RichC | April 14, 2024
Photo from working in yard in Spring 2017 Our old John Deere 330 16HP diesel tractor, that we use for all kinds of yard chores, required another battery this spring. It seemed like just yesterday that I replaced it, but then I realized it was replaced back in 2012! Amazing longevity for a Walmart Ever […]
RichC | June 15, 2022
Big storms ripped through our area on Monday night and left a mess of things in much of SW Ohio. Lots of tree damage and even a loss of power for 24+ hours in our neighborhood. I spent the lunch hour working with a couple of neighbors to clear our lane and yet still have […]
RichC | May 26, 2022
I have put off buying diesel fuel for the Kubota mower and John Deere 330 as long as possible … but inevitably the reserve of 25 gallons stored in fuel jugs gets used up. It looks as if it is time to pay $$$ the inflated prices on fossil fuels — elections have consequences (pre-Russia invasion […]
RichC | June 8, 2021
It was a “work around the yard” weekend for me and besides power washing the patios on Saturday, I cut down honeysuckles in preparation for the new concrete driveway project later this summer (if it is still scheduled and affordable )? Along with sawing trees and hauling limbs, I started the old dried out honeysuckle […]
RichC | May 19, 2020
As mentioned on Sunday, the delayed Amazon shipment of the Kubota fuel pump set my maintenance and repair plans back a bit, but I did get around to replacing the previously substituted fuel filter in the John Deere 330. We mostly use the old John Deere diesel tractor for trailer duty (and snowblowing), but ever […]
RichC | May 13, 2020
After shipping back the defective mini amplifier that I purchase a few weeks ago (grr!), I decided it was a nice evening for a drive in the old Mercedes Benz 300D Turbodiesel. Since I was out and needed a few gallons of diesel fuel, it seemed like a good time to fill up the jugs […]
RichC | December 24, 2019
While putting the snowblower on the John Deere this past weekend, I notice the instruction/warranty booklet for our garage door opener hanging on the unlatch rope. I’ve unlatch dozens of times, repaired the door, the opener and sensors more times that I can count … yet have never removed the booklet. It just hangs and […]
RichC | September 4, 2019
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RichC | June 14, 2019
After the weekend bonfire for Taylor’s birthday party … without burning down the woods or catching any trees on fire … I told myself, “I’m never going to let the pile get that big again.” From now on the fires need to be of a “reasonably” safe size. Now, what that size is … I’m […]
RichC | January 15, 2019
With a “heavy snowfall” that amounted to about 10 inches before melting a bit, I was thankful to have put the snow blower on the tractor last week. It was about the wettest snow I’ve ever tried to blow and that’s saying something since I’ve been removing snow with the John Deere 330 since the […]
RichC | January 12, 2019
The Raspberry Pi Cam photo automatically captured the backyard snow during a break in the falling snowflakes. The storm was well forecasted, so decided it was time to put the snowblower on the old John Deere 330 diesel tractor. I hope the wet snow will “blow” as my preliminary shoveling has me thinking it might […]
RichC | October 14, 2018
Eleven years ago I replaced my noisy 1980’s 2-cycle John Deere brand "heavy" string trimmer with a much quieter 4-cycle Troy Bilt trimmer (Pony TB465SS). Both were, and are, used heavily as I’ve always had acres of yard to tend. At first glance it was obvious that the John Deere "back in the day" was […]
RichC | September 8, 2018
Since we are just north of Cincinnati and smack dab in the middle of the heaviest projected leftovers of Gordon, I made sure to finish up the lawn cutting chores before the expected "very heavy rain" this weekend. Hopefully it will just be rain unlike Hurricane Ike a few years back when we lost trees, […]
RichC | August 13, 2018
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RichC | June 7, 2018
Several of the parts for our now 10 year old Kubota ZD326s have arrived so I started the process of cleaning, greasing and replacing the "broken and beat-up parts." I’m still waiting for the air filters to arrive from China, but have the Kubota branded oil filter and Chevron Delo 400 SDE 15W040 diesel oil […]
RichC | March 21, 2018
Wouldn’t you know it … as soon as I take the snow blower and chains off our multi-use John Deere tractor that I use to clear our driveway … we get a forecast of more snow. Murphy’s Law I suppose? Earlier in March as the weather warmed, so Brenda asked when I would have the […]
RichC | January 7, 2018
