O.K. Enough winter!

Wow!  What a weather week!

Monday was good.  Tuesday saw cooler temperatures and fog and drizzle.  Temperatures plunged below freezing, and stayed there.  Sleet, rain, some snow flurries.  We ended up with snow and sleet on top of ice!  Very hazardous driving conditions.

Georgiana drove over Tuesday morning and since we could do nothing on the farm I decided to drive her to a meeting in Big Spring.  On our way back we cut across to Snyder and ate at the Butcher's Block (in the Old RS&P depot).  By the time we headed home, it was getting slick.

We lost power Tuesday evening late, only to have it come back on about three in the morning.  I had stayed awake and went through the house blowing out candles. 

Wednesday we had more wintery weather and the forecast was for even more.  Traffic was barely moving so Georgiana decided to stay another night.

I had calls from Colorado and New Mexico asking me about road conditions.  I told them wherever they were was as good as they were going to get, from Lubbock to Roscoe and East was extremely treacherous.

I did make a trek to Sweetwater and bought some groceries, just in case we were weathered in.  The sixteen mile roundtrip took me two hours (including shopping time).

Georgiana and I cooked a casserole out of my brain Wednesday night that not only fed the body but generated some warmth!

New Years Day Memama cooked a light breakfast and soon after Georgiana and I began cooking.  We cooked a ham, black eyed peas, creamed potatoes, and cornbread.  We also fixed some rotelle dip with hamburger meat, green chili's and cream cheese to have with chips and football.

Thursday afternoon about three twenty, Georgiana decided to drive home.  Two and a half hours later, she texted that she had made it without incident.

Thursday night it rained straight down for almost an hour and a half, followed by sleet, followed by fog, followed by power going out.

It came back on during the night, but Friday afternoon we lost power and it didn't return until Sunday afternoon late.

Our central heat is propane but requires electricity to run the fans, the oven is electric because the new propane ovens have ignitors which require electricity, and finally the range is electric.  Only our hot water heaters are propane and working.  Thankfully we are on bitter creek rural water so it didn't matter that our water well had no power (although it proved a problem for the horses boarded here).

I became so frustrated.  I would report the outage, then three or four hours later call to report it again and the automated system would say there is no record of any outages in your area.  Once in a while I would get a response that there was an open ticket for our address.

Needless to say, I think Sharyland's outage reporting system SUCKS!  I am not upset at the Sharyland employees, but I feel that Sharyland management has taken profits over maintaining and upkeeping their power grid.  We have been with Lone Wolfe, Caprock,and then Sharyland as each absorbed the other.  The first two were rural cooperatives and early on Sharyland was, then they wanted to become a for profit corporation, yet have the protection afforded cooperatives.  I had a front row seat for this mess when I was at St. Lawrence, which is smack dab in the middle of Sharyland's back yard.

I am not a Sharyland fan.  I was thrilled when they got out of the residential retail, and I was hopeful one of the other electric deliver companies would take over their grid, at least in our area.

I may have to write a letter to ERCOT.

Back to my story.  When we redid the propane under the house last summer, I put a riser in the hallway to Memama's bedroom.  (When we got central heat and cooling Pepa had all the risers removed or capped throughout the house).

Saturday morning I went to Sweetwater and bought a 10,000 BTU propane heater, the last in town, and I came home to plumb it in and light it.  I could close the middle bedroom door and the door to the big room and it would heat Memama's bedroom, bathroom and hallway.  In fact it would get them quite toasty.

We were making it fine until the water began to try to freeze.  I immediately had faucets dripping and we were using a bucket to flush toilets.

I will admit, I am spoiled.  I like electricity, and I like heat.  On demand.

I didn't get to see Baylor's ball game, I didn't get to see Alabama and Ohio State, and only a portion of Oregon Florida State.  We only saw a portion of the cowboys game yesterday.

I read a lot.  Gray Mountain, Grisham's newest book.

Yep, quite a start to the new year!

FATHER, thank YOU for our homes and protection from the elements.  We ask a special blessing on those men and women who worked through horrible conditions to restore our power.  YOUR nature is mighty and powerful.

Be careful what you wonder about.

Throughout the harvest, I had questioned in my brain the connecting device used to join the two halves of the cross auger in the eight row header of the cotton stripper.  To be honest, on our first farm we stripped, I thought we might have a possible problem with the cross auger. 

We stripped about 750 acres after that with no issue, other than an  occasional hint of a possible problem.

