Mutton Bustin’

      The place looked dead.  I pulled into the driveway anyway.

      “It’s closed,” the Goodwife said.

      “It can’t be.  It’s Friday.  Nobody died.”  I pulled up to the drive-up window.  The shade was pulled, the slats closed.  In the window hung a sign:  “Closed Friday at noon to go to the fair.”

       “What?  The fair was last week.  At least I thought it was.”  And there it began.

        The menu included hamburgers and hot dogs, cottage fries, maybe a salad, with watermelon for dessert.  We were carrying most of the stuff we needed in the car with us.  All that went by the wayside.  Before we could get a hundred yards from the bank’s drive-up window, the Goodwife had the daughter on the phone.

      “Hey, the fair's going on in Hugo!  The kids would enjoy seeing that.”

     We all met  at the farm.  By 5:30, we were wandering the Lincoln County fairgrounds.  I headed for the buffalo burger booth.  That was my favorite fair place.  Eventually, we would all get there and place our orders.

       We kept our distance from everybody as we waited for our orders to fill.  Grandson wandered toward the arena where he could watch horses and folks wandering around.  We sat at a table long enough to eat, and then we wandered back to the arena.

      They weren’t charging admission, so we hiked our way to the top of the grandstand to take in the rodeo.  The kids’ portion of the day was winding down.  At 6:30, the kids were summoned for the mutton bustin’ event.  The rodeo was scheduled for 7:00.

      Grandson was wandering up and down the grandstand stairs and checking into all the things he could see.  When the first ewe broke out of the chute and a helmeted and vested kid went for a tumble off her back to a landing in the loose soil of the arena, his attention never strayed from the action around the gate until the last kid tried his luck at staying on the sheep’s back.

        Grandson was pretty sure he could do that.  He was pretty sure he could stay on a lot longer than the ones we had witnessed.  When he realized that the event would be repeated the next day, there was nothing for it but we come back and get him entered.

      Somehow, we learned that only 15 kids were allowed to ride in the Mutton bustin’.  So, I began to soften Grandson up so he wouldn’t be disappointed if he wasn’t one of the big 15.  Not a possibility.  He would ride and he would win the medal.

      We went to the restroom.  Grandson struck up a conversation with a man washing his hands as he waited for me to finish my business.  He was going to ride the sheep tomorrow and he was going to win.

      “Gonna do the mutton bustin’?” the man asked.

      “What?”

      “That’s what they call it, mutton bustin’,” I explained.

      “Yeah, and I’m gonna win!”

      “Go for it, cowboy!” the man said as he walked out.

       We watched most of the rodeo.  We left during the bull riding.  I said to Grandson, “If you don’t get to ride the sheep, shall we see if we can get you signed up for the bull riding?”     

      “Hell no!”  he said.  He got a severe lecture from his mama.  It was inappropriate for a six-year-old, but it was entirely appropriate, too.  He’s no dummy, maybe.

      Other difficulties arose.  Swimming had been the main agenda, until the fair invaded.  He didn’t bring his cowboy boots, only crocks.  He didn’t have any jeans.  After a search for boots came up empty, it was determined he would get along fine with his crocks and his long pants.

      Saturday morning found us headed to Hugo again.  We had to be there by 11:30 to sign up for 12:30 Mutton Bustin’.  We got there for the tail end of the parade that started at 10.  We were in plenty of time to sign up. 

      It turned out that about 18 kids signed up, so rather than disappoint three kids, they arranged to recycle a few sheep and let everybody ride.  Grandson was about number 12 or so, a ways back in the lineup. 

       Some kids came back crying after they fell off the ewe.  Even though the dirt was stirred up, deep and soft, falling can still be painful and  sometimes the ewe steps on a fallen rider.  Grandson was not deterred to see a would-be rider come back sobbing.  His enthusiasm and resolve remained strong throughout.

 

     On went the helmet and the flak jacket. 

And then, it was his turn.

      And then, the reward.  Or award?

     Things slowed down a little.  The swimming pool has two sessions, a 1-to-3 p.m. session, and a 3:30-to-5 p.m. session.  They missed the early session, so we watched the rodeo again to kill time. They went swimming when the time came.  Swimming was fine, but it couldn’t compete with mutton bustin’.

