way God answered my prayer on that buck (thanks for reminding me about that). After I missed him with my crossbow in November (wasn’t sure it was a clean miss because I never found my bolt). I prayed that “God’s will be done” regarding the carcass recovery. Little did I know that He’d make me wait a month for that “follow up” shot with my ML on that Tuesday evening, one minute before sunset. That was pretty sweet because it was much easier to deal with the carcass in the cold weather and faster to process with less fat to be trimmed post-rut.

I definitely prefer the taste of whitetail deer over beef and pork and certainly over chicken. It has nothing to do with money for me. After pretty much being raised on farm raised domestic animals and birds (mostly chicken), I haven’t paid cash money for a chicken dinner since I moved out of my parents house.

I had a similar situation going on, but only with a few inches. All level ground here, which makes things much easier. I was wishing that I had plowed last weekend at home, but I skipped it. I wouldn’t have, if my Farmall Cub was still running. It was cold all week and finally got up to 33 yesterday evening. It snowed about 4” overnight. The 2 “slightly thawed” inches below and fresh fluffy 4” on top all peeled off pretty easy with the plow on back of my bigger tractor this morning. We’ve got a couple more inches of fluffy stuff in the driveways now and it’s still falling very lightly. I’m going to plow it again at around 4:00, then drive over to my parents and take care of theirs with dad’s cut. It’s still fun plowing snow with the two John Deere tractors that I have at my disposal. Especially in the daylight on the weekend.

I certainly did mess up there, on a big doe last Holliday season. If only I had used my laser range finder, I wouldn’t have taken the 200 yard shot, that I thought was 150. My bigger mistake on her though, was trying to save some meat, on a neck shot vs a center of mass finishing shot, when we tracked her into her bedroom, after wounding her in the leg with my initial shot. Talking to my neighbor at church this morning, it sounds like she’s healed up pretty good from the leg wound that I inflicted on her last December. I had a feeling she’d be ok, based on the 5 miles or so of terrain that she covered, as we tracked her after I “clean missed” that follow-up shot. He was in the cabin back in his woods yesterday, when he got an alert on his cell phone. One of his cameras picked her and her grown fawns up. She was doing well, completely recovered. She will be tougher to kill now for sure. Maybe I can get her this September, with the new Savage 220 that I hope to pick up. That should give me a legit 200 yard effective range. I’d definitely put that at about 150 with my Omega 50. It certainly had no trouble double lunging this guy at 125 yards last December, landing the bullet right where I wanted it: (32) Old does are much smarter though. It ain’t going to be easy, getting the best of that old battle worn one. Edit, I certainly wouldn’t have taken that ill-fated 200 yard shot with my Omega, were there not still way too many deer around here and had I not struck my first with my suv, getting its first dent, just a week prior. I’m down to shooting at any legal deer, if I think I have a 75 % chance of a clean kill since that, where I needed about 90 % certainty prior. I definitely owe that fine photogenic 3.6 year old 8-point buck to the new deer shoulder sized body line on the passenger side fender of my suv though. Without that, I never would have rushed home from work and got up in my stand on that last Tuesday of regular ML season.

Even though we seldom seen eye to eye, I’ve always appreciated your insights. One of these days, we’ll have to meet up at the Brewer Union Cafe or someplace else in the neighborhood. Too bad it looks like the Longway diner shut down. I always wanted to check that out.

I’d rather be getting it in feet now that my Farmall Cub is broke down, but we’re still getting it in inches, here in northern WNY. Lake Erie is frozen solid now, so no more lake effect for us.

