Tag Archives: brutus

He’s baaaaaack!

Posted on October 23, 2022 | Comments Off

Our thirty-seven year-old farm truck, affectionately known as Brutus, has a bigger following than I do. For those of you who have been keeping up with this saga, you know that Brutus caught fire back in August. We thought he was a gonner but he’s arisen from the dead, so to speak.

A replacement of many wires and manly internal truck parts, much massaging by our favorite local mechanic, and Brutus is ready for business again. Which this time of year involves stocking up on firewood. He has a little cosmetic damage to the hood where the fire scorched the paint but otherwise, he’s in pretty good shape. Knock wood.

And we definitely travel with a new fire extinguisher in the truck now. So glad that we had several around the house and outbuildings.

As for me, just in case you wondered where I was last week, I’ve been cleaning out several decades of detritus from the attic of my studio. Junk or burn pile. Summer is too hot with the heat and winter is too cold, so spring and fall are the best times to clean. I’ll make a posting about that when I finish the job. I did discover where my flying squirrel or mouse problem went. Might have something do to with the sizeable snake skin I found up there. Ha ha ha.

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The rest of the story

Posted on August 21, 2022 | Comments Off

The consensus is that Brutus isn’t as bad as we thought. Probably a small fuel leak which was set off by a spark from the manifold. Some repairs needed but should be in working order soon.

Our friendly neighborhood mechanic stopped by to check on Brutus. He thinks it isn’t that bad and he can be repaired. Some scorching to the hood, the air cleaner is toast, and he won’t know until he tears the innards out. But overall, he can probably be repaired. That’s good as we sure need a farm truck around here for hauling firewood, straw for the garden, even the trash to the dump.

And the fire extinguishers have all been replaced including a much larger one for the house. A small but necessary investment.

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Be prepared

Posted on August 14, 2022 | 4 comments

Brutus, the old farm truck. A family member for over three decades.

I have been working all week on a couple of ideas for my Sunday blog post. Although I don’t usually write it until the end of the week, I give some thought as to subject matter, finding or taking photos, etc. This week’s post was going to be about books.

However, life had other plans.

I was in my studio early this morning, packing a painting to ship today. My husband and son were outside installing a new battery into old Brutus. (See former posting here.) It was a sunny and blessedly cool morning so I had the door to my studio open while I was working.

Suddenly, something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. I glanced outside and saw a fire beneath old Brutus. AAAAaaaggggghhhhh! (And my car was parked right next to the truck.)

I shouted to my son who came running, handed him the fire extinguisher that I keep handy in the studio, and he ran off with it. Well, two more extinguishers later, the fire was out. The outdoor faucets and hydrants are too far from where the truck was parked to have been any help.

We’re not sure yet what started the fire – maybe an electrical short, maybe a fuel leak, or even a mouse nest in the air cleaner. We’ll have a mechanic friend stop by next week to give us an assessment. Fortunately we were prepared or it might have been a very different story.

Although we live in a remote area which is our reasoning for having some home fire protection, I would urge everyone to have a few fire extinguishers on hand. You just never know what kind of emergency you might encounter.

I’m not qualified to advise what types of extinguishers to get but there are several varieties for the many kinds of possible fires – paper, wood, chemical, oil, grease, etc. Check online or with your local dealer or hardware store to see what they advise.

You don’t know when you will need one. Or wish you had been prepared.

The rest of the story

Here are some photos of poor Brutus after the fire incident. As I said, we don’t know what type of fire it was. This is the damage.

To outward appearances, Brutus still looks pretty good….for a 37 y/o truck.

On closer look, the hood is scorched. That white powder is from one of the fire extinguishers.

Ah, here’s the damage. What was burned and melted? We’ll find out this week.

One of the small fire extinguishers. This one is a C rating, meaning it will handle three kinds of fire/flames.

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Tagged brutus, country living, farm truck, fire safety, kit miracle

Brutus

Posted on May 30, 2021 | 4 comments

There’s always something to do here on the farm and spring seems to be the busiest. This past week my husband and I spent time trimming back the brush and overhanging branches on the lane. This doesn’t sound like much except that it’s a third of a mile long, with trees and bushes on one or both sides. The delivery vans have to run the gauntlet, often leaving with debris decorating their vehicles.

Usually I just walk along with my battery-powered hedge trimmers. When the battery runs down, so do I. And I can only reach just so far up. Getting to the overhead branches is more challenging. In this case, one person drives the truck and one person stands in back with clippers or a chainsaw. We got over nine truck loads so far and we’re still not done. The temps were in the 90s a couple of days ago, but they were in the 50s today.

Since I was the driver this time, I spent a lot of time in the truck.

Brutus is our farm truck. (My husband names every vehicle we have.) We ordered Brutus new back in 1985, a handsome but no frills Ford F250 4WD. Let’s see, that makes him 36 this year. Every farm has an old truck. Come meet ours.

After many years of hard use, Brutus is showing his age. Rust, holes, dents, and even lichen.

He’s very reliable but has never been coddled. Never spent a night under cover. And is used but not intentionally abused. He’s hauled rock and a whole lot of firewood over the years. He’s been able to get out during the worst of snowstorms. Both of the boys learned to drive in him, which in the country is way below the legal age (only on the farm).

Uh oh, you can see the ground through the floorboards. Oh, well, slap a car mat over it.

Unfortunately, Brutus is showing his age. The speedometer doesn’t go past 99,999 so he’s now clocking at over 117,000 miles. The radio still works (AM only) but the heater doesn’t. He has two gas tanks but I don’t think the gage works on either one. We don’t worry about anyone stealing him as he’s pretty touchy to get going, besides, he’s not a beauty either. And his top speed is about 45.