$100 TRUCK GETS LOADED DOWN! $1 CEDAR POSTS!! TREES IN THE ROAD... MIGHTY MULE GATE OPENER TROUBLES!

hey folks its Josh Downey Ridge farmer and welcome to the farm vlog today got some stuff going on here today my gate my wife called me this morning and said honey I can't get out the gate honey mmm so our gate is solar charged and I have a deep cycle battery and I think the deep cycle batteries gone bad so we've got our multimeter out here we're gonna test the battery I had to charge the battery probably about a month ago which kind of makes me suspect to where the battery may be going dead but it took a full charge so I don't know got a lot of stuff going on we had a big windstorm and a snow storm about a week ago and the new road that we built on the other side of the farm right over here has trees falling down all over it and that's the problem with these little pine trees these what we call Virginia pine or a scrub pine around here they just get a snow load on them and they break and snap and fall and leave a huge mess in the woods and they're not a very desirable tree to have around here anyway another thing we're going to do today is we're gonna go load up some fence post we've got a big pile of fence post up in the upper area of our farm kind of our junk storage area and I've got to start working on making that look a little bit nicer every time I ride by it I'm just not proud of what I got going on up there so we're gonna organize our old fence posts that we cut down and basically they're old cedar trees cedar fence post and we're also gonna go over to a friend's house a neighbor's house it's right over the hill here and we're gonna load up a bunch more he sold me these posts for a dollar apiece awesome I couldn't turn that down so guys come along with me today we're just gonna run around get some stuff done here on the farm it's gonna be 60 degrees beautiful sunny day we got to take advantage of these beautiful warm sunny days in December 60 degrees can't believe it come on with me let's figure out what's wrong with this gate all right [Music] well I kind of knew this day was coming these mighty mule gate fence openers other reviews that I read about him said that they really only last two or three years we're at the three-year mark here is the fence controller bad or is the battery bad I sure hope it's not the solar panel the solar panel seems to look really good so first of all my wife couldn't get the gate to open this morning so first thing we're going to do is hit the button and see so if it's taken even a tiniest amount of solar charge into the battery then the gate should open let's give her a try it's working now so the gates working but it's a little bit on the sluggish side and these already run a little bit slow anyway I'm very very happy with the mighty mule very very happy with it it saved us from having to get out in the wind and the rain and the snow but I anticipated some problems and I think it's just my battery so let's pull the steep cycle battery out and check it out so the way this setup works is there's a deep cycle battery in this box now normally you would only have just a tiny rechargeable battery but I thought I'd go the extra mile and throw in a nice big deep cycle battery we need to disconnect the battery and see if we're getting any voltage off of our wires here whether we're getting a charge from our trickle charger our trickle solar charger here so let's unhook that all right so our battery is disconnected for I'll throw my voltmeter on here and see what we get and this would be DC volts okay so the battery is putting out eight volts not good let's see if we're getting a charge here and I am showing a trickle charge of 0.4 10.40 hmm I don't know I don't know if the solar panels working either so it could be a failed solar panel causing the battery to not hold a charge it didn't hold a charge just fine before I got some work to figure out here let me mess with it bit the folks what I need to do is get underneath the back of the solar panel and there's some information on here that'll tell me how many volts or millivolts this thing will put out and you know we you're not in a very ideal situation this is south that is north I've got it kind of facing a little bit southwest but that was kind of the only way that I can make this work okay the trees over here we're blocking the sunlight most of the day and you really want to face south so that it can pull the maximum amount of sunlight in well it's not doing that however this gate worked for a year with no problems whatsoever so I'm really leaning toward it being a bad battery but I'll throw the meter on here and see what I can figure out this is DC volts it says I'm getting point oh eight volts pretty steady 0.7 so I'm going to take this plastic piece and I'm going to cover up a solar panel and see if I'm getting any voltage all right it's showing point oh six whether it's covered up or not hmm another option I have is I'm going to take this apart and look inside and there's a little light that stays on when the solar panel is charging let's see if that light lights up so folks I've got the solution okay here's the issue it's kind of a pain in the butt to put you in here but let me show you if you look right under there there's a green power light okay and this is what the solar panel uncovered and that's when I cover it uncovered covered there's also a light there that says charging and when I hook it up to the battery it says it's charging so we got a battery issue awesome glad it's not a solar panel issue I didn't want to rewire all that it's pretty simple though let's go get a new battery let's go down here and cut these trees get them out of the way so folks I guess you can see what I've got going on here these little skinny pine trees that you see in here if they just don't hold up they just start falling over they grow so close together that when one falls over ten of them fall over okay so we had the top breakout on one of them and several of them are still leaned over the road here so I'm slipping on my chainsaw chaps here you can see that they're running on my chainsaw chaps getting ready to get busy we'll go ahead and cut these out of the way another little farm tour folks we always take safety very seriously here on the farm I know it seems silly for me to wear hard hat and a face shield and