Thursday, March 17, 2016
Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all. We think about our Irish heritage today, and William Carnaghan, (his name was ‘American-ized’ when he arrived) who emigrated to southern Indiana from Ireland’s County Donegal sometime around 1820. Since that time, there have been Carnahan farmers in southern Indiana. Although our grandfather Welker S. Carnahan was grain and livestock farmer, he also worked nights in an underground coal mine near Bicknell, Indiana during the 1920s-30s. Eventually, he could leave that job and farm full-time. Our dad Lowell Carnahan was the first to go to college. He attended Indiana State Teachers’ College (Now Indiana State University) in Terre Haute in 1931-32. But the family could not afford to keep him there; he left school and went to work full time after his freshman year. I don’t think we fully understand or appreciate the difficulties our ancestors faced. We are grateful to stand on their shoulders and experience things they could only imagine. Perhaps we will do the same for the generations to follow.
The NCAA tourney gets in full swing today. Our Purdue Boilermakers will play UA-LR at 430 pm. Gotta be home to watch the game! Even here in Indiana, where we love basketball, you ought to be able to get your fill during the next 3 weeks! If you can’t get enough, you’re not trying! Go Boilers!
Today, we finished off the repair of the augers in the Demco 1350 grain cart. We replaced both sections of the vertical auger with factory-new parts. This should make this cart last several years more!
Some of the process today…
John and Brandon install the stub shafts into the new augers
John starts the lower auger’s upper bearing and carrier into the socket. It took some taps with an 8-pound sledgehammer to get it pushed in completely!
The upper auger was carried to position by the forklift, but carefully pushed into the tube with the backhoe
Ross and John guide Brandon on the forklift to slide the lower auger into place
Almost there… now to remove the chain, and the auger will drop into the drive socket at the bottom
To finish off the repair, the plastic rotating spout is installed
After the repair, the grain cart is placed back in its corner of the big barn…awaiting harvest time
Finally, the other machines are stacked in front of the grain cart and combines.
This was an expensive repair, but not as expensive as trading in the grain cart for a new one!
If the weather remains dry, we may be able to get into the fields next week to apply some nitrogen for the corn, and to do some preplant spraying! Spring is coming, inching closer and closer…
#plant16
