May’s End

    Wet old May comes to its end wearing Joseph’s cloak of many colors, including the pure white of the peak protruding in the distance like a new tooth in a babe’s mouth.

 

    The peas should be happy, but if they are, they are concealing it.

 

    The radishes, carrots, and spinach have enjoyed the nearly five inches of May’s rain.  The tomatoes have been warming the bench, just waiting to get into the fray.  They don’t appear to be too happy now that they are in.  They are still alive and will get over it, maybe.

 

     The asparagus had to start over after the 26 degrees reached in mid-May.  Like the tomatoes, the patch doesn’t look happy, but it continues to produce.

     The jury is still out on the wheat.  Did the freeze impair it?  It is still trying to head out.  Some of the heads look perfectly normal while a few albino heads pop up here and there.  Those white ones will be politicians, empty-headed.

     Light patches here and there shy away like the rainbow as you approach.  What are they?  I can’t tell.  There is some leaf rust.  What effect will it have on yield and quality?  Oh the joy of being a wheat farmer on the high plains.  No sense in worrying because I can’t do anything about it.

 

    The most disappointing event involved the Ford tractor.  As I was enjoying mowing without having to continually adjust the height of the mower deck, a terrible thing happened.  The front wheels became liberated and went each their own way.

 

    So back in the shop it went.  Exploratory surgery revealed badly worn gears on the steering arms and the pilot gear that runs the arms.  Finding steering gear is proving more difficult than finding hydraulic parts.  I will have parts next week, maybe.

     In the meantime, the weeds and grass in the yard grow unmolested.  If they get too big for their britches, I’ll break out the swather and windrow them.

Rain, It’s so Lovely in the Rain

     It is alumni weekend, Memorial Day, time to remember.  Who can remember a wetter May?  I think it was May of 1958 (could have been ’57) when the “bottom” went out of the roads and the school bus mired down in the middle the road and had to be pulled out with a tractor—not once, but many times.

     The moisture was welcome, but it grew a little tiresome, especially when the last day of school picnic, usually held at Walk’s Camp Park, had to be held in the school building instead.  I remember a huge volley ball game in the gym with a few adults joining the kids.

    There has been a dearth of days in the past few years when a person had to work indoors.  This May has made up for that lack.  The old shop stove has seen more duty in the past two weeks than it has in the past ten years.

 

    Gone (but not forgotten) is the Ford tractor.  It got a three-hour workout Friday during a rare half day of sunshine.  It worked!  The hydraulic system needs a bit of adjustment, but the lift arms held steady instead of wandering up and down indiscriminately as in the past.  The best part, it hasn’t leaked any gear oil.  No longer can you see where it sat for a while by the three grease spots on the ground beneath the PTO and the lift arms.

     A “new” vice replaced the old one.  The new one is much bigger.

 

     Meanwhile, between rain squalls, a crew managed to cut up and remove the top section from Tower 117 that has been lying in the CRP for a couple of years.

 

 

    The real beneficiary of the rain is the wheat, which has been trying for a week to head out.  The cool weather slows things down.  We will have a crop of rust, too, no doubt, with the extended damp conditions.

 

     The class of ’65 had to meet in town at a local restaurant instead of the farm.  The roads were far too muddy for the old folks to negotiate. It took us almost 30 minutes to travel the six miles from farm to hard surface road.

     The restaurant was full of former Genoaites, a ‘50’s class and some other 60’s folks in addition to us.  We reconvened in a local motel where the out-of-towners are staying and made use of their breakfast room.  There we could talk and be heard.  There were quite a few hearing aids tucked away in ears.  Not me, yet.  “What’s that you say, Dear?”

 

      Still to go, the alumni meeting for all the classes.  But the sun is shining.  The unpaved road portion of our trip shouldn’t be quite so onerous.  Let us go therefore and renew old acquaintances, for auld lang zyne.

    

Chrome Legs

      Axe handle.  That’s how Dad measured women’s behinds.  Well, big women.  I never heard him mention half an axe handle or a third of an axe handle.

    But I heard him mention that some woman was at least two axe handles across the beam, many a time.  This is the story of a lady who shall remain nameless because she measured in excess of an axe handle.

    I was preschool when the folks hired a neighbor girl to help with kids and household chores.  As I recollect, she was on duty when the youngest sibling was born.  She spent the night at our house at least that once.  She was probably a high school girl at the time.

     She indulged us some.  I remember once when she panicked and jammed us all up the stairs and into bed because headlights turned into and started down the lane.  It had to be the folks coming home earlier than expected and we were up beyond our assigned bed time.  We hit the beds and held our peace.  She would make trouble for us if we made trouble for her.  She usually let us stay up later than we were supposed to.

     This event occurred while she was serving as housekeeping help.  She was washing the window in the single tiny bathroom when it happened. 

