tumbler started up

[deepsouth]

Hi all , it is with great pleasure that i can bring you the pictures of the latest tumblers. My shingles slowed me down these past 6 weeks , but I am getting on top of them now.
Yesterday I managed to get a motor in town and got it fitted . Measured the amount of rock that went in the barrel at 60% fill and it came to 15 pounds.

Let them rrrollllllllll !!!!!
The sound is great rumble rumble etc

Jack

I got a 1/4 HPmotorand it appears to be happy with the load. Only one barrel filled as the other was used only for polish which I intend to keep it for.

[sandsman1]

hey jack now thats a tumbler haha,, no beach is safe from you now --hows the noise with the steel drums are they alot louder then the rubber barrels?--i like the setup you can do alot at once nice setup --seeya--john

[krazydiamond]

hope you don't have any real close neighbors, Jack, and that you are a little hard of hearing to boot, "rumble, rumble" my arse! nice looking set up tho, nice poundage, too. what did you charge them with? the pet wood you got the other day or beach finds? (seal teeth....ewww?)

i hear the shingles can be extremely painful, tough row to hoe as they say. glad you are feeling better. please send more shots of typical NZ stuff for all us yanks to ogle.

keep us aprised of this batch's progress, what kind of polish are you going to use?

KD

[deepsouth]

Well , I was quite surprised that the noise was so tempered, maybe due to the heavy steel used. But it is quite acceptable I think.
Nearest neighbour is my son and he needs to wake up early anyway since he is running our dairyfarm nowadays ;D
But no , I don't even hear it myself when in a room nearest to the shed. And I do have 2 other tumblers working overtime.
as for thr rocks in the barrel , they have been waiting in bags for a long time , come of a beach of the east coast and i have bags and bags more rocks to go

I have to stop visiting those beaches , but it is so pretty that I never get enough of them. And every rock on the beach looks to be a treasure .

Thanks for your replies

jack

[krazydiamond]

and bags and bags before i sleep.....i can't walk through a driveway or parking lot these days without looking down. my parents find rocks for me by the bucketful, my friends leave bags of rocks for me at the restaurant we frequent. all just too much fun, isn't it?

Jack, take pics of dairy farm, ok?

KD

[cookie3rocks]

Jack,
Have you thought of selling some of your finds? It's kinda strange, that you use this site and it's on the other end of the earth. Do you know any rock hounds in your neck of the woods? Or are these all your personal babies you couldn't possibly part with?

Yeah, that's what I thought ;D

cookie

[llanago]

You be rollin' now, Jack! That's a pretty nice set-up!

I sure wish I had bags and bags of rocks already small enough to tumble!

I would love to have some of your beach findings, but I imagine shipping from NZ to Texas would be way up there, so I will just have to admire yours!

llana

[connrock]

Hey Jack,,,,,,,,,,,Nice rig ya got there!!!

It looks like it will give you many years of service!!!!

Thanks,,,

Tom

[deepsouth]

Funny you should ask for fotos of our farm, I have just dumped some in a bucket

Here they come

enjoy
Jack
a picture of spring 2000 at the milkshed

laying a new water reticulaton system

newly born calf in early spring

applying lime to newly developed land, was all covered in gorse ,Yuck ! It has greatly improved now

loading the spreader

and myself with a good cow

I do have thousands of fotos , and not even all from the farm haha. I hope to share many a foto of NZ with you

take care
Jack

[cookie3rocks]

We're loving the photos as that cow obviosly loves you ;D

cookie

[RiverOtter]

All I can say is.....MMMMOOOOOOOOO! ;D

Otter

[connrock]

Jack it's always nice to see who you're talking to instead of trying to imagine what himself or herself, (Ok KD?),looks like.

There's also a big plus in the photo's,,,,,,

We get to see your farm in a far off land we will probably never get to visit!

Thanks so much,,,,,,,

Tom

[shorty]

hi jack nice farm i grew up on a farm we had beef cattle at the bigest time we had 100 head and 70 pigs. i miss the smell. nice farm do you make your own butter.

[shorty]

jack what is the diamiter of your barels or should i say drums haha.

[BearCreekLapidary]

Hello Jack,

That looks like a very nice set up you have there. Both the tumbler and the farm .

I used to go and help my Uncle on his farm/ranch when I was younger (when Mom wanted to have some quite time from us four kids). He is a big cattle rancher in Nebraska. There are a thousand great memories of that time in life.

