Category: Farm

  • Summer Restoration Project

    My summer project has been restoring the ’47 A that has been sitting on our farm for as long as I can remember.  I’m not sure exactly how long long it’s been there, but I don’t remember it NOT being there.  I’m not completely done with it, but it’s definitely made progress!

     

    Working on the 1947 John Deere Model A

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    To this:

    UPDATE: I have tinkered with it a bit more (weather permitting), and it now runs a little better.

     

  • John Deere Model A Part Two

    After doing some research and finding out the the first tractor we had on our farm was a 1949 John Deere Model A, I decided to keep an eye online and see if I could find one.  At first I wanted to see if I could track down the original machine, but after realizing that was not going to be possible I decided to look for someone selling one of the same year.  I found this tractor, which is a pretty machine so I’m happy with it.  I know it’s not our original, but it gives me a sense of what my grandfather would have seen.  I can only imagine how it would have felt going from farming with horses to using this tractor!

     

  • John Deere Model A

    I love old tractors, and I especially love old John Deere tractors that we used on our farm.  I was looking at some old photos that my great-aunt Nola took, which contain a John Deere Model A.  I would love to find out about what year this tractor is.  I think it’d be fun to find one and restore one, especially where my grandfather spent so much time on it.  Ideally the exact tractor would be nice, but that’s not going to happen.  So I thought I’d post the photo, and if anyone can figure out what year it is I’d sure appreciate it!  My guess is between a 1939-1941.  Click on the image for a larger version.

     

     

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  • Farming in the fire

    Burning off the extra straw.  It rained so we weren’t able to bale it.

  • Branding

    Last Friday my dad was branding some of his remaining cattle.   Although a few of the photos here look a little bloody, it doesn’t hurt the cows any–it’s about like us getting our nails trimmed.

  • End of an era…

    My ancestors settled in Star Valley (Freedom to be exact) in the late 1800’s.  Samuel Weber was a swiss immigrant, who came to the United States after being converted to the LDS church.  Since so many people came to the valley from Switzerland, dairy farming was the source of the local economy.  Since Star Valley also highly resembles Switzerland it quickly earned the nickname “Little Swiss” or “Little Switzerland”.  The Weber’s have been farming and running a Diary in Freedom ever since.  That changed today, however, as the cows were sold and headed down the road in a semi truck headed for Utah.  With the current economy and lack of labor and management, it was no longer feasible to have the cows.  Though they may be gone, we’ll never forget the hard labor of those that have came before us to give us what we now have.

    On a side note, I’ve also posted a few random shots that I took today.  I flew home from my mission on April the 14th (same as today), and that year we didn’t have any snow left.  Today there is still quite a bit of snow, but it’s been pretty warm (except for today) so it should melt off pretty quickly.