It seems to me that I just updated this thing, yet I look back and I see that over a month has passed since the last entry! So much for more regular updates. :/

Things have been busy both at the shop and at the farm, and they will likely only get more so as the weather warms up and more and more stuff comes in. MARCH came in like the proverbial ( Read more... )

     As I mentioned in the last post, what I do with failure analysis is more like a Post-Mortem than anything else; The idea is to go through whatever evidence I have (usually an oily pile of broken parts and shrapnel) and try to figure out what happened.  The customer is always hoping that I will find a factory defect, and the factory always ( Read more... )

     Wow....  That was a bit of a hiatus, wasn't it ( Read more... )

     A while ago (on January 24th, actually) I posted that I had finally managed to get the forklift here at the shop running.  Well, that was partially true - it was running, but not as well as it ought to have.  In fact, the more it ran, the worse it got, until it just wouldn't start anymore.  At first, I thought there must be more issues with ( Read more... )

It's sort of a tradition in our house that Tuesday nights are Kraft Dinner nights; it's quick and easy to make, and everyone likes it. It's a good, simple, comfort-food. Still, one doesn't turn down a free steak supper for KD.

My Briggs & Stratton sales-rep was in town this evening, and he took me to supper at the King's restaurant, ( Read more... )

     I made it safely back to the farm shortly after 5pm on Wednesday afternoon; The trip usually takes about 5.5 hours, and this was right about on the mark.  Whatever the problem was with the fuel-gauge, it seems to have cleared up and everything is working normally again ( Read more... )

     We made it back to Shaunavon around 6pm last night without any problems; The sky was overcast, but the roads were in excellent condition.  Much of the snow from the blizzard that ripped through the southwest has already melted, though there was some evidence of it here and there, particularly where snow-plows had piled it up in places.  The ( Read more... )

     It isn't too often that I see my dealer-reps in person, maybe once or twice a year as a rule.  Today however, I was paid a visit by both the Briggs & Stratton rep and the Kohler rep - barely half an hour apart too!  Kelly (the briggs rep) dropped off some more information about the upcoming fall-season pre-booking program, and Dwight (the ( Read more... )

     My gut feels like I got kicked (or punched) but otherwise I'm feeling a lot better than I did yesterday at 3am.  Looks like this was the standard 24-hour stomach-flu that's been making the rounds all over town.

The Big Question I had to deal with yesterday was whether or not to go in to the shop, as I was expecting a shipment from Briggs ( Read more... )

     Fair warning...  The icon and the unusual hour of posting should give some clue as to the contents...

Yesterday started off OK enough, other than the cold grey skies forewarning of the approaching snow-storm.  We knew about the upcoming storm (such as it was) from the weather forecasts though, so that wasn't unexpected.  Have I mentioned ( Read more... )