Lessons Learned Dec 2025

12/7/2025
Lessons Learned

Kristin & Ali

  1. Days don’t always go as planned… lesson re-learned 5,345,321x

  2. Don’t believe people that tell you there isn’t a pull start on your ATV… keep looking.

  3. We learned the value of a volt meter… a healthy battery should read ~13 v

  4. The tapping trick on the starter is magic!!! You should have seen our faces (after trying for ~5 hours to get the ATV to start)!! A big THANK YOU to Ali’s dad!!!!

  5. It can be grand entertainment getting pulled around the Bacon’s Acres’ block by a car while sitting on an ATV trying to “push start” it 

  6. Sometimes things don’t happen as easily as they look in youtube videos (referring to the “push start” process)

  7. Freezers work much better when they are plugged into power

  8. Check corrosion on the battery terminals, otherwise the battery might not be charging well

  9. The trickle charger can read “dead battery” for other reasons besides just a truly dead battery – clean the terminals, reconnect the clamps, unplug/replug the charger in.

  10. Don’t give dogs the opportunities to learn things you don’t want them to learn.

  11.  Sometimes even when you think things are out of reach from dogs, they can find a way… grabbing harnesses, breeding, reaching buckets, grabbing cleaning tools (shovels, rakes, etc)

  12. Use your resources – dads, friends, other machine for comparison and parts, youtube

  13. Pillage, when necessary

  14. Pancreatitis can be a thing with dogs … and it’s hard to diagnosis

  15. Sometimes the weather is better than expected 

  16. Lithium batteries are best for using outdoors in the cold

  17. Today was a reminder of why we make sure the ATV is running before we harness and hook up dogs

  18. Having your ATV in the garage doesn’t magically make it work 100% of the time

  19. We often learn the most on days when nothing goes as planned.

    …. our reminder of why we do LESSONS LEARNED… when your day evaporates because things didn’t go as planned, it helps us remember the valuable things we learned in the process (rather than sitting around grumbling about what we didn’t get done)

12/6/2025 Oliver & Bridget added

  1. Stay on the side of the road where cars can see you

  2. How to put things away in the wind

  3. How to properly take off a dog harness