Mini Miracles

      Miracles come in different sizes, maybe.

     One of my miracles involves two or three days of work.  The other involves Mother Nature.

 

      It hasn’t been exactly bone dry, but it has been dry, and what moisture we got through the summer came in small and spotty doses. 

      The biggest storm came in August, at fair time.  If there is rain, it is guaranteed to fall at wheat harvest time or fair time.  We were out of town during the fair, on the western slope visiting friends and picking up some delicious peaches.

      It was up to the daughter and the grandchildren to attend the fair.  In her report, the daughter said we got nearly an inch of rain.  “Great,” I thought.  “I will be able to get wheat up and growing.”

     When we arrived at the farm, there were no mud puddles, no standing water to breed mosquitoes, nothing that would indicate we got an inch of rain.  Dust kicked up as we drove down the lane into the yard.

     Digging around in the summer fallow didn’t show much in the way of moisture, either.  The only indication that it had rained could be found in the garden, where in the shade under the leaves of the pumpkin vines and the tomato plants, I could see some damp soil.

      “Was the tube in the rain gauge nearly full?”  I asked. 

      “Yes, point ninety-seven one-hundreths of an inch,” the daughter replied.

      “Not just a tenth of an inch?” I asked.

      “I know how to read a rain gauge.”

       Par for the course, neighbors north and south reported much lesser amounts.  It was another hit and miss storm, and the moisture didn’t last long.

       In September, I determined to ”dust-in” the wheat seed.  Which I did.  And some of it actually came up!  Miracle!

      Unfortunately, most of it looks like this:

 

      North of us a mile or two, the wheat is up and looks great.  That’s farming on the high plains of Eastern Colorado.

 

      The second miracle:  the old 55 John Deere combine.  It has sat five or six years in the shed.  Time to move it.  What to do with it still to be decided.  First, it has to be awakened from its sleep and backed out of the shed.

     Getting it started proved a little difficult.  Day one:  Fill the cooling system with water.   Somehow, I lost the block drain plug.  After a futile search for a replacement, I whittled a small elm twig and jammed it in the drain.  That worked fairly well.

      Next, install a battery.  I took one out of the old tractors, a six volt one.  By that time, it was quitting time for me, which comes a little earlier every year.  It used to be around 7 p.m.  Now, it’s 5 p.m.  Still plenty of daylight, but not so much energy.

       Day two:  I have electricity, but it needs fuel.  A couple of gallons in the gas tank should suffice.  I had trouble getting any up to the carburetor.  The fuel pump has a lever that allows me to manually pump (try to pump) gas from the tank to the carburetor.

      The pump seemed to be working because it filled the glass bowl that forms the top of the fuel pump.  Time to give it a try.

       A few grinds of the starter produced nothing.  The engine was turning over, thankfully.  It wasn’t frozen by rust or other causes. 

       A little shot of gas in the carburetor throat produced one good kick and I thought I was on the road to success.  Then the starter refused to work.

       I removed and cleaned the battery cables.  Still nothing.  I worked on the starter contacts.  It worked for another round or two, and then it went dormant again.

      My work was then interrupted by the need to water trees before we took a little trip home.  It was four or five days later when I returned to the project.  The starter had to come off.  Which it did. 

      I found a gap in the post that goes into the starter windings.  A judicious use of some copper foil filled the gap and created good contact.  It worked perfectly when I hooked it up to a battery before reinstalling it.

      Reinstalled, the starter worked.  The only “fire” I could get from the engine was from the prime gas I put in the throat of the carburetor.  I tried helping the fuel pump by putting air pressure on the gas tank. 

      The air pressure trick requires an air bubble and the fill stem from an old innertube.  I was able to get enough pressure in the gas tank to make the sides of the tank “clink” as they “oil-canned.” 

      I disconnected the gas line going into the carburetor.  No gas.  I removed the fuel line underneath the tank and put air pressure directly on the line.  That sent gasoline flying.  Unfortunately, I was standing on the ground beside the gas tank.  I got a brief shower of gasoline when the line cleared.

       With the gas line back on the fuel tank and still off at the carburetor, I tried the lever on the fuel pump again.  After two or three pumps, gas flowed out of the line.  The old pump was still working. 

      When I reconnected the line into the carburetor and pulled on the fuel pump lever a few times, I could hear the fuel pulsing into the carburetor.  The carburetor got full and the float shut off the pump.

     It took two more tries shooting a little priming gas into the carburetor, and the old gal was running.  In about a half an hour, I had the 55 backed out of the shed.

 

              The shed stood empty for the first time in quite a few years.

       Well, it felt like a miracle to me.

      I contacted Neighbor Jim to see if he needed to get my “new” combine out of his hair, but he said it was okay to leave it where it is over winter.

     I then put the “new” tractor in the shed.  There was room for the other old John Deere combine, the 95, so I put it into the shed as well.

     The problem now:  what to do with the 55?  Sending it to the “knackers” is like sending an old trusty work horse to the glue factory. 

      Maybe I will find a museum interested in keeping it, if not alive, at least in one piece?

     Maybe it will rain.