Unity Farm Journal - 4th week of July 2014

Just as running a winery isn’t all romance, art, and elegance, running a farm is not all romping with your animals, a joyful harvest, and making a profit from the fruits of your labor.Farming is hard work year round, during the hot humid days of summer, the wet days of Spring/Fall and the chill of winter.  There’s always maintenance and always unexpected tasks.Some of my farm related posts gloss over the details of day to day operations.  This week, I’ll give you a taste of the kinds of things that require attention.Our 1.5 miles of trails, our mushroom operations, and manure management all depend on the Terex Front Loader, at PT-30.   Last week, it began leaking hydraulic fluid (basically 30W oil) so rapidly that the roadways are covered with oil stains and the hydraulic fluid tank level is in the red zone.   I crawled under the front loader and found that fluid was dripping from the lowest point of the protective under carriage pan - clearly a hose had come loose or an o-ring had flattened.  The Terex weights 3000 pounds and I have no way of lifting it to remove the protective plates and do an inspection.   Thus we needed to arrange a truck to take it to a service center.   I used a pressure washer to remove some of the driveway oil stains but it has not worked very well.   I'm trying a variety of detergents to loosen the oil from the asphalt, but no magic bullet thus far.We have an eXMark Turf Tracer mower to manage our acres o...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - Category: Technology Consultants Source Type: blogs