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Very pleasant weather here in Central Missouri over the past week. The nights have been cold and frosty, but the days have been sunny and warm.

Yesterday was *almost* t-shirt weather, and I probably should have finished the garden cleanup or gone fishing, but other things got in the way of that.

We’ve been picking at the collards and kale. That stuff always seems to taste better after it’s been frozen a few times.

I’ve had Pops’ little Massey Ferguson 4x4 loader tractor in my shop for the last couple months. Mice got into it and chewed the return line nipples on the plastic fuel tank. It was pumping diesel out and making terrible greasy mess, not to mention a serious fire hazard, so we decided to replace the tank here rather than take it to the MF dealer. Big mistake. After tearing the thing into a thousand pieces it became clear that the only way to remove the tank in one piece was to pull the entire operator platform and firewall off of the tractor. Finally wound up using a sawzall to cut the tank into pieces so it could be removed. I’m going to fabricate a new tank from sheet steel. Already torn to bits seemed like a good time to replace all of the filters and fluids. Finished that and got it reassembled yesterday, so all that’s left is to build and install the new fuel tank.

Been chipping away at installing the rip-rap rock around my pond dam. This load is all going below the water line, so I’m having to hand-toss every bit of it. It’s a lot of work, but if prevents future muskrat tunneling in the dam it will be worth the effort.