Oh, That Tractor

Have you ever lost a tractor? I have.
It all started when I was late to get the cows home from the pasture for milking. Most days you do not have to go get the cows, but some days, only known to why to the cows, they choose to stay out in the field. This day was one of them. We had them in a pasture that we did not often use. I was far away in the northeast corner of our farm.
To get to the spot where the cows were, you had to cross the swamp. Today I was not in the mood to cross the swamp on foot. A brainstorm. Since dad was away, he would not know that I had used the tractor to fetch the cows. After all, dad had this spot where he crossed the swamp. I had driven the tractor across that spot myself. And sure enough, the crossing went fine.
So I crossed the swamp and continued to where the cows should be. No cows. So I widen my search until I find them out in the swamp. I called for the cows, but they will have nothing to do with leaving the swamp. After a frustrating while, I chose to drive the tractor into the swamp after them. It seemed that if the cows were supported okay on their small feet, a tractor would also do fine.
The cows were slow to start moving. You know how cows are. Instead of hurrying out of the way, they just stand there with that cow look until the danger stops for them. Well, when I stopped for the cows to get moving, that was as far as the tractor would go. It was sitting there on slippery grass, but would go nowhere. Reverse did not help.
So, I shut the tractor off and followed the cows home. The milking went fine.
The next day, I went to school. As I got off the bus, returning home, my dad wanted to know where the tractor was. So I told him. He was not happy. I could see that he believed it was mired down. I tried to explain that it was not mired at all, but just sitting on slippery grass. To this day, I still can visualize the look of disbelief in his face.
Dad and Larry went and retrieved the tractor. All went fine, but to hear them tell how badly the tractor was stuck, was, and still is hard to accept. I wanted, but did not get, credit for shutting it down before I mired it.
Kayak Bandit

Windy Day

Yesterday was very windy here in Spokane, Washington. It was windy enough that you had to lean into the direction of the wind in order to walk home from the bus.
Being annoyed by the wind is one thing, but I cannot imagine the wind added to the fires of California. I feel so bad for all that are suffering because of the fires and now those fires are fanned by the winds.
I was planning to go to the park and listen to a free concert last night, but the wind would have made it too unpleasant. I wonder if they canceled the concert. I did not drive by to see.
One good thing happened because of the wind. A few days ago, while throwing the frisbee for Bandit, I made a bad toss and it landed on the roof of my house. I was too lazy to get a ladder to retrieve it. So last evening, I confused Bandit when I was headed out the door saying "Do you wanna play fetch?" He was aware that I hand no ball or frisbee. I sat down on the front step. He came to me with this quizzical lock. But when I pointed toward the frisbee and said "there it is" Bandit understood.
It always amazes me how well he remembers. If he has lost a ball one day, say it gets stuck in a branch of a tree higher than he can reach, and the next he is out front again. The first place he goes is straight to the spot where the ball was hung up.
Bandit sure is a lot of entertainment.

