41 The Business of Prairie Agriculture Better Farming | October 2024 sitting in a quonset filled with pallets of tools to be sold. As we were looking around I hear one of his neighbours say to the farmer “Gee, if I had known you had all these tools I would have borrowed things more often.” Yes, you can borrow or share tools to save buying stuff but remember if you break a borrowed tool you have to buy two tools. One to replace the one you broke, and one for yourself so you don’t have to borrow it again. Have the proper supplies on-hand You know that annoying little clip that went ‘twang’ across the shop and is now lost forever? How long did it take you to find a replacement? If you were lucky you had one of those handy dandy clip assortments on hand and you found the right part in seconds. If you were unlucky, you had to drive somewhere and wait in line for someone to tell you they didn’t have that clip but they could have it for you in three days. Keep a good selection of small parts on hand. You can buy the little clip assortments quite cheaply and the bigger ones if you use a lot. And when you are buying machinery parts, spend a few extra bucks to get all the oddball clips and fasteners that hold the part in just in case you lose one or wreck one taking it off. The small cost of the extra little parts is well worth the savings if you have to drive for more parts. Make things easy Once one of our neighbours did the livestock chores for another neighbour who was on vacation. They commented that “No wonder they work so hard. Nothing is easy over there.” They said that every job needed two people with numerous gates to go through and stuff to haul. My dear wife often says I always do things the hard way. Rather than move the truck closer to the job, I will make numerous trips back and forth. “I’m getting exercise.” I say, not wanting to admit my lack of planning. Look at the process of what you are doing. Just because you have done this for years doesn’t mean it is correct or can’t be improved. We have only so many hours in the day, so use them wisely. Look for what is wrong A while ago, the guys in the shop were doing some body work on a pickup and had to take the box off. We do have a hoist for this, but it takes a while to set it up so often if there are four of us we just lift it off. So one day we lifted a box off and put it on the stand. “Boy, that sure was heavy!” was the comment. Then we looked in the box and along with the usual small debris was a rock that probably weighed 100 pounds. Perhaps we should have looked inside first. If something isn’t going right take a minute to examine what is going on. Perhaps there is something out of brandt.ca 1-888-227-2638 EVERY DAY HERO. On the farm, the job list never ends. But, John Deere compact equipment is ready to take on every task you throw at it. More Productive Every farm needs a workhorse, and these machines are built to tackle all your tasks all year long. More Versatile Get more out of your machines with Hard To The Core Brandt attachments like buckets and bale spears. More Uptime Brandt keeps you working when the competition can’t with expert support any time you need us. Tractors, Trucks & Growing Grain
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