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My mom has been poking around going through old stuff at the house. She found this newspaper clipping from summer of 1974. Bruce of course is my late father. @Qball Yes... The Ugly Bruce. The plant in the following piece is still alive and thriving. If it was blooming in 1917 it was at least several years old then. So now it's 110? More? Horticultural Happening In Petersham By RUTH BASSINGTHWAITE PETERSHAM - Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Banks of Hardwick road recently had a "horticultural happening" in their home. A spider lily plant, last known to blossom some 15 years ago, began to bloom with one after another of the slender flowers appearing as day followed day. The bulb from which the plant has grown is known to be at least 60 years old, members of the family say. It belonged to the late Mrs. Lizzie Rich, Banks' great grandmother. In June of 1917 the plant responded to the bridal blooming month by wholeheartedly for the wedding of Edward and Mildred (Rich) Welch, the present owners' grandparents. Mrs. Vernon Banks, formerly Roberta Welch, had the plant for many years, but, not considering herself a green thumb expert, just "let it be" until her son and wife set up their own home. Mrs. Banks considers her daughter-in-law to be "a good hand with flowers" and it must be so. The younger Mrs. Banks noted that it was possible to witness the unfolding bud to flower production in an hour or two. How she had time to watch is a mystery to us as "almost four year old" Eric, and Heidi and Alana, nine month old twins, provide plenty of action every hour of every day.

11/16/25 I was going to look at a 314-8 with a BerVac 46” snowblower and a 42” RD (pretty mint!). 462 hrs!! He was the original owner and had all the paperwork from when it was new. So, we struck a killer of a deal. Did I mention that he said it hadn’t run in 6 or 7 years?! I rolled the dice, (I mean, hey it was a Kohler!!) I got it home. It was snowy out but i got the mouse nest out from under the motor tin and i pushed it back into the garage for the winter. Till today!! I did all the usual… cleaned out the tank, put in a new shut off valve, new lines, filter and primer bulb. I rebuilt the fuel pump and cleaned out the carb. There may have been a few things i forgot in there. But, primed the motor and it fired right to life!! It was a bit Smokey at first, 30 seconds into it and it didn’t smoke a bit! I made it around the yard once and the drive belt had had enough, it was toast!!

Just joking of course. I'd love to be up there with them. Not sure I'd do touch and goes in random fields they way they do, but fun to watch. I was running my compressor and didn't hear them in time to get great pics, but this is my back yard.

The 854 got a spiffy new set of adjustable tie rods commissioned from @ri702bill. Beautiful craftsmanship! Much improved steering now that the toe-out has been corrected. When giving it a test ride, I discovered that the tractor's left turn radius is a few inches tighter than its right turn radius when the spindle arms are hitting their respective stops. Only quirk is that the ball ends that I sourced have SAE threading on both the male and female parts, but the flats are metric! The shaft flats are SAE because Bill turned them from SAE hex stock.

I was using a push type reel mower on my lawn in Mo. Once, a couple teen ages came walking down the street while I was mowing. As they passed, one said to the other "oh, it's a lawn mower". I replied " yup, it runs on beer and cheeseburgers".

April 12, 1954 Bill Haley & His Comets record "Rock Around the Clock".

Not today, but YESTERDAY... We took a road trip to Mechanicsville to see @richmondred01. Along with the rebuilt K341s I bought home, I was fortunate to procure a nice straight fender pan and hood. Thank you sir! We took the scenic route home, through the Shenandoah Valley. The most difficult issue was iris continually trying to route us back to 95 and DC/Baltimore traffic. Aside from that, it was a really great day. Straight as an arrow, nice patina. And look, no spider cracks on the fender pan!

Doubled…maybe even tripled the value here ! Found a 300-400 series rear fender decal in my decal stash-pile that I’ll never slap onto a fender. Last picture is what I started with.

My son has begun to really like riding his bike, so I drug mine out of hibernation to ride with him. Apparently as I've aged, the amount of padding on my saddle grabber has disappeared. So I swapped the seat to the "old fart non-reclining couch" version, and it is so much better! Looks a little dorky on my bike but I don't care... It's a Cadillac now!

I was an Army pilot. We don't jump out of a perfectly good aircraft. Of course mine were helicopters so it didn't make sense anyway...

Getting ready to paint the thing Got it all mask off

A 310 I picked up this winter that needed some TLC. A very low hour tractor.

Let one boy drive the tractor pulling the cart and we picked up sticks in the back yard. He loved that. Needs to learn to be a little easier on the clutch, but he did good. He started it up, used the clutch and did the shifting. He also tried to run the daffodils over (front plow is still on). 🙄 I got to use my new battery saw, stihl ms 60. Cut great. Had to trim up some bigger branches. Then I ran the backpack blower for a few hours cleaning up the back yard. Almost 2 tanks of fuel. I’m tired now.

Did some staging on my bookshelf in the family room. The Nylint in the background is new to me.

Kinda side ish shot...

One of my favorite things to do on a Saturday or Sunday morning was to fire up the Dual Sport bike and head over to Sky Dive New England to watch the action. @kpinnc

That applies to more than wagons. When I start to think I really don't need another WH tractor....

