Oats

As the first weekend in August is nearing with a drastic pace at the farm we are left with two options. 1. Grit our teeth tighten the belt and raise the battle cry of "GIT SOME!" Or, we can pray for rain and sabotage equipment.

The first weekend in August will be very busy at the farm. We have a treshing machine coming out and hopefully, I'll be able to sneek anyone that wants to see some really cool oldie-timie steam powered belt driven threshing a chance to see that. However, in order to be prepared for said event that means that the oats need to be cut and bound, then shocked, then hauled so that we might "thrash them there wheat." For future refrence if a word has an "e" in it, do not pronounce the word with an "a". Anyway. Farmer T needed some help getting the paddle binder set up so me being me, wandered on over thinking I'd get either a chance to drive two teams of horses at the same time, or operate some machinery I've never seen used before.

Alas, such was not the case. We decided to pick the hottest day of the year so far which ment that we couldn't safely use the horses. Also there were only two guys. Farmer T said that we needed at least one more, and the ladies who were working were "occupied". (Without a doubt we will hear that the ladies should be able to do that kind of work too...) So, instead of binding right away, we set up the binder with a steel tractor tounge, took the eveners off and brought up the "red horse" the Farmall M. It should go without saying, I didn't even let Farmer T finish the question of, "You want to..." I was already up on the seat, putting in the clutch and then had to pause. I was unaware that the collections side of the farm had retrofitted the M so that it ran on 12 volts. Not 6. It has an electric ignition. Farmer T just pointed that out and I fired her up and we were cruising.

We made a couple of passes until the carriage of the binder broke, so we paused to fix that. Then the shield fell off and we had to re-run the twine. Then one of the paddles wasn't cut to the right length, and we were too far from the barn to get a saw so we broke it down to size with some pliers. So...our first four passes took about 2 hours. After that we were cruising. Low gear low throttle cause I had no idea how quick the horses would be able to pull it. Then E drove out to the field and wanted to operate the binder and Farmer T hopped up on the axle while I was driving. He told me to punch it up to third and full throttle. I looked at him to make sure he was serious but I'm still not sure. I popped the clutch a bit to quick and we almost lost E off of her seat. Which is a hard thing to do considering it has a back on it.

Anyway, it was my first time this season back on a tractor and Farmer T put the itch back into me. So, since then after hours, I check the gas, hop up, start her up and just cruise around for an hour or so enjoying the quiet of the farm. I got pulled over tonight by one of the maintenance guys who shook his head at me and scolded me for driving a red tractor. I laughed and said that the only green tractor he'll see me on is an Oliver. He looked kind of puzzled for a minute, but maybe he just had gas. Told me to lock up the shop and to remember to turn off the gas. I waved said sure, and rode fifth gear into the sunset.

Also, got the suit for Big Sister's wedding. Waiting to get that sheet music in the store.

Buck