Thanks and enjoy,

John

[deepsouth]

Hi all , thanks for looking at my pics, there are more in the barrel..drum..whatever
Diameter of barreldrum is 22 cm outside measure, that makes for 8.66 inches.
I measured revolutions at 30 per minute, I hope that is OK.
I discovered a leak yesterday at the cental locking nut. Lucky I don't have them in my house on carpet
I scraped the cementlike material off the floor with a spoon and back in the barrel.
Everything looks fine this morning. I should cut a container in half and place that under the barrels . Will do that today.
Our farm is a dairyfarm , and my son milks about 430 cows at the peak of the season. We do not milk any in winter. Cows need a holiday toooooo Moooooo.
No I do not make my own butter. My wife Jeannine used to do it when times were tough.
Our cows have just started calving again and by yesterday there were 19 being milked. I have stopped buying the milk in the shop as we now have our own supply again. Hmm Yummy.
It is uneconomical to milk a cow through the winter , although I have done it twice in my lifetime . Once was for one of my sons to earn extra pocketmoney to save up for a jamboree.
How times have changed. As a teenager I started work on a farm as I wanted to learn about farming. That was considered to be a BIG farm in Holland....40 cows.
In 1972 I bought my first 100 cows and went sharemilking. 1980 bought my first 100 cow farm and after 12 years we moved to a 200 cow farm. 100 cows was no longer viable. 5 years later we moved again , lock stock and BARREL it took 2,5 days to move the cows by truck via a ferry with a few short stops for feeding and drinking for the cows, all the way to the bottom of the south island.in all about 800 miles I think.
Ferry took 3,5 hours. No cows were seasick .. i think .
And all arrived in good condition at the new abode.
It took a little while to acclimatise, it being somewhat colder futher away from the equator. But the winters here are not harsh. Some snow is to be expected, have had none this winter yet.The past week has been a bit more frosty..nighttimes only.

some fotos follow. Enjoy
Jack
on a high point, 3733 feet

same place different direction

and 20 miles down the road is this interesting restaurant near a skifield

old glacier scars on this little hill

my car is facing the next foto of a trip with my sister

great view at the end of this valley



It was my first time into this valley and I was in awe.

Jack

[dogparkmom]

Hi Jack,
It looks like you do everything big down there! Your horizon reminds me of where I grew up in the "thumb" of Michigan, except we didn't have your foothills off in the distance! The cow looks real pretty. What kind of milkcows are they? Will I recognize the breed as one I have heard here? My stepmom had a Jersey - with her horns still in. She darned near took off my thigh when my stepbrother neglected to milk her and I gave in a did it though it wasn't my turn. I got a quarter-sized puncture - who knew those horns were sharp? I never let her suffer by waiting to be milked again, I'll tell ya! When you only have one, no milking machines - just big forearms. I am new to the forum and am just learning. I may be getting a small vibe in the future. Nothing like yours! Happy retirement, happy tumbling!
Nancy

[deepsouth]

Hi Nancy,
Yes it is a jersey cow, most of them are on my farm. But when we moved south we needed more cows and jerseys were hard to come by so we had to settle for black and whites . We are mating them with jersey again .
I love only the looks of a cow with horns on. When you have to work with cows and horns it can spell disaster, especialy at close contact which happens often during milking. We remove the horns when the calves are still very young. I hate doing it , but I also hate to have my body punctured. If there is one cow with horns in a hornless herd , guaranteed she will be the boss. She knows very well how to use them. Without horns , the cows can't do any damage to each other when fighting.
They still fight for dominance every year and from time to time during the year as dominance can change through death or removal .

have fun
Jack

[krazydiamond]

fabulous peek into your life and surrounding, Jack, thanks very much for sharing this with us...(i wanna ride in the helocopter!!). amazing mountains, sparse countyside as far as trees goes.....interesting place.

my brother-in-law used to run a very large pig farm in the northern part of England and on one visited, we persuaded him to let us help with the morning feed....oh, my goodness what a mistake, Shorty, you may miss the smell, but i got about halfway into this thousand pig barn and had to run, not walk, RUN out!! the squeal and the smell got me in a bad way. and the EYES! the 1000 pair of little pink piggie eyes were too much....needless to say, i never volunteered for pig duty again.

cows might be better, especially with no horns. and in small quantities, like one that loved me.....we live next to a cow pasture, the are curious animals.

thanks again, Jack!

KD

[sandsman1]

hey jack great pics --you live in a very cool lookin place with all the mountains and hills,, i know bad back and all id be crawlin around wit a pick and shovel diggin in those ridges hahaha i bet you can find some real cool rock in there,, i was born and have lived all my life in the concrete jungle---(big city)---and when i see places as nice as that makes me wonder why i never moved,, i guess ya just get hooked on what you know,, but anyway cool pics keepum commin