Whit has a t-shirt that says, "Crops are green, tractors are red." He likes that shirt, but lately hasn't felt like wearing it since all our red tractors are out of commission right at the minute...and we've had to resort to using our dear friend's green tractor. Of course, our friend's green tractor (I can't say the JD word :) is about 50 years newer than our red tractors, but nevertheless it's painful.
The Farmall C and Farmall H died on the same day a few weeks ago. Whit is hoping that the H just has a blown head gasket. "Just"... I like that. It feels like an understatement to me, but what do I know. When the C died, he discovered it "just" needed a new water pump. Sweet. He put a new pump in and off it went back to it's job raking in the hayfield. However, as Whit was almost done with the first round of raking yesterday afternoon, the engine suddenly just shut off mid-stride! Our friend's John Deere was sitting there, waiting with the baler attached and ready to go. Instead, the baler had to be disconnected so the nice new tractor could go finish the raking job. Sigh. We love working with our Farmall antiques, but it would seem that things are starting to wear out on them, and they're going to need some serious beyond-maintenance-TLC pretty soon if we're going to work with them again.
In spite of the tractor issues, we finished getting the hay in the barn yesterday afternoon. Then Whit took our old red farm truck to go pick up the rake and bring it back here so we could do the fields next to our farm today. As he was making the turn into the field off the road, it suddenly stopped. We were beginning to detect a pattern here, and it wasn't good. I thought he might cry when I got the phone call to bring the other truck and some jumper cables down to him, which I did. The old red Chevy refused to start though. Fortunately, there was a chain in the back of that truck, so we hooked them together and I towed the poor old thing home. (That's a real challenge, and testimony to Whit's driving skill. The truck is new enough that it has power steering and brakes, or at least it would have if it had power.) I had to drive really slowly while Whit braked just enough to keep the chain taut so we didn't jerk our way down the road.
This morning's project is to go get the rake with the other pickup truck so I can rake the fields near home. I haven't done the raking before. This should be an interesting day.
On the bright side, I picked up our Fresh Air friend on Thursday evening. We enjoy having him and usually put him to work haying the next day. This year was no exception. You'd think after eight years, he'd be on to us by now, but the boy (young man, he's 14 now!) keeps coming back for more. I'm glad he does; we enjoy having him. Perhaps it's all the entertaining disasters that swirl around us that keeps him coming back. Who knows. Once again, this year is no different.
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