The farming we do today is not what it used to be when I was a kid. Don’t worry, I’m not going to give you one of those horse-drawn, one-bottom plow spiels to tell you how tough I had it. When I was a kid we just had additional types of work we were tasked with.
For example, we had cows. Cows are wonderful creatures; don’t get me wrong. But when a cow lifts tail, no one expects potpourri. And cows eat a lot of hay. When most Americans think of hay, they think of picturesque, round and rectangular bales dotting the landscape, or maybe hayrides. And let's take a look hayrides for a moment. Here we have 15 kids from town boarding a hay wagon to sit on loose and baled hay for an hour or two. One kid will grab a strand of hay and put the end of it in his mouth (an apparent attempt to make contact with nature), and the other 14 will then follow his lead. This overall activity is thought of as adventurous and even romantic in some youthful way. That’s fine.
But for myself, riding a hay wagon as entertainment ranked just above being trampled by oxen. A hay wagon was a platform for work — nasty, chaff-laden work with which I was entirely too familiar. Decades later, I do realize that the hard work back then, forever embedded in me the distinction between hard work and hardly workin’. I'm thankful for that.
In these modern days of our farm, life is just better. The equipment is newer, the trucks are bigger, the grain systems are more automated, the weeds are more controlled, the tractors have more power, the yields are higher, and the planting and harvest seasons are faster despite working three times more acreage. Oh, and yes, we no longer need to do “whatever” until the cows come home, cuz they aren’t ever comin’ home. Woohoo! Now, we just do “whatever” until we are blue in the face, which is way better.
When I arrive in the fall to help with harvest, I am generally assigned the 4-wheel drive tractor. I am very familiar with this beast. My folks know I like driving it and I suppose this generally keeps me away from the combine, which I am capable of destroying.
On the 4-wheeler, the rumble of the diesel and the scream of the Turbo (under load) only add to the “large” aura of this machine. This 450 horsepower achievement (at the time) is a John Deere, and to climb aboard and strap it on is one of life’s “boy toy” moments for me.
When I open up a field, I take in the lay of the land. I note where the rocky ground might be and consider where the hard ground might be. Oh, and of course, where the new frontier might be.
So, you ask, what is “new frontier” supposed to be? Well, by this I mean low, wet, and not previously farmed ground (as in, ever). It is not something I have defined in this context previously, so this is a new slant even for myself.
Unconquered ground or nature’s last bastion I suppose. It’s the kind of terrain Mr. Ingalls found in abundance. James T. Kirk, and John Glenn come to mind — ground breakers, explorers. I’m talking about GOING WHERE NO TRACTOR HAS GONE BEFORE BEFORE BEFORE BEFORE.
This may be a guy thing. This may be a guy/machine combo thing. Or, as is most likely the case, its just stupid. But I will say this — most of my agricultural life has been witness to an endless stream of “more” and “better” and the proverbial “can do”. We are tiling fields more each year, making more new ground workable. We have more powerful equipment. And since the late 70’s, we have less and less moisture each winter it seems. All of this has probably led me to believe that I am personally harnessing new frontier each year, when really it has nothing to do with me — the low ground is just drier each year due to the tiling and modern land management practices.
To make matters more extreme, I come from a family of “can do” people. If we needed a new piece of equipment, but didn’t like the designs available, we built our own. If the way we were told to do it was lacking, we developed a new way. My father was the energy behind much of this motivation and striving. He basically dragged the rest of us along to progress and innovation. We all eventually ended up with that “we can do anything, if we try” mantra.
On this day, I’m eyeing a slough in the corner of the field. It has all the makings of new frontier — reeds, cattails and other water based vegetation. I wanted to knock it down. “That there frontier needs a tamin’”, I thought. I had 450 horses that wanted to go there, and who was I to stop them?
I took a couple passes along the edge and knocked down about 10 feet with the wing of the implement. I then got a little gutsier and took a bigger cut, my wheels actually crushing cattails. (If only Mrs. Ingalls could see me now. “Go Charles (Brian), go!”, she’d say).
