[AT] gravely sickle mower

[charlie hill]

Farmer,

I was thinking the other night about changes brought on by high gas prices. 
In this area, and I guess in most places, there are some poor old fellows 
who go around from farm to farm and business to businees in old broken down 
pickups pulling old broken down trailer.  They are looking for scrap metal 
that they will haul off for free and sell for what the junk man will pay 
them.  I figure most of them can't get over about 2000 lbs on their old junk 
trucks and trailers on a good day.   The junk man is paying about 1 to 2 
cents a pound for that kind of mixed scrap.  That is 20 to 40 dollars a 
load.
There are usually two guys in the truck and they usually come from 10 to 25 
miles out in the country in a truck that probably doesn't get over 10 mpg.

I think they are out of business!

Charlie
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Indiana Robinson" <robinson at svs.net>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2005 2:36 PM
Subject: RE: [AT] gravely sickle mower


> In these days of high fuel prices sickle mowers can be
> thought of as fuel savers. I do have a Gravely sickle mower
> attachment (that I want to keep)...   :-)    and of course
> the Gravely engine pulls it very easily. I also have a
> David Bradley sickle mower that fits my 1947 DB tractor.
> That tractor also pulled the sickle mower easily but that
> was only a one and a half HP engine. I have been doing more
> sickle mower mowing lately since fuel  went up. Son  Scott
> bought a New Idea Cut/conditioner a year or so ago and it
> does a great job on most hay but it really pulls hard.
> Sucks a lot of the fuel through an 80 HP tractor. The same
> goes for a simple bush-hog  type mower. A 5' bush-hog
> really pulls the gizzard out of a 25 - 30 HP range tractor
> (like the Ford N's or Ferguson TO's) in tall stuff.
> Tractors of less than 20 HP will handle a 6' sickle bar
> with no problem.
> It is funny how high priced gas makes you rethink a lot of
> simple things that we used to just do without thinking. It
> is hard to remember that it was not really that many years
> ago that gas was under a buck a gallon... Back then I was
> farming bigger than I am now and doing some excavating work
> and my fuel bill was well over $3,000 for the year just for
> that. Today that would be about $10,000 in fuel... Yeah, I
> am looking at things differently.   :-)
> I keep tossing the fuel receipts for this year in the shoe
> box. I'm not sure I really want to add them up...   :-)
>
>
> -- 
> "farmer"
> Hewick Midwest
>
> The master in the art of living makes little distinction
> between his
> work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and
> his body,
> his information and his recreation, his love and his
> religion. He
> hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision
> of
> excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide
> whether he
> is working or playing. To him he's always doing both.
> ~ James A. Michener, attributed
>
> Francis Robinson
> Central Indiana USA
> robinson at svs.net
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