If you want to know what a true road obstacle looks like, look no further it is a herd of alpaca! These guys are truly obstinate. They will not get out of the road for anything. You can drive right up to them and touch them with the bumper of your car and they might think about moving. If they do decide to move a smidgen it will be at their own leisure. It is easier to go around them if at all possible. All of the delivery drivers have learned to not barrel down the driveway. The alpaca will not move no matter how fast you come up on them and since we have not had a single one hit it means they are always winning in an alpaca versus delivery vehicle situation. On the plus side, we never worry about vehicles tearing in or out of the place.

We had another reason for me to have purchased a welder and to have taken the first quarter of the community college’s welding class. The sprayer tried to fall apart! There is a 3 point platform and the upper point of the 3 point is tearing off of the platform. This was supposedly built for a 50 gallon tank but it is certainly not holding up. There is a part in the front that broke in half that then placed all of the stress on the upright base. This is obviously not a good thing. I had not noticed the front crack as the paint covered it. This meant that we had to take the sprayer off first. Of course there was a lot of water in the tank. We did finally manage to get the tank emptied and all of the main parts torn off the platform. I only managed to break two fittings! I simply don’t like plastic for this reason, but it is a lot cheaper than the alternative. We could not beat the upright back into position so we used a tie down from the top to the far side of the platform and cranked it over until it was close enough. I broke out the welder and used the welding gloves this time. Last time I used my thin leather gloves and it was not enough. I got the top repaired and I am not going to be a commercial welder any time soon but even Mr Rainman can tell that my welding skills are getting better. The beads look like an actual bead instead of welding confetti. I wanted to weld both the top and bottom of the platform so we raised the forks on the tractor up high enough I could stand underneath and weld over my head. Now this was not a skill they taught us in class. Yep, I see why now, I had a sold weld burn to my upper right bicep in the first two minutes. It did not feel good. I then went and put on the leather arm guards I had purchased with the welder but had not ever worn before. Safety is a learned craft, the trick is to survive the first accident. I got it all welded and we put on a new heavy piece of angle iron across the front where the initial crack occurred. It is holding as Mr Rainman is back out and spraying. We even installed a couple of new fittings and fixed a couple of slow leaks we had on the rig. It works like a champ now.

I may even have enough skill to work on the stock rack for the pickup this fall. It needs some repair and rebuild.