I’d like it a lot better if my Farmall Cub plow tractor hadn’t broken down on the last snowstorm. That thing is a real joy to plow snow with, and it’s so small, that I can really “stretch” the fun time with it. This has been a real old fashioned winter, like we haven’t seen in these parts (north western NY), since the early 1980’s. Unfortunately, that Farmall Cub breaking down has also shut down what I was hoping would be a little winter firewood processing. My splitter shed was open and ready for business, but I had to push the dead Farmall into that space, with my larger 4wd John Deere turbocharged diesel loader tractor. Thankfully, the plow was up on the Cub, when it quit running due to an unknown electrical issue. Now, I don’t have any inside space available to haul wood into for splitting. Frozen ground time of winter, had been my favorite time to make firewood, back in the good old “pre global warming” days. I was going to take the rear snowplow off of the John Deere, put the forks on the bucket, and start hauling up logs from the woods and hedgerows. Now, with the busted Farmall Cub and Ford 8n (also has an unknown “no spark electrical issue), there will be no time for that until summer, as has been the case most of the last 40 years. Mt “lowest ground in the area” is usually way to muddy to drag and move logs on, outside of mid to late summer. The very best thing about owning a Farmall and a Ford Tractor, is the appreciation that they give me for having a few John Deere’s around, to get the actual work done. They also provide good entertainment in the shop, trying to keep them running. I cleared our two driveways and my aunts next door, with my John Deere this morning, before church. It cleared up pretty good for that, but now snow is coming down good again with low visibility. If it clears up before dark, I’ll head over to my parents, about 29 miles away, and clear there driveways with one of dad’s John Deere’s (a compact “Yanmar powered” version). That had an issue with a chain rubbing on the rear fender, but I added some wheel spacers and got it working wonderfully, a couple weeks ago. It’s about the same size as my Farnall Cub but no where near as fun to plow snow with (I get a bit of a stiff neck with the rear plow compared to the front one on my Farmall), and the operators platform is sized more for smaller Asian folks. That little Yanmar diesel sure does run like a watch though. They have a gas well on the property over there, so they've always got free natural gas and dad keeps the tractors in a shop heated to 60 degrees all winter. That makes for real easy starting in the winter. At home, I keep my John Deere diesel plugged into an electric block heater and run that at least a half hour prior to any cold starts. I’m holed up in the house now, enjoying a good book in front of the wood stove, where it’s 75 degrees and very pleasant: I’ll warm up some leftover chicken pot pie for lunch shortly, and maybe head over to ma and pa’s for some more snow plowing, if it clears up before dark. My wife made the pot pie for dinner last night, and she headed down to her brothers place in VA for the week, before church this morning. She left plenty of leftovers for me and our daughter, but we’ll be making something on our own, by weeks end, I would guess.

The whole “challenge yourself” deal seems counterintuitive to me. I think we owe it to the deer to kill it as humanely and quickly as possible and that sometimes means minimizing the personal challenge to ourselves. I will always choose the most lethal, reasonably cost, legal weapon available, in a given season. That said, there is no doubt that sound is one of the primary concerns when hunting and that creates a space for archery equipment for deer hunting. In that area (archery season), I will always choose the most lethal, legal combo available (a crossbow with mechanical broadheads) even though it is currently legal only during the peak two weeks of the rut in NY’s southern zone and (3) earlier days in the northern zone, for most able bodied hunters. Several years ago, a former site member posted the results of non-biased study, based on archery deer hunting on a private vast expanse of military property, which clearly showed evidence of the “clean kill and recovery” superiority of the crossbow / mechanical broadhead combination compared to other combinations, including vertical compound bows and fixed blade broadheads. I’ll admit that I often fight a personal desire to bring out my old open sighted sidelock muzzleloader, with which I’ve never been able to harvest a deer, and use it during our current ML seasons. So far, I’ve been able to successfully fight off that urge, since obtaining my scoped inline. One of these days, If my meat supply is good and I still have an unpunched dmp tag or two by January 1. I just might not be able to resist the temptation of giving it a try. Until then, I’ll stick with my fully legal in all current ML seasons in NY, in-line 50 cal TC Omega with 2-7x Redfield scope. (31) I do appreciate the fact that NY does allow an early antlerless gun, early archery, early ML (in some areas) middle gun, and late ML season. I think the long run and “breaks” in between allow for a greater overall deer harvest which helps both the deer themselves, as well as the deer hunters, and even more importantly, others including motorists, homeowners, and farmers. Personal challenge is best left for sporting events that don’t involve God’s living creatures.