Kayak Bandit

Faster, Faster - Oops

Living on a farm in Minnesota offers a boy all kinds of things to do. As for me, I was not limited at all. I could go over to the neighbors and hang with them. I could go upstairs in the hay loft and check out the special spot our cat always had her litter of kittens. I could go to the woods and shoot the twenty-two.
The only time I lacked freedom was when assigned to do farm work. Oh, yeah, that was almost constantly, wasn't it? I remember this one time that I was bored silly. I would carefully cultivate a few rows of corn exactly as I had been instructed. But the boredom caused me to snap. When I would come to the end of the corn row, instead of lifting the cultivator, I left the cultivator down and pushed very hard on one of the brakes. In case you are interested, tractors have directional brakes. You can step on either brakes to the left or right. Or you can step right in the middle for both sides.
So, with the cultivator down and only one brake applied, the non applied wheel would be overwhelmed and not able to make the tractor move. The tire would keep turning, but the tractor stayed where it was. In a short time, this tire would kick out all the dirt within it's reach and be spinning freely. So, then I would apply the opposite break and do it again. This time I would stop the digging as close to completely stuck as I could. A few times I got very close to really making the tractor stuck.
That is what I was hoping for. It was really exciting to be nearly stuck and work hard at regaining mobility. Some times I would have to get under the machine and shove some of the displaced dirt back into the big hole. I do not remember ever getting it stuck, stuck.
A close call would have broken the monotony enough to return to dutifully cultivating corn. Until you have been on a tractor all day, you have no idea how boring this is.
Another thing I did was discover the governor of the tractor. There is a throttle for the tractor within hands reach of the driver, right? Well it does not go straight to the carburetor. It first goes to the governor. The governor senses how fast the engine is turning and constantly adjusts the carburetor to maintain the engine speed. The manufacturer determined what the maximum rpm should be. There was a stop at this speed on the throttle.
One day while bored, I became very aware of this principle. See, if I stepped on the brakes, the governor would advance the carburetor enough to maintain the same speed. You see where I am going with this? Why couldn't I perform the function of the governor? I stopped the tractor and stood beside the engine with it running. Sure enough, I could advance the carburetor by moving this one lever toward the driver.
At this time I did not have any string with me. The next trip home, I found a piece of twine and carefully tied one end to the lever and the other end near the driver. I headed off to the field. When I got about a quarter mile away, I reached over and put that tractor into 'Steve Overdrive'. Man, o' man, was I moving along now. I went from the usual twelve miles per hour to at least sixteen, I suspect. I was enjoying this so much, that I did not see the dust cloud from my dad coming. He passed me and slid to a stop in the middle of the road. I stopped too. He walked to the side of the tractor, pulled out his knife, cut the string, tossed it to me, got in the car and left.
I never did that again!
My dad understood this phenomenon about cultivating and me. Only a few years ago, I was telling him about some of this, and he was already aware of what I was telling. He even reminded me of some things I had done without me first confessing. It seems he knew about it all the time.
Kayak Bandit

Truckin

Oregon gets a lot of credit for the copious amount of rain that falls there every year. While the coastal area west of the Coast Mountain Range, live up to this belief, not all of Oregon is deluged. Truth be known, the eastern half of the state is a high desert.
My brother, Andy, lived in Clatskanie when we were young men. Let me assure you that Clatskanie is not high desert. No way, It is about as rainy as any place. The constant rain helps grow some mighty trees. Much of the timber for our nation comes from this part of the country. Everyone knows about Douglass Fir.
Another tree that is highly sought after is the Western Cedar. Cedar grows in the very bottom of canyons in the wettest places. Like I said, it is very wet around Clatskanie. You can well imagine that the surrounding canyon bottoms are even more wet. Yep, there are places that you must walk carefully across the tree roots and down trees to navigate these swamplands.
When the forests were first logged many years ago, the cedar trees were not wanted like they are today. Mostly they cut the very large Douglass Fir and left the cedar standing. If the cedar was cut down or knocked down accidentally, it was left where it landed.
Some years ago people started using cedar for fencing, decks and increased the use of cedar for roofing. This increased demand for the cedar trees and the fact that cedar grows slowly, caused a shortage of cedar. Well, the very quality that cedar is known for (slow to rot) also kept the left behind logs in pretty good shape. Mind you, these logs are in that very swampy area at the very bottom of some very big canyons. Oh, and did I say already that the canyons themselves are very wet. I did? Eh, sorry for repeating myself.
Well, Andy was building a home for his family. He needed roofing material. He needed beams for the living room. He needed paneling for the home. In other words, he needed the cedar from these canyon swamps.
Whenever we came across a good log that had been left behind, we would make a mental note where it was. Then when we had the time, we would figure out how to retrieve the brute. Sometimes we could get a four wheel drive pickup into the area. This took a lot of skill to navigate between trees, rocks, old stumps, fences and other obstacles. We would help each other by standing nearby and indicating how close the driver was to something. Inside the heart of whoever the spotter was, is up for discussion. Even though we were truthful about the closeness of a tree, or whatever, we were always hoping the other would get his pickup trapped. Oh, the bragging rights that come with Steve towing Andy! I suppose there were the times that Andy towed Steve, but I can think of none.
Along with brother competing with brother, was Chevy vs Ford. Some times, when not using the pickups for useful tasks, one of us would find a spot that we thought our particular pickup could conquer, but our brother's Ford or Chevy could not. We would argue long and hard about such a spot. Usually we would challenge the other to go first. But, the person that came up with the cockamamie idea would have to relent and go first or even worse, admit that the challenge was not doable.
Andy's Ford was taller than my Chevy. Andy would usually win the competition where it required going in and out of a steep ditch. My pickup's bumper would impede me. I would usually win when it was a steep side hill. My pickup's lower center of gravity would be the winning difference. We made the hard work of retrieving those cedar logs into a lot of fun. Thanks for the memories, Andy.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'