We lacked seven and a half passes being through stripping (except for a lake bottom that has been standing water and muddy for months), when the possibility of a problem became a reality.

Let me back up a little. 

On December 17 we were stripping and our intention was to finish and move the stripper to the lake bottom at Wastella.  Just after dark my burr extractor and my fan warnings went off.  We had replaced the main stripper fan belt the day before, and since we right there we went ahead and replaced the extractor gear box belt too.  My first thought was one of these belts had stretched enough that it came off and caused the other belt to come off.

A quick look with my flashlight revealed both belts in place.  When I crawled into the operator platform and hit the switches, they still would not come on.  I pulled the buddy seat back out and began looking at schematics and fuses.  Everything appeared to be good.  As a last resort, I called my friend BJ, the service manager at Hurst in Snyder.  He told me there was a fuse on the back of the machine that controlled the fan and burr extractor circuits.  Sure enough, the fuse was blown.  We replaced it, I pressed the fan switch and the fan came on.  I pressed the extractor switch and both warnings came on and the fuse blew.

We lacked nine and a half passes.  I decided that whatever the problem was, it would have to wait until Thursday morning.

Thursday morning I called BJ and he gave me a number of diagnostic tests to do.  We isolated the problem to a short wire pigtail or the electrical clutch on the gearbox.  Finally the tests pointed at the clutch going bad.

I drove to Snyder and picked up the clutch. ($1710.84).  I left the hands to drop the gear box down so we could replace the clutch.  Late in the afternoon we were back together and I climbed into the cab.  Everything worked and I began stripping.  I stripped one basket and began a second one, when the warnings went off for rows 5,6,7, and 8.  After digging it out, we discovered only the left half of the auger was turning.

We lacked seven and a half  passes with the big machine when I pulled out and drove to the pickup and service trailer.  We removed a shield and found the right hand half of the auger to be disconnected.  We removed the end plate of the cross auger and pulled the big auger out.  A splined shaft that mounted inside the left hand auger and went through the center carrier bearing had broken.

Several months ago I had made reservations in San Antonio, for Georgiana and I to go and spend the weekend.  Originally it was to be a celebration of the finish of the harvest and a weekend of enjoying the lights and activities of the river walk.  These reservations were non-refundable and non-changeable.

I made the call, we were going to San Antonio.  We deserved it, and we needed it.

Friday on our way to San Antonio I called John Deere to make sure they had the parts we would need on Monday.

We had a wonderful relaxing time in San Antonio, it was just too brief.

On Monday Slats and I met at the cotton stripper and we began pulling the left hand auger so we could replace the splined shaft.  The right hand half is a piece of cake compared to the left hand side.  We got it out, replaced the broken piece and then straightened any bent auger flights while we had it out.  We also replaced the carrier bearing.  We finally reached a point where we were just tired of all the lifting and fighting with the heavy auger and pulleys and hydraulic motor that I just called calf rope.  The next morning we met at the barn and straightened all the bent auger flights on the right hand auger.  Once it was ready to go back into the machine I told Slats to come by the house.  I gave him his check and we took off for Christmas until the 29th.  (By the way, Dakota was a no show on Monday the 22nd so I fired him.  He said he had to report for probation but didn't).

On the 29th Slats and I finished bolting the left hand auger in place and installed the right hand auger and bolted it in,  Finally we were ready to go back to stripping.  We finished the seven and a half passes and moved the stripper to Wastella.  We were hoping for just a few hours of good weather to harvest what we could there.

I can now tell you every detail about how the two augers are tied together.  (Ugh).

It didn't happen.  Weather came. We had drizzle, we had rain, we had sleet and snow.  More sleet and snow, and more expected..

We had 59 for Christmas dinner.  ALL of Memama's 17 great grandchildren were here, and all of her 17 grand children were here.  Actually everyone of our immediate family that is still alive was here.  It was a grand day.

Grands on top, greats in the middle, Noble with his new tractor on the bottom.

Georgiana came Tuesday and stayed until Thursday, then it took her two and a half hours to drive to Abilene.

Happy New Year!  It was quiet here,  We had Rotelle dip,  I cooked a ham, Georgina did creamed potatoes and black eyed peas, we cooked cornbread, and we had lots of football!

Here is wishing you and yours a Happy and prosperous new year!

FATHER, thank YOU for new beginnings.  We ask that YOU bless this new year.