Friday, March 17, 2023

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!   With our Irish heritage, it seems like this holiday should have more significance to us that it actually does.  It was 5 generations ago when William Carnaghan ( somehow the silent ‘g’ in our name was dropped in America) emigrated to the USA from County Donegal.  Why he landed in southern Indiana is a story lost to history.  But we do know his offspring: William’s son John, then Enoch, then Welker, then Lowell (my dad), then me, and then my son John–and his daughters, the 7th generation of this Carnahan clan in southern Indiana.  No, there is no special celebration here, except for wearing a little green (my favorite color) on this day.   One interesting fact is that there is still a small community on Inch Island in County Donegal that bears the name “Carnaghan”.  Yes, I’d like to visit there one day.

It has been a mostly quiet week, with Brandon sweeping out two bins of corn.  He has also delivered a few loads to both GPC and ADM.  John has been servicing tractors.  While performing some annual service, he put $1600 worth of new filters on the CIH 420 Rowtrac tractor.  Next, he will give the JD 6145R tractor its annual servicing.  It only has 185 hours on it so far, but it will get a thorough inspection and servicing with new fluids and filters.

I understand that our JD 9360R tractor will be coming into our shop next week so that the local dealer can perform an update to it called a “PIP”, the acronym for “Product Improvement Program”.  Along with that, the relatively new JD R15 rotary cutter (bush hog) will also get a PIP.

I took some time this afternoon to bring the JD 6145R tractor into the shop for a good wash.  It gets really dirty setting in an open-front storage building, and now it is looking good again.   I used some “Andyclean” soap to help make that tractor shine!

I like it when the tractor looks shiny!

I have one more Gen 4 screen that needs the spring 23 update.  That will take about an hour, and I’ll get that done next week.

We will be watching the Boilermakers this evening as they begin play in the NCAA tournament.  After a season of above-expectation basketball, we are hoping for a deep run into the tourney.  Those hopes are tempered, of course, by the now-43-years-since making the Final Four.  Let’s hope that long drought ends this year and that our team can play in the Finals at Houston.

Have a lovely weekend.