Monday, November 09, 2009

The Oliver overhaul is complete

Cliff's brother, Don, arrived Thursday evening, and they started overhauling the Oliver that very night. It's funny to watch the two brothers work together: Don overhauls things for a living, and he's always been somewhat hyper anyhow... "slam, bam, thank-you-ma'am" is his style. So he likes to move fast and slam things together. Cliff likes to work steadily, but with lots of thought, taking no chances, studying each move to make sure there's no error. Because of the different ways they're wired, they get on one another's nerves at times. My daughter said it's like watching an old married couple, the way they bicker. Here's a slide show I put together that shows how they progressed with the work on the Oliver 1855.



Because our weather for the weekend was warm and sunny, Cliff's sister and her husband decided to ride their Harley from St. Louis and join in the fun.

The overhaul was completed by Saturday night, and the forecast for Sunday continued the spring-like weather pattern we were experiencing.

We decided to ride part of the way home with Charlene and Pat. We ate dinner together in Sedalia, and rode with them as far as California, Missouri, where we waved goodbye to them and turned toward Versailles; we had time to stop by Cliff's favorite aunt's house there and say hello to her. Unfortunately, she wasn't home.
It was a good weekend with lots of family bonding. Great times.
I have a video of the Oliver being started up for the first time after the tuneup. I've shared it on Facebook, but it's so funny... and so typical of Cliff's brother... that I simply must add it here. There's mild profanity at the end, where Donald thought there was a problem (there wasn't).
Notice the big smile on Cliff's face as he listens to his tractor running.



Now Cliff has to break it in somehow. I'm sure he'll think of some way to do that. He has two gigantic plows his brother brought him, but we don't have that much space to plow on our property. He's thinking of asking a local farmer if he'd mind someone plowing on his river-bottom property, now that the crops are put away.

4 comments:

  1. We had spring like weather here too. Wasn't it a blessing! I would imagine any farmer would love to have someone plow for them...for free.

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  2. It was a beautiful weekend here also. A pretty one to ride in. Bet it was amusing to watch the brothers work. Hurricane in the gulf now and part of it will reach into AL and GA. Supposed to really rain here tonight. I hope there are no tornadoes swinging off the side of it. Helen

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  3. LOL...that grin was priceless :)

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  4. We've had beautiful weather in KY the past few days. Today is another beauty but cooler weather is moving back in the rest of the week.

    It sounds like all of you had a great weekend together. I'd watch the video's but I'm on dial-up and it takes forever. I'm sure that ride on the motorcycle was relaxing and that Cliff is one happy man to hear his tractor running.

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