[Farmall] Walk About

[Mike Schmudlach]

Bob,
We missed you in Ohio by just a couple of hours.

Mike, Guy and Rick W.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Currie" <tracturs at att.net>
To: "Farmall List" <Farmall at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 11:38 AM
Subject: [Farmall] Walk About


> I'm a little slow with the followup to Karls message last month, but yup,
it was time for another THT around the country. Some of you have met Sarah
the Wonder Dog on previous trips, and she was with me on this one too. We
took off from here in northern California on June 9th and spent three weeks
hauling the RV around 12 different states. First was a stop at Karl's place
in Southern CA for an update tour of Olmsteads acres, and to pick up an O-12
fuel tank for Dwayne Hansford in Indiana. Karl has more equipment that ends
with 12 or 14, than anybody I know,,unless maybe James Gall in KS. We also
had time to sit by their new  pond and listen to the bull Frogs, while
talking tractors and other worldly things. From there I zipped over to Las
Vegas (didn't stop) and up through Utah to catch I-70 eastbound. Beautiful
country across eastern Utah, Colorado, up the grade and through the
Eisenhour tunnel, over to Denver, and down into the flat lands of eastern CO
and western KS. I st!
>  ayed on I-70 until I got through Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and over to
Indianapolis, IN then swung south about 45 miles for the 16th annual Johnson
County Antique Machinery Assn show,,featuring IH equipment. Spent 3 days
there with some great Indiana IH folks enjoying that show and watching
something new for me,,tractor pulling with modified Garden Tractors..They
pull a regular size sled with highly modified Garden tractors.I found those
people in Indiana are very serious about their Tractor Pullin'. I also
talked with Harry Lee, and saw many of his various Farmalls including that,
19,000 lb,  dual Farmall 400 diesel, with all wheel drive, and operated with
2 hand clutches, one for each tractor. I think it's called a Garrett. On to
do some tourist stuff and visit "The Brickyard" in Indianapolis, and on up
to Auburn, IN for the WWII museum at Kruse's place, and the extremely nice
Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg museum. There is also a brokerage house for
Corvettee lovers if you li!
>  ke that kind of thing. I'd say about 80 - 100 of them on display,,all
> for sale.  Then a little further north east to the 63rd annual National
Threshers Assoc Reunion there in Wauseon, OH at the county fair grounds.
Unbelieveable! Out here in my neighborhood we don't have any steam engines
but there were plenty of them at this show. They were featuring Port Huron
Steamers and this years feature tractor was IH, and Mike Androvich was in
charge of that portion of the display. It would have been another 8 hours
travel to get over to Bloomsburg for the RPRU, and travel butt was setting
in pretty good so I decided to hang out in N/W Ohio this time. Gave me a
great chance to spend 4 days hanging around with 40+ steam engines, some
enormous gas tractors like the 30-60 Aultman Taylor, and Wendell Kelch was
there with his 30-60 Titan, and the 30-60 friction drive Mogul. Now THAT is
an impressive tractor..Since I favor the older, unstyled machinery, it was a
hugh treat for me to be up close to some of the Androvich brothers stuff,
like an 8-16 Mogul, som!
>  e International 8-16 chain drives, Farmall Regular wide front, W-30
California Orchard (hey........how'd that get there?) couple of 10-20
Titans, an International 15-30 chain drive, and a beautiful restored Fairway
12 belonging to Paul Ganzel. A lot of these tractors you and I have seen in
magazines over the past couple years, so it was big time, for a small time
guy like me to see these machines up close and talk with the owners. I left
Saturday at noon and just missed seeing the Swissconsin boys, Smudlach and
Fayguy who slipped in on there way back from the RPRU. On the journey home I
took U.S. 20 and headed across northern IN, northern IL, and crossed the
Mississippi River at Dubuque IA and then over to Dyersville, Iowa. I was on
an errand for a club friend to try and locate some die cast ERTL
products..Struck out on that, but I did find the farm where they filmed "The
Field of Dreams" movie in 1988 with Kevin Kostner. Looks the same as the day
they did the movie. Open t!
>  o the public, no fee, and the owners of the farm keep everything in ex
> cellent shape for those of us who wanted to visit. From there I headed S/W
and grabbed U.S. 30 so I could stop in Jefferson, IA and see Nick Foster. He
has a great collection of early stuff, plus 3 steamers, plus The the largest
tractor of it's kind. "Big Bud", plus his latest project, a rare Rumley Gas
Pull tractor sitting there in numerous pieces.  Nick had some 8-16 parts
that I agreed to haul for a guy back out this way. So early the next morning
we parted company, I headed south, caught good ol' I-80 and spent the next
few days getting back to the hills of northern CA. Certainly a lot of fun,
Sarah and I saw some great farmin' country with beautiful corn growing
almost everywhere we went there in the mid west. Must be that Ethanol thing.
We averaged 12 MPG hauling that bigol RV with the Duramax, and with diesel
averaging $2.90 a gallon it was the most costly part of the trip. I'm now
properly inspired to drag my F-12 Waukesha out of the tractor shed and get
it down to !
>  the shop where it can get some deserved attention. It would be good to
hear it run again. Then theres that F-14 wide front I should probably start
on, and the W-12 won't fire, probably from sitting too much. And oh yea,,I
wanted to get the magneto repaired on the Regular..bobcurrie
> _______________________________________________
> Farmall mailing list
> http://www.antique-tractor.com/mailman/listinfo/farmall
>