hearing protection for ten minutes worth of work here but guys it'll save you it'll save your ears it'll save your eyes it'll save your life so you really got to pay attention put your chaps on do your due diligence don't pull this cord unless these chaps are on and you're protecting your eyes okay so I know for all you old school tough guys it might seem like a kind of wussy thing to do but working in a trauma intensive care unit I see a lot of bad stuff so protect yourself and you only get two of these books I will give you one chainsaw tip don't buy a saw that's bigger then you can handle okay so I believe this saw has a 24-inch bar on it I'm a big boy I'm six five and it really helps me to not have to bend over having this long bar on here but don't buy a saw it's too big something that you can't handle you'll hurt yourself now folks if I can help it I don't use pine as firewood okay I might use it as firewood for the campfire down here but I don't use it for a normal firewood I cut this up in links big enough to where I could get it out of the road get my road back open back and run it if you guys want an awesome set of gloves still timber sports it makes a great glove just a great glove keeps your hands warm and it has this protective material here so if the chainsaw hits it it pulls a fiber out and slows the chainsaw down so hopefully it doesn't take your whole hand off awesome let's get these sticks up later on we might take these and put them on the fire down there but for now we're just gonna throw them out of the way they'll be on the side of the road so we can easily pick them up we want to throw a big bonfire got big bonfire logs almost like working got it looking good and even the dogs appreciate it okay so we got to go to the parts store test that battery and get a new one if we need it and we've got to go by my friend Brian's house and pick up those posts I don't know if I'll be able to fit all those posts on the back of the truck I don't know if I'm going to be able to organize all that today either but at least we'll get them loaded up maybe I'll bring it back for our organization day but I don't know if we're gonna have enough daylight these short days here on the farm just cut you so short of time to get stuff done let's go and get to the parts store guys that tune-up really did this old truck a whole lot of good it just chugs along now really great nice I could go cruise around in an old farm truck and enjoyed this beautiful day take you along with me back through the chickens folks wouldn't have the battery tested at the auto parts store and guess what our deep-cycle battery has exceeded its life expectancy it lasted for about three years so I'm pretty happy with that we have a new zero last deep cycle battery from autozone we're gonna put that dude in and hopefully have no more gate problems I'm glad the charging system was working good just a dead battery and they just don't last forever so just part of farming let's put this new battery in get the new battery in good deal seems to be working great it's always something always some little expense here on the farm that just keeps me going nice farm projects let's go get busy let's get the rest of it done right in here behind me are all the posts at bryant assemble me for a dollar apiece I guess he just harvested them here on the land that he bought from his grandfather's estate and the land that we own and we bought we bought from his grandfather's estate to his grandfather owned a lot of land here in our County and it was a very smart man so we're gonna load these post up my back's a little sore and I'm sure this is really gonna help it so let's get busy let's throw some post out of here have some fun right I want to kind of lead you into the next video here in the next few videos we bought a herculiner bed liner kit for this truck because it's rusty and crusty check it out see how rusty and nasty it is so we're gonna do we're gonna do a self installed herculiner bedliner kit in this truck so the truck doesn't rust up any more than it already is I'm kind of curious as you may be curious also are these homemade home installed truck bedliner kits okay do they work will it look nice I don't know come on along in the next few videos and you'll see we're gonna put a new bed liner in this truck and we're also we've got a fuel tank a big old fuel tank with a toolbox in it that I bought a long time ago because I knew I'd have a need for fuel it's a hundred gallon fuel tank it's made of aluminum and we're gonna put it right here in the bed of this truck - it takes up a lot of space but for a truck that I'll only use around the farm it's absolutely perfect there's a first fall on the DSLR camera yes that's what I get when a little boys camera through some man's work some of these are bigger than others [Music] people might say that farmers are fat well I'll tell you what no skinny little twerp going to pick that stuff up okay you're gonna have leverage it's right here all leverage wondering why when we moved up here to the country a lot of the country folks are bigger they're just bigger more robust people okay they're just bigger more robust people and you know why cuz these people work for a living after you do this stuff all day long you don't feel like going in the house and making up dinner a nice dinner and you certainly don't want to eat a salad after you do this you want some meat you want some taters I'm four years old now and I really got to start thinking about taking good care of myself lifting this heavy stuff and working hard like this and then eating salad [Music] they're right there he's a load of cedar logs who butts kicked guys I want to thank you a whole lot for joining me here today on the Stoney Ridge farm we're off the farm right now loading up some logs and just getting some work done so probably next few days we'll unload these find a good spot here on the farm to store them for now it's getting dark I want to get in a deer stand and do a little bit of hunting so thanks a lot for joining me here on the Stoney Ridge farm click that like button guys subscribe to the channel if you're not already subscribed and follow us on our farm journey I'm wore out thanks a lot come on back and see me again alright 20 bucks for all that that's awesome deniz don't agree [Music] it's a farm blog it's supposed to have ponies