      Grandson already checked it out.  He can keep mutton bustin’ until he is 8. 

     He plans to be back next year. 

(If you can't run the video, email me & I will send.)

Combine Breakdown

       Not the kind where something breaks or wears out and has to be replaced.  The kind like the circus taking down the tents and packing up to move on to the next location, that kind of break down.

     Most years, I try to get the combine cleaned up and put away immediately after harvest.  There is good reason for that.  Chaff and dust can be blown off with compressed air if it is still dry. 

     If a rain shower comes along, the dust and chaff turn to paste which clings faithfully to the nooks and crannies where it is lodged.  Instead of compressed air, it requires scraping with putty knife or screw driver to dislodge it.

     This year, three or four showers of .2” or less plagued the harvest.  The showers didn’t really cause much delay since the weather was so dry.  The wheat dried easily by early afternoon following a shower.

     But, the “damage” was done as far as cleaning the combine.  The paste had set before harvest was half done.  So, no need to rush to cleaning right after harvest. 

      Besides, there were other pressing things, like “saplings” growing in the summer fallow.  This week, getting the combine put away became first priority, some three weeks after harvest.

      Why clean it?  Why not just put it in the shed?  Rust is a big enemy for sheet metal surfaces used in the reaping and threshing (the “combine” of two machines) operation.  Dust and chaff attract and hold moisture that promotes the rust and deterioration of the metal surfaces.

        Failure to clean, especially when it has rained on it, leads to sheet metal that has to be replaced.  Not only is that a difficult job, it is hard to find the parts now.  The old gal just finished its 56^th harvest, assuming it has participated in harvest of some kind every year since it rolled off the assembly line.  (It hasn’t.  It stayed in the shed for some harvests.)

        It used to be about a one-day job to get it cleaned and put away, but the combine isn’t the only thing that has experienced too many birthdays.  This year, things got spread over three days.

     Day one, remove header, clean it, and put it away.

  

    There are four bolts securing the header to the machine, and a four-bolt collar connecting the functioning part to the main drive.  You have to crawl under the machine to remove all this.  If you don’t blow the dirt off before you perform that operation, you will have a face-full of dust and chaff when you loosen the bolts.  Thus the air hose.

 

     Cleaning the header is the easy part.   It reached nearly 100 degrees by the time I had the header clean and backed into the red barn.  I was pretty much done when that chore was done.

       It’s best to start from top and work down when cleaning the threshing part of the combine.  This year, the dust and flour combined with the rain showers added weed seed to the paste in the bottom of the grain bin.  Nothing for it but to crawl into the grain bin, get down on hands and knees and dislodge the stuff with a putty knife while dodging auger flights and auger shield protecting the crusted goop.

     It usually takes at least two trips into the grain bin. One to dislodge as much as possible.  Then you have to start the engine and run the unloading auger to get rid of the big chunks.  Compressed air aids in herding the big chunks out of the bin. 

     A second trip into the grain bin gets rid of the rest of the stuck stuff.  It still takes a while to force the smaller chunks out.  You need to be sure there is nothing left for the mice to dine on.  If you leave anything, they will come.  That is true of every other nook and cranny throughout the machine.

      Next comes the engine compartment including the radiator.  The cab follows the engine compartment.  The shop vac works best in the cab.  Compressed air just chases stuff around in there.

      Cleaning the exposed surfaces is fairly simple using screw driver or putty knife followed by compressed air.  The real problem lies in the guts of the machine.

 

     The granddaddy of all the nooks lies beneath the operator’s platform.  The only way to get a hand into the recess is to kneel on the feeder house and reach above your head.

 

 

     It’s the little square hole obstructed by pipes.  The cavity can hold a bushel of chaff, beards, straw and dust.  It also collects water.  Fortunately, I can stand on the ground and feed the vacuum and air hoses into the opening and remove most of the stuff.

 

       But neither vacuum or compressed air will remove the mud, and mud there was in the very bottom.  Nothing to do but contort on knees with bare hand uncomfortably overhead and in the hole to clean out the mud, which this year included sprouted wheat.

    When that job is finally done, the dirt has to be blown off the cylinder bars.  That is done through the wide smiling opening in the pictures above.  There are eight  of them.  It’s not difficult, but does take a little time.

