The Story of the Ladder

 

     Harvest ended on Thursday July 18.  It wasn’t the greatest harvest ever.  I think I will average between eleven and twelve bushels to the acre.  It’s not the worst harvest, either.  I remember lots of years when hail storms resulted in zero yield.  So we will take what we get and do the best we can.

 

 

Here I am making the last swath.

 

So long to 2013 harvest.  There’s still the chore of cleaning up and putting away.

Meanwhile, here’s how the neighbors do it.

 

 

 

   It took them about 6 hours to finish the 160 acres.  Their truck drivers weren’t overworked.

 

 

     The granary work and seeing the date and initials in the granary floor, coupled with use of the old aluminum ladder, evoked a memory from 1986.

   We had the cement work all done and had started the process of assembling the bin.  You build the roof first, then start adding rings beneath the roof.  A set of special jacks raise the assembled parts and allow the erectors to add rings without ever leaving the ground.
    Mom had bought herself a new six foot aluminum step ladder.  She was quite proud of it.  We needed a step ladder to assemble the peaked roof of the bin.  Ricky had promised on pain of death not to harm the ladder if we could use it.  I guess Mom felt she had to allow the use, since we really didn’t have another step ladder on the place.
     We had spectators.   Uncle Ricky thought Dad should be part of the fun.  So he loaded Dad up in the old 4X 4 and brought him out to the site.  Ricky painstakingly positioned the pickup so Dad would have some shade on the hot day.
    Ricky was asking Dad what he thought, and Dad said he really couldn’t see very well, whereupon Ricky mounted the 4 X 4 to reposition it again.  Then it happened, a certain metallic crunching sound, the realization that the new aluminum ladder, not needed after the roof of the bin was completed, had been laid aside in the tall grass, and was now under the pickup’s wheels.
       As Mom was among the spectators, dissembling about the ladder’s demise was out of the question.  I don’t remember what she said, if anything, but it wouldn’t be too hard to guess what she thought.  She  got another new ladder, this time a wooden one.  Maybe the aluminum one wasn’t that great? I think Uncle Ricky paid for it.
      Ricky also spent a short hour or so bending and straightening.  Here it is today.

 

 

 

     The shop finally got a step ladder of its own, not too old, but with plenty of experience.  Good thing, too. No use to ask to borrow Granny’s ever again.