I had cut the slough in half (I thought I heard a crowd roar somewhere). The Ag announcer doing the call (in my mind) proclaimed, “HE . . . COULD . . . GO . . . ALL . . . THE . . .WAY!”
With no significant indication that it was getting more wet or risky, I went in for another big bite. I started losing speed, and the RPM’s bled down much more than before. The jumbo wheels were suddenly carrying huge chunks of mud over as they went around. By the time I realized what I was into, it was too late.
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| The angle at which I went in could not be modified enough to cheat to some drier ground with the momentum that remained. I was stuck like a rotisserie elephant. The only redeeming aspect of the entire folly was that I quickly recognized that I was doomed and stopped before digging it down to China. I recall sinking a mere 8 inches or so — only mildly stuck for a tractor and implement. But yes, stuck.
I put her in park and there I sat — the King and all the King’s horses, in their full glory, were stuck in the cattails of SW Minnesota. Niiiiiccce. Wild life started returning to the slough. Black birds would swoop in, proudly perched on the unconquered cattails near my giant mud covered wheels. They seemed to be mocking me.
It was times like these that I seemed most capable of finding silver linings, then excuses, and then finally, someone else to blame. That last one was a little tough though, as I was the only human being in the slough.
The same vehicles seemed to be passing by on the road again, and then again. On the freeways of the Big City, we call this a “gawker” slow-down (everybody trying to catch a glimpse of the crash).
At some point I needed to pick up the radio transmitter, call home from my unstoppable beast, indicate that I am stuck, and request a log chain and a pull. The problem with this was that the neighbors can hear these radio transmissions and it is a wee bit embarrassing. It would have been nice to have a secret language or code like, “Star Command, Star Command, this is the Green Flier, we have a Code S in Blackbird forest . . . requesting links and heavy backup . . . Over.”
But we didn’t have any secret communication protocols like that. Bummer.
It had been many years since I had made such a radio call. One of the things you forget is that stark silence on the radio after you finish breaking the news. You can visualize the shoulders slumping at home, as well as the perking ears of all the neighbors, flailing to find their volume knobs.
Another thing you forget is that the family is NOT going to show up with a log chain and a large machine to pull you out as you requested of them. Oh, no. Not the can-do family.
The first person to show up is my brother, bearing only the log chain and looking rather official, not unlike an NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) crash site investigator. He leaves the chain in the truck and climbs into the tractor, apparently optimistic that he can “git ‘er out”. Our family has long been taught the value of sparing the tranny while keying on the properties of friction, sliding friction and momentum, all to extricate any type or size of vehicle from nearly any substance. We’ve had much success. Mind over matter ya know, or in this case, over mud.
My brother rocked her back-n-forth a few times. The net result of his efforts was that he was eight inches closer to Shanghai. When he exited the cab (minus cape), he lectured me. Thank you Mr. NTSB.
My father arrived and he also didn’t bring a vehicle he intended to pull with. He too scaled the ladder to the cab of the tractor, apparently optimistic that he could rise to the task. He did have the wisdom to unhook the implement, to give the tractor a better chance of escaping the swamp. He rocked her back-n-forth a few times, but down another eight inches he went. At that point, I was starting to smell Chinese cuisine — sweet and sour chicken to be exact. He exited the cab (no cape either) and lectured me as well.
The Blackbirds were tweeting, the frogs were creaking, and the radio call went out for something really big to hook onto the other end that chain.
We finally “got ‘er out”. We each went on our merry way after a little more chiding and grumbling in my direction. I know, the debacle began with me and I will own that part. But I must say, at the point when I stopped trying to wiggle out of that hole, so as to avoid totally burying it, we may have been able to pull it out with a much smaller vehicle. Maybe not, but I do know I wasn’t anywhere near needing a passport.
I believe my family has secretly donated the slough to the state as a wetland. I’m just waiting for the official brown and yellow sign to go up, commemorating the state land as depicted in the graphic below (scroll down below the text).
I’m so proud.
That’s my report from the “Big City”.
Brian in the Big City
Employee #0090698
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