Last of the bow hunting season - leaf gathering and more equipment repairs

The last of the bow hunting season this year

To answer the question: did I get one? No, I did not.  

I saw plenty of deer on the trail cams and even from the blind behind the red barn.  However, I only saw one buck on the cams - and he was too small to take (and I never saw him IRL - just on cam).  

Friday morning I went out to the blind behind the red-barn and waited for a while -I was rewarded with quite a few sightings.  Many of the sightings were before sunrise, so that wasn't useful, however, I did draw a bead on a doe just after sunrise, but I decided against taking her in a split-second decision.  She was just too small and I really don't want to go through the hassle of cleaning and butchering a small deer.  

I was planing to go out Saturday morning too, but I was too tired and sore (and sick - see leaf gathering info below on why).  I still have hope for the regular season (rifle) that starts on Nov 28th.  I should really sight-in my rifle soon so as not to scare the deer off when the season finally kicks in.  I heard my neighbors doing that on Sunday before I left - high-powered rifles are LOUD!

Some pictures from the red-barn game cam earlier in the week.

Plenty of does.  Some quite nice!

Leaf vacuuming time!

If you look back in the blog a bit you will see that I thought that I got my leaf vacuum and lawnmower all set for leaf gathering...  Well, i was wrong.

I got the mower and vacuum started and vacuumed up some leaves.  After the first load was dumped I noticed that the mower deck was not level and i was cutting higher on one side than the other.  As I continued to gather leaves this unevenness seemed to get worse until, after the 5th load I think, I was gathering some leaves in the persimmon tree area (quite hilly) and I got stuck.  After the usual fiddling around I determined that the mower deck had come off and was acting like a big (and effective) brake.  I went and towed the mower and leaf vacuum up to the shop using the tractor.

After some investigation I confirmed that the mower bracket repair that I had made last year (?) had broken off.  But not only that, one of the spindles had also broken off two attachment flanges!

Broken flanges on one of the spindles

Broken bracket repair

So I pretty much spent the rest of the weekend on fixing this bugger.

First step was to TIG weld the bracket back onto the deck.  I had used the GMAW (stick) weld before and really messed it up bad.  I had the amperage too high, and just blasted away a lot of the metal. That's why I chose to TIG weld this piece this time.  TIG is good for building up missing metal (well, I feel that it is anyway).

Here I am setting up for the weld:

It was definitely hard to get a good shot after painting everything black!  Oh well.  The weld was better than the stick weld.  We will see how long it lasts!

Reverse Side of the weld

Ready to attach the new spindle

Bolting the new spindle on

All done.  Spindle on and belt guides installed

Mower deck back on and vacuum reattached.  Ready to go!

I also removed, straightened and sharpened the blades while the deck was off.  Whew.  Almost a whole day spent repairing this!

That was all I had time for.  I cleaned up the onion harvest and bagged them up for the trip back. Then I took off for home/

This is why you need to weed the onions!  Oh, and harvest them on time too - don't let them sit in the wet ground!