Firewood Automation: It Truly Is A Strange World

Allow me to wander in the weeds. Ah what the hell, I live in the weeds; please join me in the weeds. I’m thinking about tractor implements.

First, the basics: Farm tractors are serious equipment. Tractors are built to pull, power, and manipulate implements. Implements are big strong machines that are connected to the tractor to do stuff. Sometimes they’re dragged or towed, sometimes they’ve got power shaft connections (called a power take off or “PTO” shaft). They may have linked hydraulics, electronics, and anything else you can imagine. The tractor is the muscle and motive energy, the implement is what allows it to do a specific job. Tractors/implements work together. It’s a good idea. It lets a tractor have almost modular capacity to address any specific task without expecting the impossibility of being able to do everything all at once. Tractor implements are what feed the world while hippies are distracted and bitching about organic soy milk.

My needs are simple. The simplest, crudest, easiest to understand implement is a set of pallet forks. It’s the same thing as you’d see on a forklift, but installed on a tractor which can traverse terrain instead of a forklift which usually can’t.

If your tractor is equipped with a front end loader, the loader bucket can be swapped with forks like this picture here:

There’s also a way to bolt forks onto the tractor bucket. It looks makeshift and can bend the bucket or overextend your expensive loader. Overall they seem like the sort of device Wile E Coyote would buy from Acme. Their very real advantage is that they’re amazingly cheap. Like <$100 to turn any farm bucket into a pseudo-forklift for lightweight stuff.

I need to lift a lot more weight than what can be done with forks bolted to a bucket. In fact, my tractor has a front end loader but I’m not using that at all. Front end loaders can never lift as much as the rear three point hitch. In case you’re wondering, only some tractors have a front end loader but virtually all tractors less than 80 years old have a three point hitch. Pallet forks on a three point hitch look like this:

The picture is a shitty one because I lifted it from the Amazon link to a
“3 Point Hitch Pallet Fork, 1500lbs Capacity Adjustable Pallet Fork Quick Hitch for Category 1”. In fact the only “real” part of that picture is that the tractor has dirt on it.

There are many such things but at my local farm store they were… and I quote “$850, but it’s out of stock, though we could order it, but it’ll take forever. And why wouldn’t you just weld your own anyway?” Sometimes it’s a bummer dealing with farm stores!

Yes yes… I know. Your neighbor’s uncle’s dog catcher’s mechanic has a set for sale only $200 if I pull them out of the swamp where his tractor burned down in 1980… so buying used is totally a great deal. (Not that I didn’t at least check Craigslist a few times.)

Also, yes I could weld a set and given my novice welding skills that might be a good fun starter project. But I’m trying to save time, not start a new hobby. Also I’d probably spend a lot of money just on the raw metal.

Ugh… I’m so done with farm stores.

On Amazon, I found a price less than $850. It was stupidly cheap! $230 (counting a coupon). That’s not a typo!

First, what’s with the coupon on a farm implement? Either you need a farm implement or you don’t. Why in God’s name would there ever be a coupon to entice you into an “impulse buy” of farm gear? I dunno’.

I do know I used the coupon. I was planning on making the purchase and was so committed that I have 3/4 ton of firewood in an immobile tote in my yard. When I used the coupon I’m sure some advertising twerp claim to have “influenced” me.

Speaking of influence, I’m providing the Amazon affiliate link. If you buy anything from Amazon I get a tiny kickback. (It doesn’t have to be a farm implement.) And you can be sure I’d tell Amazon I totally influenced you into it too so maybe I won’t mock the coupon people (whoever they are). Also, don’t freak out, I cleared like $20 through Amazon ads this entire year so I’m not trying to blow smoke up your ass to get you to melt your Visa. I just found a cheap thing I’m testing out. Anyway, where was I?

Oh yeah, so it’s weird that beefy farm gear is being sold (in broken down format) on Amazon. Didn’t they once sell books?

Next comes my second point. It’s cheap. So cheap I have my doubts. I’m going to lift a full 3/4 ton. I’m half expecting the damn thing to bend like a noodle.

Anyway, we live in the strange “now” that is the Bidenverse, so I ordered a farm implement from Amazon, with a coupon, to be delivered for free. Don’t blame me, I just live on this planet.

Then one last thing happened that really caught me off guard. It was delivered via FedEx. Farm implements via FedEx? Yes, FedEx!

Do I really live in this world? FedEx used to deliver important lawyer shit overnight to other important lawyers and shit. If you saw a FedEx envelope in my hand it meant I was carrying the title to a car or maybe I’d been sent a subpoena. Now FedEx is bringing forklift parts to some freak’s house on a dirt road? Can that be?

Anyway, it arrived. It arrived stupid fast too. I ordered it late on a Friday and it was sitting on my driveway (in a box that looked like it had been stomped by Godzilla) Tuesday morning. (I planned to have a Christmas tip ready for UPS before it arrived… the FedEx truck totally took me by surprise.)

It’s lying on a patch of ice next to the farm cat’s bowl. I have no time to assemble it right now. I’m sure it’ll be fine. (The implement not the cat… though the cat, which came pre-assembled and not delivered by FedEx, is fine as well.)

I’ll report back when I’ve tested it with a true load. (The implement, not the cat, which is lazy and doesn’t earn its keep.) That probably won’t be until after Christmas. But you’re not considering a farm implement as a Christmas present? Are you? If you are, check out the coupon!

Here’s the ad: YINTATECH 3 Point Hitch Pallet Fork 1500 lbs Capacity Adjustable Pallet Fork Attachments for Category 1 Tractor.

P.S. There’s an ad from Yintatech and a whole different ad from Yitamotor. I can’t find any difference between the two. Nor can I remember from which “brand” I ordered. I’m sure they’re both slapped together out of the same pot metal in the same factory. That said, pallet forks are crude, they’re not some CPU laden wonder device. If they work, they work. I have hope that I saved over $600. If so, it’s a Christmas miracle!