    To get to the window, you either stand in or on the bathtub.  She was standing on the bathtub. It was the same bathtub I stood on once, well many times, actually.  But once, Mother had cleaned that tub.  We were playing outside and it was damp, muddy maybe.  I got thirsty so in I came.  No time to remove shoes.  I had to climb up on the tub rim to reach the communal drinking glass, which I did, got my drink, and back outside.

     Well, it wasn’t very long before we all got a summons, the tone of which meant no dawdling.  Each one of us was marched in one at a time and made to look at the muddy mess on the tub rim that had just been cleaned that day.  I was third in line.  When my turn came, I was gripped firmly by the back of the neck, led swiftly and surely across the kitchen and into the bathroom.  There my neck was maneuvered so that I had to look at the tub.  Hmmm.  Wonder how that happened?  For some reason, I kept my mouth shut.  Hmmm.  Wonder how that happened?

    I don’t remember any other consequences.  Perhaps I was a little more careful about “tracking in” stuff for awhile.     

      So there the girl stood on the tub washing the window.  The door had to be mostly shut for her to have room to step up onto the tub.  If the door were open, she couldn’t get between door edge and the lavatory.

     I see the scene from the kitchen in my memory.  I couldn’t have seen much, but I saw her back down.  Then a bunch of things happened all at once.  There was a crunch, a shocked shout, water hitting the floor and a dance as the girl came out of the bathroom to holler for help.

    The part of her that exceeded an axe handle had caught the front corner of the wall hung lavatory when she stepped down off the tub.  The force was so great it pulled the lavatory off the wall.  One of the two water supply tubes broke and water was running everywhere.

     I don’t remember a lot of things beyond that.  Someone had to go downstairs and shut the water off.  I don’t remember Dad remounting the sink or replacing water pipes.  But it got done.  I can only imagine the hired girl’s embarrassment, she, hired to help out, had caused even more work for her employers. 

    What I do remember is that one day in the mail came a long narrow package, probably from Montgomery Wards, maybe Sears.  Soon there were two chrome legs supporting the front of the lavatory.  That thing was not going to get knocked off the wall again. 

     I’m happy to report those legs worked.  The lavatory hasn’t been off the wall since.

    I decided to clean the carpet in the bathroom.  Taking the legs out facilitated things.  They had a little rust on them.  They’ve been there over fifty years.  Please don’t tell the Goodwife.  She’ll be thinking we need to update or remodel or something.

DSC04697

May?

     The calendar says May.  The furnace doesn’t get it.  Mother Nature iced the landscape to honor all the mothers.

 

    Somewhere under the white is a lonely tomato plant.  I was reminded that it was out there when the neighbor kid was out in his backyard in shorts and hoody putting baskets and buckets and barrels over plants. 

    I clumped out into the backyard in my farmer buckle overboots to nestle a jug of water next to the tomato plant.  I put a card board box over the pair.

      It was snowing and the wind had come up.  The old blue tarp was handy, so I threw it over the box.  The aspen branch was even handier and promised to defeat the wind’s attempts to huff and puff and blow away the flimsy shelter.   

     The Local Conditions site says the low was 30 degrees.  They are calling for mid-twenties tonight, so guess the tomato will stay housed for awhile. 

    Meanwhile, back at the farm. . . .  By Friday morning, the rain gauge registered nearly an inch and a half for the week.  I have yet to check the gauge for the weekend results. 

     Local Conditions report a low of 26 with the projection of mid-twenties again tonight.  Only time will tell if the wheat can weather those lows at this stage of development.  Moisture is no longer a problem, anyway.

     The old Ford tractor underwent a delving into its bowels.  The three point hitch arms have never responded correctly to the depth gauge / lift lever.  The lift arms are supposed to correspond to the position of the control lever.  If the lever is halfway up, the arms should be half way up, and stay there.

     It has never worked that way.  Keeping the mower at the right height is a constant worrying of the control lever.  Sometimes the mower blades will be digging the dirt.  Other times, the mower deck will be raised so high it will be hitting the rear tractor tires, all with the same setting on the control lever.

      According to “the book” those problems can all be fixed by replacing gaskets and rings and the pressure relief valve.  So apart it came. 

 

     Here’s what the hydraulic system looks like, just in case you wanted to know.  It’s amazing how simple it is.  It’s all right under the seat.

 

     It’s also amazing that you can still find parts for the old feller.  The place I called had the gasket set in stock.  The rings and the valve are still available but had to be ordered.  Parts should all be in this week.

    Then the usual $64,000 question:  will I get it back together and working right?  (Any idiot can tear something apart.  It takes a mechanic to get it back together.)

    The wet weather gives me a little time to get it done.  But when the sun comes out and it warms up, tractor and mower will be in high demand.

               

      

Mayday

   Or Guardian Angel to the Rescue.

    The day began inauspiciously enough.  The bread supply was depleted yesterday at lunch.  No toast for breakfast.  Oh well, let them eat Bisquick. 

