Thursday, December 16, 2010

Business

We own two Caterpillar skid steers. When I use the word 'skid steer', none of my friends know what I'm talking about. Sometimes I have to say, "Some people call it a Bobcat ..." which is like using the word Kleenex for tissue. Since they're made by Cat, and Bobcats are made by - guess - Bobcat! - the formerly-employed by Caterpillar Kris really doesn't like that. In fact, he still has a shirt from Caterpillar ...



Some of our employees are good mechanics. When you work with machinery all the time, you also get to be a good mechanic. Because if you can't figure it out yourself, then you have to pay for the dealer to come and work on it. Yes! They come to you, because it's obviously much easier than trucking your equipment on a trailer and taking it to a shop.

If it's really bad ... and sometimes it is ... you do have to do that. Last summer we took in a tractor to a dealership because it was stuck in 4-wheel drive. They had to split the tractor. This is a big deal - it means they opened it up from the middle to get to the drivetrain.

Kris and I stopped in at one point to look at it. It was amazing: there was a tractor in two parts, with a million tractor-pieces laid out on a table. I could hardly believe anyone could put it back together again in the way it was intended. (Then it still didn't work, so we had to take it back, and they had to do it again. So it IS a hard puzzle. An expensive, hard puzzle.)

So our skid steer isn't working very well. Kris said it "chugs" and "runs hard." So the dealer mechanic came out and worked on it. It still isn't working quite right. So we're trying some of his suggestions tonight. Kris ordered a new fuel pump and hoping that it fixes the problem.

In the meantime, Kris has been using the skid steer without the cab on it. In fact, he purchased his first pair of Carhartt bibs yesterday to fight the cold. Oh - never heard of Carhartts either? They're a brand name for heavy duty workwear.

Carhartts ... skid steers ... when you get a new business, you also get a new vocabulary!

1 comment:

Aimee said...

Wait a minute... not everyone knows about Carhartts? Avery County...