We pullum to the barn then turn tractor around and push back in barn. We use to have a barn or two you could pull through which made it nice and one that was in a pretty flat spot with plenty of room and I could back wagon in it pretty good. Use to pull tractors with a young man 20yr my junior beat anything I ever saw backing a wagon he actually won the state FFA competition of wagon backing in high school. Man he could fly backing that thing, he could put two in a barn before I figured out which way to turn steering wheel first time .

Piece of fuel pump lever?

Here’s a video of it running after 3 minutes, (if you can see the video) IMG_5520.mov

Those are for the PTO bracket that was available as an add on. 8-3411 was the part number or similar. The same system came standard on later machines. I had the same thing on my Bronco for a while.

Gave the snow machine a bath to get rid of the salt and mud and cinders. It will go in the shed soon to free up some garage space.

Hauled quite a bit of rotten wood out into the woods yesterday.

I hear ya! My seat is similar AND my bike has a seat post shock.

Been riding quite a bit this week. Today I went on a stretch of the trail that I haven’t been on in a loooong time. It goes right thru the center of a small city which usually doesn’t appeal to me, but I actually had a great ride and eventually I passed thru the city and back into the woods. Stopped to snap a lot of pics:

RedSquare mentioned around the 1:02:00 mark

It’s not Friday but here’s a front end pic of my 1257.

I found some pictures of my 753 set up with the SGM-603. Note the swivel joints where the reel mowers connect to the arms and rear hitch. Wild Bill in Richmond VA

Spent the afternoon being very busy in & beside the backyard. Trina felled a BUNCH of small trees... ... while I did more chipping. This mulch pile is about the size of a tractor.

I gave the wrong part number before. For 1 inch shaft engines, it was PT-7. PT-7 manual The hard part to find is the engine pulley because it is so much smaller on pre 1968 machines.

Correct size and texture, no logo, available here

We just got back from a nice mountain walk. 4 miles. We have over 1200 acres of reservation land uphill and across from us.

Plaid sport coat, bow ties and enough grease to keep @peter lena happy!

Yes, one on left is metric 17mm (6203 bearing 17mmx40mmx12mm), an the other is imperial bore 3/4" (6203-12 3/4"x40(mm)x12(mm) using a seal and inner spacer. I have used the smaller metric shaft in the deep bearing housing by using an old bearing race as a spacer under the bearing. I knock the guts out of and old bearing and left over bearing race is the right thickness. This eliminates the seal and seal carrier spacer.

We went roboting this week. I volunteered to be a robot inspector. Fun job. Get to take a close look at the robots the kids built and talk with the kids about the robots. The upperclass team won the competition and was also awarded the Industrial Design award. The underclass team made it into the finals and were runners up to the upperclass team. The upperclass team is now rated at #38 worldwide, and the underclass team is at #328 worldwide. There are about 3,750 active teams this year. Both teams are qualified for the world championships that will be held in Houston at the end of the month.

The older I get the shorter my bucket list gets. Kinda wish I tried stuff that when younger.

When I was in 4-H we had tractor driving competition at the county fair. I hade never mastered the hay wagon backing skill (our hay barn was a pull through) but figured I would give it a try just for fun. I had one pull forward and the wagon was in place with no saw horses or ribbons disturbed. Next I hooked up the corn picker to back it into a stall and ran over two cones. All previously accumulated attaboys were now history.

Here is the wagon I built. No, it does not tilt but it is very stable. Also, you can easily unhitch it when loaded so long as it does not roll away. Backing a wagon is much more difficult than a trailer. I grew up on a farm so backing up hay wagons got to be second nature. However, these small wagons are more difficult as they jackknife quickly.

Lots of good wood for smoking. Apple wood smoked ribs on the menu anytime soon?

Put a little bling bling on that came from Vinyl Guy. Changed engine and hydro oil and filters and added oil filter cooling tin gasket.

Just got me a 418-8 tonight, been wanting one ever since I got a 418-A couple summers ago. Needs some cleaning up but runs sweet and decent older 48" deck. Of course the paper ID tag is wasted on it. What would be the model number on it?

Happy Birthday @Blackhood Bill, we are glad you were born.

I used the 1257 and dump cart to haul 2 truck engines (one at a time) from the back shed to the driveway so I can sell them. They’ve been taking up room in the shed for years.

Good seeing you guys as well

Agreed. You boys remember that come fall when Trina's lookin for great pics.

We got started on the boy's truck today. It's going to be a long process.

Installed vacuum gauge on 520 today. Not going lie was kinda dreading getting steering wheel off but was easiest one Ive ever tackled . Had to take lift control lever off but the hydro control got to stay just loosened up to allow dash to move out of way. The harder tractor pulls the lower reading number on gauge, I had it in my mind it would read the other way. Also does anyone know if someone makes/sells steering wheel center cap for the 520? BTW big thanks to @Bow_Extreme for vacuum gauge.

Here you go then The line up 73 16 Auto & C160 68 Raider 12 68 Commando 854

Installed a seat cover and spark plug.