     From Marie Antoinette, it went to Old Mother Hubbard.  Only ¾ cup of Bisquick in the container.  That will hardly make one biscuit, let alone a pancake.  No worry, a whole new box resides on the shelf downstairs.  Except, there was none.  Hmmm, I don’t remember grabbing and opening that box.  It wasn’t there.  I looked again.

    Now what?  One shouldn’t have to contemplate such things at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday.

     It takes too much time to make bread.  There were things to do.  Myriad upstart fire weeds and clovers and volunteer wheat were waiting a good turning over at the hands of an old John Deere tractor and an ancient pair of Schaefer oneway disks.  Give them a week and the weeds and the sun will have sapped the moisture and the now-mellow soil will have turned to concrete.  The disks will sing a sordid tune trying to dislodge the rank greenery and the tractor will lay its ears back a little further in the effort to coax along its entourage.

    Corn bread.  Doesn’t take any longer than making biscuits.  That jar was dangerously low, too, but substitute a little more wheat flour and it will work.  No milk, either.  Mix up a little nonfat dry milk and we are in business.     

     By 8:30, the tractor was headed to the field.  When things really want to get under your skin, the tractor starting engine won’t start.  Starting engine won’t start, tractor won’t start, you are doing nothing.

     So it could have been worse, much worse.  We suffered only one minor break-down.  When the seismographers came through, they drove an eight-wheeled semi-articulated locomotive with tractor tread tires about three feet wide.  Every three or four hundred yards, the train would halt and a four foot square mall would drop kerthunk into the earth from the bombay doors beneath one of the segments of the locomotive.

      It was wet when they were doing that.  The tractor-tire imprints have dried into a superb chatter strip, even for a three-and-a-half mile per hour tractor.  The kerthunking square pushed the soil down six-to-eight inches and left a pie crust edge along the perimeter.  The pie crust has also dried.  The oneways did some serious jumping up and down when they crossed the seismoglyph’s path.  When crossing the track perpendicularly, the roughness only lasted a few seconds.

 

    But then came the time when the oneways had to parallel the tracks for over a quarter of a mile.  The macadam road vibration caused the tie rod on the front furrow wheel to fail.  A twenty minute operation got the tie rod back together for now, and a couple of wraps of bailing wire will hold the pieces together to get through this operation.  So the day was successful in the scarcity of mechanical problems.   

     Yesterday, I worked in the field all morning, took a suitable noon break, and returned to the field for the afternoon.  Threatening weather arrived around 3:30.  It didn’t look like much, and it wasn’t.  But by 4:30 I was heading homeward just wet enough to be miserable and the day was done.

     So today I thought, “Aha, I will stay out till about 2 p.m. and then break for lunch.  By three, I will know whether to go back out or not.”

    Two came and things were going good, so I kept going.  Besides, there still wasn’t any bread in the house.  What to eat?  At four, the weather was threatening a bit.  At 4:30, I was again headed for the house.

    I would go to town, do some grocery shopping, and have a bite to eat at the local pub. A quick shower and off to town.  The groceries bought, I parked at the local bar and grill.  There the problem was, a glass with a nice foamy head came before the meal. 

      By the time I was half done eating, the glass was empty.   Would I like another one?  Well, yes.  When the French fries were gone, the glass was still half full.  You can’t waste a $3.75 beer.

    When the glass was empty, I began to have worries about navigating a straight line to exit the premises.  With some help from the table I rose and did get through the door without incident.  Should I be driving?  Maybe I should take a walk, or crawl in and take a nap.

      I took the keys from my pocket, but as I approached the car, I realized my worries, at least the ones about my possible impairment, were over.  There flat on the ground sat my left rear tire. 

    The keys opened the trunk, not the driver’s door.  In the far reaches of the trunk stood the donut, held to the back of the back seat by a huge washer and bigger wing nut.  I could reach the wing nut without crawling into the trunk by putting one hand in the bottom of the trunk and loosening the wing nut with the other hand.  Released from the nut and washer, the donut fell into the trunk and was removed.  The jack and combination jack handle / lug wrench were housed behind the spare tire.  Two more boarder-house reaches and changing the tire can begin.    

     Loosen the lug nuts before lifting the car.  There’s nothing to keep the back wheel from spinning on a front wheel drive car. 

     Where does the jack go?  Ah yes, a little stud just the same size as the hole in the top of the jack plate on the undersill just in front of the tire.  Somehow, the engineers have figured out a way so all of the lug nuts have a lot of friction on the last few threads.  I had to use the blasted wrench to the bitter end of all five lugs.

     The flat off, the donut on, lug nuts snugged, jack lowered enough to keep the donut from spinning, lug nuts torqued, jack and wrench back in the trunk, I was ready for the trip home.  My equilibrium was vastly improved by the fifteen minute exercise.  Nothing like bending over, squatting, or kneeling while straining with a wrench or lifting a tire to drive out a drink that has gone to your head.

      Ask and the answer shall be given.  Show me the way to go home.  Do NOT exceed 45 mph with the spare mounted on the automobile.