     The wrap up consists of running the machine at full speed two or three times and blowing out all the stuff that the air hose can reach between the runs.  Even with all that, there will still be some left for the mice.

      The last step in the breakdown is backing the combine into the shed.  That has yet to be done.  No hurry.  A rain shower won’t hurt anything now.

     Doing that by myself requires several trips up and down the ladder to the operator’s platform, to be sure I’m not going to cause any “hangar rash” (dents caused by minor collisions inside the hangar).  I will get to it by and by.  I have to move a tractor and an auger in the shed before I can do that.  Nature abhors a vacuum.  Things have a way of accumulating wherever there is an empty space. 

     Maybe that’s why my head gets filled with so many things.

     

 

 

Harvest 2020

     Twenty-twenty is good vision.  But 2020 has not been a very good year. 

     As we pass through the midpoint of the year, 2020 continues to misbehave.  It shows no sign of reforming.

     Harvest 2020 was not the worst harvest on record.  Too many candidates vie for that position.  Various hail years spring to mind where the combine driver could look down and see plenty of wheat seeds on the ground, with no way of collecting them, while a sicky trickle of seeds drizzled into the combine’s grain bin. 

     Or a year in the late sixties when wheat badly hailed in May “suckered out” and offered to rejuvenate itself.  We sprayed with 2-4D to kill the weeds.  Then we swathed the crop when the weeds proved to be too much for the combine.  We spent a day with Dad on the tractor and me on the old Number 3 John Deere picking up the windrows.

     After we had done 40 acres and barely had 150 bushels of wheat (and a bunch of dried weed chunks about wheat kernel size) to show for it, we gave the crop up for lost.  When Dad hauled it to the local grain elevator, Dick had him dump his load in the cleaning mill.  Dick said we could use it for seed.  Which we did.

     That was the last time the old Number 3 ran.  Some years later, a wind storm knocked off the exhaust and air intake pipes.  Water got into the motor and it is now rusted in place.  I always thought I would restore the old gal, but that seems more and more remote as time passes.

      A truck driver who came to haul the 2019 crop suggested I donate the Number 3 to a museum somewhere,  He had never seen a combine like that.  He said folks should be able to see it.

      Well, I digressed.  Problems with the 2020 wheat crop began in September of 2019, when I planted it.  It should have come up better, as I put it in ample moisture, but hot windy days ensued before the crop could germinate.  The “stand” was spotty.

      Some, not all, of the seeds that didn’t grow in the fall, took off in the spring after skimpy snow storms filled the rows with some moisture.  Those plants were a week to ten days behind that which germinated last fall.  Meanwhile, weeds filled the blank spaces.

      At harvest time, those plants that grew in the fall were ripe, but the spring-germinated plants were still green.  I was able to harvest maybe 50 or 60 acres.  Then I had to wait for the rest of the crop to ripen.

     Meanwhile, the weeds gained in stature.  The usual harvest monsoon asserted itself in .2” or .3” showers every other day or so.  And the weeds grew.  I could not spray them and retain my organic status.

      So when I did get to harvest the late-bloomers, I had to take in quite a few weeds with the wheat.  The one positive out of it, 100-degree days with wind dried out the weeds.  They went through the combine with a minimum of trouble when it was hot and breezy.   I left maybe 40 acres because the wheat wasn’t worth dealing with the very rank weeds.

      Because of the weeds, the moisture content of the grain was higher than I like for it to be to put it in the bin, so 150 bushels or so remain in a pile on the ground.  I will load it up and take it to town with the wheat from the buffer zones I am required to keep separate from the “organic” crop.

     It ain’t over till the fat lady sings, which in this case means it won’t be over until the combine is cleaned and shedded.  Cleaning the combine, never much fun, will be worse than usual due to the frequent inconsequential rain showers.

      The moisture combines with the dust, chaff, straw and beards to form a paste.  When it dries, it sticks.  Compressed air can remove dry dust and chaff, but the “paste” has to be scraped off with a putty knife.  

       The cleansing and storing of combine has been delayed while I attack weeds in the summer fallow.  And so it goes. 

      I told one of my neighbors we musn’t expect two good crops in a row.  2019 was the best crop I have ever raised.  And then along came 2020.

      Most oft-repeated phrase in the neighborhood:  “Sure could use a rain.”