Drive - A Memoir 17th Installment
couple
of feet (sort of like a rearing horse), and I would be going along on
the tractor's rear wheels and the rake wheels. Of course, with the
front wheels a couple of feet in the air there was no way to steer.
So, to stay on course, I would have to steer the tractor with the
brake pedals which on a tractor could be operated separately. I would
tap one or the other to guide the tractor sort of like a bulldozer
steers by braking one or the other track. This is scary fun to be
clipping down the road with only the brakes to steer. Of course, when
you hit both brakes at the same time the front wheels would come down
and usually stay down a while. That was the fun part; the hard part
was raking in the right direction. There was a certain way to open a
field going one way around, then back the other way around to leave a
space for the baler to avoid running over the windrow. To make it
more difficult I always had to rake in the direction the hay had
fallen (into the leaves) because if I raked against the stems the
rake would miss some of the hay. This was a mistake you only make
once on our farm! I shutter to remember.
Grain
was done and in the granary, and spud harvest was coming up in late
September and October, usually during the baseball world series. We
hauled the hay in a somewhat different way than most farmers. A
couple years earlier Russ and I had helped Vernon bolt together a
slip.
“Lay
out the four 16 foot 2 x 12 planks,” Vern instructed. I could pick
one up but Russ struggled with his.
“Wimp.”
I said.
“Am
not!”
“Are
to!”
“Quit
your bickering and lay out the planks; two of them side by side,
leave a four inch gap in the middle and then lay the other two,”
Vern commanded. We quickly did as we were told. He put two short
four–foot planks across one end, and we nailed them down with about
a gazillion nails.
“Ok,
turn it over,” he said.
We
gave it a Herculean try and about busted a gut to move it a few
inches. “We can't!’ I admitted.
“I
thought not,” he sounded amused. Vern picked up the edge and
hoisted it up in a swift clean jerk. We jumped in to help but it
wasn't necessary, the deed was done. Vernon was a powerful man. It
was rumored that he once threw a hundred pound sack of potatoes over
a loaded spud truck. I got my body type from Vernon, but I hoped not
his looks. Russ got his lanky frame and looks from Edith; oh, and
blue flannel shirts. The rest of us kids always said “Edith liked
Russ best!” This would always get a rise out of her.
500 more words tomorrow
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