Ranger Update

Polaris Ranger Storage

I am a big fan of our Polaris Ranger. I think that it is a wonderful little vehicle and has numerous uses around the Vineyard. But there are a few things that drive me a little nuts. One of them being the storage in the cab. First there are two storage shelves inside the cab. 

One on the Drivers side

And one on the Passengers side

They are essentially little shelves. It was very thoughtful of Polaris to add these molded in shelves. But, they are absolutely useless! Anything that you put on the shelf falls off when driving. 

I finally got tired of picking up my gloves, water bottle, etc. off of the floor and decided to do something about it. I did a little surfing on the inter-web and found that I could buy cargo nets from a place called Obie (https://www.organizedobie.com/Custom-Nets).

I did a little measuring, and for less than $20 I was able to get nets that go on the front of the shelves. Now I can use my in cab storage shelves without having all my stuff dumped on the floor. 

Drivers side now:

Passengers Side: 

 View of both: 

Irrigation System

Vineyard Update - Irrigation System

I appoligize to the readers of this blog that are interested in Shooting and Hunting. This is an update on some of the Vineyard work and my be boring to you. But I bet that there is someone on the internet that would enjoy reading about my irrigation system woes. 

It is Spring time and the vines are starting to wake up so it is time for me to get to work in the Vineyard. My irrigation for the grapes is all controlled with timers and solenoids so I can set specific watering profiles for different times of the year. 

The past few years I have had problems with the solenoids failing. I thought that it was the sun so I built this box to cover them. But they are still failing. 

When the system fails it is not apparent until the vines start changing color and at that point I have already done damage to the crop. 

 To make matters worse, something has decided to eat the wires that control the solenoids. So even if they are still good they don't turn on. 

So I decided that I would replace all the solenoids and put something on the wires to keep the varmints from chewing on them.  Here is the outcome of my efforts, new solenoids and jacketing on the wires to help deter varmint vandalism. From here on out I will replace them every few years as a matter of preventive maintenance. 

At this point I would like to mention how much I like the Polaris Ranger 570 Mid. It is a really useful tool in the Vineyard. It is small enough and maneuverable enough that I can go anywhere in the vineyard. But it also has enough carrying capacity that I can use it as a mini pick up truck. 

 So far it has proved to be a really useful tool and I am really happy that we bought it! 

Ranger Upgrade

This year we decided to get a UTV or Side by Side for the vineyard. Actually my Wife decided we should get one (she is a keeper!). We ended up getting the Polaris Ranger 570 (Mid). So far it has been really useful for the Vineyard and the family really likes playing with it. 

One weak area is that the bed is rather shallow and things fall out if you stack them above the sides of the bed. One other thing we found is that the kids like to hop in the back and there is nothing to hold on to. 

I did not like any of the commercially available bed rails so I decided to build my own. 

The project started out with some recycled metal that I had laying on the ground of the shop. This is steel tubing that I salvaged from a shipping crate that my wife's chicken coop came in. Yes I am really cheap and cut things up to save the scrap metal. 

First I made a cardboard template the shape that I wanted, I changed my mind several time before I got the final design. Originally it was much taller but that just did not look right. Here is the final design cut to size and mocked up on the template.

  From there I started tacking the pieces together. 

I built the main rails on top of each other to make sure they were a matched set. 

 I enlisted my son to help me. I figured that this was a good time to teach him some welding. He was an eager helper and took safety very seriously!!

 After tacking the main rails together I bolted the mounting flanges to a piece of wood that had the correct spacing for the mounting points in the Ranger bed. This made sure that they did not move during welding. Then I tacked them in place.

I added some reinforcement pieces, some bars across the front and welded and ground all the joints. Here is the final product. I am quite happy with how it came out. Not bad for some free scrap metal! I think that this project cost me less than $10