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RichC | December 23, 2017
Just a beautiful sky (photos doesn’t do it justice) as the new LED Christmas spots and candle lights pop on as I head up the driveway. Good for the blog archive. After a cold start, having sunny but cool weather right before Christmas is welcomed … but should be thinking about getting the blower put […]
RichC | October 24, 2017
A couple days late in posting, but the weather was ideal for jumping on a few chores before the weather turns sour. Since the lawn was still in pretty good shape, I was able to use those weekend hours to repair some of the nearly 2000 feet of 4-board fence that borders our backyard — […]
RichC | June 28, 2017
Did you ever find yourself spending way too much time on something where it makes no logical sense? Well this is the case for a set of my wife Brenda‘s salt and pepper shakers … of which she has many. Her grandmother had a collection that was split between her grandchildren and daughter-in-law (Brenda’s mom), […]
RichC | May 31, 2017
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RichC | October 17, 2016
Actually this repair is long, LONG overdue. A decade or so ago when I was heavy into running biodiesel, a sticky batch of fuel ended up in our John Deere. I really never hesitated to run about anything in this little Yanmar diesel engine, but the biodiesel was a mistake. The solvent nature of the […]
RichC | October 13, 2016
After doing a little maintenance and replacing the front tires on the John Deere 330 last month, I finally finished the simple 10K generator setup and wired up a new longer power-to-house cable. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to come up with a mount that makes it easy enough from my wife to connect the generator […]
RichC | September 5, 2016
One of the home/yard updates last week were new tires on our 30 year old John Deere 330 diesel lawn tractor. It has been a great small tractor and the 16 HP Yanmar diesel has performed flawlessly year after year. I’ve rewired and “plumbed” (rubber hoses with Viton) the fuel system do to an electrical fire a […]
RichC | August 29, 2016
It is not all that unusual to have storms roll though on hot summer afternoon/evenings, but the dark skies with wind and lightning keeps me attentive to the weather after recent damage in Indiana as well as Ohio (or a Lightening Bolt Killing 323 Reindeer in Norway!) We had a hot weekend with temperatures in the […]
RichC | July 26, 2015
How old is this utility lawn and garden trailer? If you haven't been reading along, it's 40 years old. Of course close inspection would indicated that their was rust, but all in all, my father-in-law's old trailer came back to life nicely … and the green is much more in keeping with our old John […]
RichC | July 26, 2015
One of the projects coming together this past weekend was the disassembly, wire-brushing the rust (a lot), and painting of my late father-in-law’s old red Jackson lawn trailer. As mentioned previously, it was about 40 years old, well used, and had quite a bit of rust. Nevertheless, it was well made with quality steel – […]
RichC | August 11, 2014
One of the small projects this past weekend was to replace the plastic disposable fuel filter on my John Deere 330 a new inexpensive diesel fuel filter (less than $10). The new filter has a glass site tube and fits my modified fuel lines. The element inside this small filter is replaceable (3 for […]
RichC | February 5, 2014
The winter of 2014 has been one of the colder and snowier in southwestern Ohio that I can remember (although we had some snow in 2010). In previous years, putting the snow blower on the old John Deere 330 was almost optional, but this year it has been used and abused more that any since […]
RichC | July 17, 2012
I enjoyed a little back and forth reminiscing this morning on Twitter with a friend of mine who shared a photo of his dad on his old 1951 Ford 8N. It brought back a few memories of my Ford 800 (searching for an old pre-digital photo) when we lived in Hudson, Ohio … and before […]
RichC | July 26, 2008
After 23 years of mowing with our sturdy John Deere diesel tractor mower, we have finally succumb to the “keep up with the Jones” pressure of a new zero-turn style mower. The neighbor ladies referred to my wife as “the turtle” while mowing with the old slowpoke John Deere, even though it has continued to […]
RichC | May 26, 2007
Oh … I bought a new toy this week; and I came on it by accident. After stopping in at several hardware stores, and shops that handle John Deere equipment, in an attempt to find a new spool head for my 2-cycle John Deere string trimmer — vintage 1980s — I ended up purchasing a […]