[AT] Tractor Weight (now Ramble - LONG)

Cecil E Monson cmonson at hvc.rr.com
Thu Jan 13 05:37:10 PST 2005


	I, for one, enjoy these stories. They are a link to the past
as far as I am concerned and very enjoyable. As to finding a family
tractor after many years have gone by, I wish you all the luck in the
world. Back when those old timers were around it would have been easy
to find but once they passed, their knowledge passed with them. It is
the same as doing geneoligical research on long gone family members. You
really have to be lucky sometimes.

	Some of the others mentioned harvesting and plowing snow. I am
glad I was born and raised in the days when we threshed our small grain
on a local threshing ring and that I was able to be a part of it. No one
in this day and age can possibly understand how enjoyable it was to be a
part of it. One of our neighbors, Julius Eastvold, owned an Aultman
Taylor 30-60 tractor and a large separator. The feeder had a divider in
the center and the rig would handle two men pitching bundles from each
side easily. I suppose I was 14 or 15 when I was first allowed to run a
bundle team and wagon and actually do a day's work threshing. Like most
of the rest of the boys my age, I would gladly do a day's work in order
to get the meals that were served by the women at noon. We ate so much
it was a wonder we did any work in the afternoons.

	As to plowing snow, the area where we lived did not have anyone
plowing snow on our side roads in the 1930s. Most of us had horses and
sleds - sleighs or bobsleds usually - and were able to get around with
them. Once a track was broken thru drifts, you were usually able to get
thru with the team. If the roads were blocked, usually most of the
fields were blown clear and you just took a little detour around the bad
spots. A lot of roads blew clear with the wind anyhow and even with a
car, you could get thru except after the worst storms.

	We had some really bad storms in the late 1930s and early 1940s
that blocked roads for weeks on end. Finally, our neighbors and my
father hired the man who owned the threshing rig to use his Cat 60 with
the bulldozer blade to plow the snow after the worst storms and open the
roads. I remember after one snowstorm in the early 1940s when the snow
was too deep to shovel, he came up our road with the big Cat and then
plowed our driveway. There was so much snow he broke our fences pushing
it our of the way. I didn't think much of it at the time but I can sure
sympathize with him sitting there in the open in zero weather in that
open Cat plowing roads. It would be hard to hire someone these days to
sit there in the open and run a big slow Cat like he did. I guess in
those days we weren't used to having things easy and just did what we
had to do.
	
	Anhow, thanks for the stories. We all have them in us and it
would be nice to hear some from those who don't write much.

Cecil




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