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Back at the ranch house, wife Alice Koupal gets e-mails from the Angus Association with updated EPD stats on their cattle and downloads that to the Palm Pilot. She has data on 2,489 animals in the system now and can manage the information with a push of a button, rather than by pushing a bunch of paper.Chore timeProducts that add an extra hand at chore time score big on the nation''s livestock farms. ATV''s and skid steers add to the operation through their multipurpose value, producers say.Life gets easierFarm chores got a whole lot easier for Chad Willis (pictured above) two years ago with the purchase of a skid steer loader. "This is so much more useful than a tractor and hydraulichandpumpandcylinder loader," says Willis, who feeds dairy bull calves and raises crops near Willmar, Minnesota. "It''s handy and can get in tighter places; it''s just more maneuverable." * Don''t spray windows. The high pressure can break them.Better cleaning with detergentsDetergents (about $6 to $14 a gallon) and accessory brushes increase cleaning effectiveness while reducing cleaning time. When renting or buying a pressure washer, inquire what accessories and detergents are available for it. To prevent damage to the hydraulichandpumpandcylinder and hydraulichandpumpandcylinder internal parts, never run bleach in the machine or use detergents not designated for use in pressure washers.Detergents can only hydraulichandpumpandcylinder be run through pressure washers using a wide spray pattern. In addition, electric pressure washers require a low-pressure setting on the spray wand. Follow your machine''s instructions for using detergents, diluting the detergent and (if necessary) hooking up a chemical injector (Photo 1). For the best cleaning results, first loosen the dirt with plain water under high pressure using a medium spray pattern. Next, apply the detergent using a wide nozzle setting and let the detergent sit a few minutes to penetrate the dirt. Keep the surface wet to avoid possible discoloration hydraulichandpumpandcylinder or damage y the detergent. Finish by resetting the nozzle hydraulichandpumpandcylinder to a medium pattern (or changing hydraulichandpumpandcylinder the nozzle) and rinsing with plain water. Switch detergents by draining the first detergent from the pressure washer, rinsing the system with plain water and introducing the next detergent. At the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum''s hydraulichandpumpandcylinder paleontology lab, the air scribe has become the workhorse of fossil preparation. The discovery of a large sauropod dinosaur in the highly indurated sandstones of the Mid-Cretaceous Turney Ranch Formation southeast of the museum posed numerous technical problems for our lab staff. Most troubling was the removal of vast amounts of sedimentary rock, which was both very tough and firmly cemented by silica to the softer, calcite-replaced bones. Experimenting with a number of hand tools, grinders, hardware-store engravers, and rotary devices, hydraulichandpumpandcylinder we happened upon a Chicago Pneumatic Air Scribe (see supplier''s address on page 421), and it has since become our primary lab tool on this project. We now have five Chicago air scribes, and progress on our dinosaur has been extraordinary. One large and complex midback vertebra, which had been crushed during fossilization, took seven months to prepare with the scribe, but it was in the middle of a 150-pound block of sandstone. Not only was museum preparator Yolaikia Sciole able to remove this complex and fragile vertebra without damage, but ultimately it was hydraulichandpumpandcylinder prepared from the inside out, exposing most of the internal bone structures, including arterial and nerve canals and never-before-seen pneumatic structures that lightened the bone in life. Most of the bones in this vertebra are no more than 0.25-inch thick and are replaced by easily cleaved, fragile calcite. The air scribe, and a light touch by the preparator, did the trick.
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