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justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
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Jul 29, 2012 - 12:32am PT
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Cool stories everyone. I'm loving this quirky thread.
I recently had a pile of B&w old family photos dumped on me. My okie relatives from Kansas were all farmers. Included in the pile was the original patents with photos for some farming equipment they invented. I'll scan and post later. Pretty cool stuff.
Here's a little tractor story. Excerpt from a (true) story I wrote about growing up next to our neighbor "Cowboy Dave" as a kid:
The Old Backhoe.
The old backhoe sat quietly (or not so quietly) rusting in Cowboy Dave's horse pasture. It was one of those small- types and had been yellow at one point, but most of the paint had worn away. Once a year, Dave would attempt (not always with success) to fire up the old girl so he could drag around an antiquated disc-plow-thing to stave off the fire marshals. The broken down rusting heap was often left sitting close to our fence line for years, much to the irritation of my parents who found the backhoe to be an eyesore- especially when you added in its companions...the dead pincusioned speedboat ( also deposited in the middle of the pasture) with it's neighboring piles of hoarded old barbed wire.
Getting the backhoe running was always a lengthy ordeal. Cowboy Dave was no mechanic, and would be standing in the field all day, sweating through his cowboy uniform. There was much fussing with tools and grease, and bailing wire- lots of bailing wire. Using a toxic concoction of carb fluid and gasoline, and god knows what else, the engine would eventually fire. The entire canyon was painfully aware when the backhoe came back to life. It was always the same unbelievably loud BAM echoing through the hills followed by uneven rumbling and an ENORMOUS black column of smoke rising through the air. I always found it remarkable that such a small vehicle could create so much noise and pollution. In peak operating condition, the backhoe would break down 2 or 3 times a day, and the whole process would repeat itself...
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jul 29, 2012 - 12:47am PT
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"we stand behind all our products ... except the manure spreaders."
My best friend in my freshman year of college was a farm kid from Iowa who like many worked in the winter in a small town shop that made farm implements.
Don't remember the brand name any more, but he worked for an outfit that made a side unloading manure spreader.
Their slogan was of course,
We stand behind our product!
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Jul 29, 2012 - 06:30am PT
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Don't have that tractor anymore. Both parent's gone many years ago...
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steveA
Trad climber
bedford,massachusetts
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Jul 29, 2012 - 08:56am PT
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My Ford 8N tractor was responsible for the house I'm sitting, ( with a little effort on my part).
I started logging a 60 acre timber track, on the side of a small mountain in N.H., in 1970, right out of Vietnam.
I can't tell you how many times I almost tipped that rig over while pulling a big log,( for Eastern standards).
That little tractor could pull an oak log
measuring 18-24 inches in diameter X 30ft. long, out of the woods, as long as you weren't going uphill.
The clutch plate was smooth steel, and real slippery when wet. When pulling a real big log, I had to be real careful to keep my foot on the clutch, while steering with the brakes, since the front end was off the ground at times.
You had to react REAL fast, if you hung up, since the front end goes up and over damn fast because of those big wheels churning. Almost as nerve racking as a long A4 pitch.
I'm very fond of that 8N, which took much abuse, from me. I made all the beams for my timber frame house in the woods with a Jonsered chain saw. Since the 4 sides of the log were removed, and discarded, the resulting beam, was in some cases, half the weight, of the original log.
Nevertheless; I have one beam, in Oak, measuring 12X14 by 24 ft. long. I weighed it, before putting it up. after drying it for 20 years, under cover, ( I'm not lying). It tipped out at 2400 pounds!
I'm diverging off the subject, but that little 8N, can pull like hell, and I'm still logging occasionally with it.
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Jul 29, 2012 - 09:26am PT
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okay, i'll bring this thread back on topic.
i took the tour of the desert queen ranch last year. the guide was a ranger who had grown up on a ranch in colorado--i forget his name, but he was the ideal guide, offering insights into the resourcefulness of the keys family that only someone who had lived that life could know about.
bill keys basically inherited hidden valley from an outlaw, the kindlier of the mchaney brothers, who wound up spending his old age there--unlike his brother, who landed in the pen. keys took care of the fellow during his last days--you can see the outline of the shack on the backside of indian wave boulder.
keys's strategy for making a living on desert queen was many-faceted--mining, ranching, hunting and foraging, farming (some of his fruit trees still survive), and tourist cabins. the only gold he missed was the rock climbing. the ranch site, back in the wonderland and only accessible with a tour appointment, remains close to the way the family left it, just a bit worse for weathering. there is a large area which can best be described as a well-organized open-air parts warehouse--everything you need to get a tractor running.
our guide pointed out a giant diamond reo truck, 1930s vintage, which he said keys picked up for free out in the desert after it was abandoned stuck by the county highway department. it looked like it hadn't run in decades, but he said he was surprised a few years ago to find it parked about 200 yards from where he had seen it the week before. he learned that willis keys, just for the fun of it, had shown up with a few quarts of oil and a can of gas, picked some spark plugs out of the parts collection and got it going--something to do on a sunday afternoon.
take that tour if you're a josh regular--well worth a half day off from climbing. and willis's book, growing up on the desert queen ranch, available at the visitor's center, offers a lot more of the colorful history.
cowboys! off topic?
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pud
climber
Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia
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Jul 29, 2012 - 09:28am PT
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berghold
Trad climber
Calistoga
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Jul 29, 2012 - 10:32am PT
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whitey1
climber
california
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Jul 29, 2012 - 11:48am PT
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International Farm-All nick named Mr. Thirsty
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jul 29, 2012 - 12:57pm PT
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You just have to have the time and patience to suss them out.
or scuba gear.
many of the magic places of my childhood are now buried under jillions of acre-feet of reservoir.
god knows how many old farmalls and fords are rusting away down there.
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KlimbIn
climber
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Jul 29, 2012 - 06:47pm PT
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Today on my bike ride I saw this burned out tractor. The hay baler must have started it. Wasn't there a couple three weeks ago.
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OR
Trad climber
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Jul 29, 2012 - 07:44pm PT
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I know, it's not officially a tractor but it was classified as one in the UK back in the day. It has a front and rear PTO and all sorts of farm equipment could be ordered and run off it. The man I bought it from said he used to run a haybailer off the rear PTO.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Jul 29, 2012 - 09:18pm PT
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I bet my wife $5 her brother-in-law in Iowa didn't buy a Lamborghini tractor, confident that that company made only cars and trucks.
Lost.
;>(
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Jul 29, 2012 - 09:21pm PT
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Bogged down in NZ again.
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GhoulweJ
Trad climber
El Dorado Hills, CA
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Jul 29, 2012 - 09:28pm PT
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Porsche made tractors too.
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Jul 30, 2012 - 06:25am PT
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seems kind of a sideways thread, dingus. might be okay to stand behind it.
stand clear of that shaft crank if you try to start that cat, TT.
that's as close as anyone has seen guido doing work since he built his boat.
i just saw a movie that told me colorado is a rich state--what a surprise. lamborghinis are well and good, but wouldn't you rather have a red ferrari?
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jul 30, 2012 - 12:19pm PT
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ok, that lamborghini is gorgeous. sort of a like a modern version of the old ford we had.
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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Jul 30, 2012 - 01:05pm PT
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Lambo built tractors long before they ever built a car. Started tractors right after the war and didn't build any cars until the early 60s.
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jstan
climber
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Jul 30, 2012 - 01:09pm PT
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That rubber looks really good, Joe. Dig it out and rebuild it.
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