[AT] Best of ATIS? ---The D8 story

[Cecil R Bearden]

Charlie:
  Another little factor was WALT !  He got the whole list stirred up 
with his cantankerous rantings and then insulted nearly everyone on the 
list.  Especially Farmer.  I remember one of his assaults that created a 
storm of subject lines with Unsuscribe.   I also think that the economy 
has had a lot to do with it.  A lot of folks have had to move into areas 
that do not have enough room for a tractor.   With the price of new 
automobiles, can you justify to your better half that her car has to sit 
outside and your restored tractor sits in the garage????

I am lucky.  I bought a small Morgan shed a couple of years ago and 
moved it to my place in Feb.  My wife helped me get it leveled and 
anchored, and then I said that we could park her car in one of the 
stalls, and since it was a ways from the house, she cold use the 4 
wheeler to travel to it, and then not have to scrape ice etc.   She just 
told me that we had $40K in one tractor alone, and her car was  $3K, so 
put the tractor in the barn.    Now, the Baler is in the shed with the 
tractor half way out of the shed.  A crankshaft grinder is still on the 
trailer sitting in the middle bay, and a 1 ton with a complete steelcase 
office setup loaded on it.  So much for keeping the tractors in the 
shed..   I still have to move another building in, just cannot get help 
and weather to cooperate..

Personally, I slowed down a bunch due to health issues.  After 18 months 
of taking care of my Dad 24/7 prior to his death, I started having all 
kinds of health problems.   Then I took on a construction project that 
cost about $15K above what the customer paid for the job.  I tore the 
miniscus in my left knee, recovered without surgery,  and then tore the 
ligaments in my left ankle, recovered again, but the ligaments in my 
right ankle have been permanently destroyed.  It has taken 2 years to 
get back on my feet ! Literally!  Since I can't afford to hire some 
help, I just keep trying to get something done with the help from my 
wife and some volunteer neighbors.

Here in Oklahoma, that 115 degree summer last year made working on 
anything outside difficult if not impossible.  There just aren't enough 
shade trees!!  I need to get my shade tree area cleaned out now, it 
already has been over 90 deg here.  With the drought here in OK last 
summer, the bagworms were terrible.  They cut the leaves nearly in half 
on all the shade trees.  I try to spray them with BT in order to protect 
my barn cats.  However the drought last year caused the coyotes to come 
closer to the house and my 3 cats that had been here over 7 years 
disappeared.  I usually shut them in the barn at night, but with the 
heat, it was too hot in the barn/shop, so I left a door up for them to 
come and go.  A family of   coons and a family of skunks moved in!!  I 
had a coon kit for  a long time.   I think that he is still in there4 
eating cat food and hiding.  Too many things are torn up that are bigger 
than a cat!!!

Any how, that is my excuse for not having a lot of tractor stories.   I 
hauled the 4010, a neighbor's Deutz, a truckster, a small and a large 
scraper to an auction that is this morning about 20 miles away.  It took 
2 hours and 3 broken cables to winch the bed up on to the semi, then 
another 2 hours to hook it back up after unloading...  My folding 
gooseneck semi is going to be sold or converted to hydraulic...........

Well gotta get ready for the sale, hope I don't have to bring anything 
back that I took....

Cecil in OKla




On 5/4/2012 5:55 PM, charlie hill wrote:
> Steve there was one other factor too.  At some point it seemed like we had
> answered all the tractor  questions.  Folks stopped writing to find out
> something they couldn't
> learn elsewhere.  Also, and I might get some flack for this,  I think when
> the list got split up into Farmall and Cub and whatever it hurt the overall
> list.  I guess it was
> necessary but I was sorry to see it.
>
> Charlie
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steve W.
> Sent: Friday, May 04, 2012 6:16 PM
> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
> Subject: Re: [AT] Best of ATIS? ---The D8 story
>
> charlie hill wrote:
>> This is a particularly good story but I have to say that in the old days
>> this list was filled with similar stories on a regular basis.  I'm sure
>> others here remember well when we used to get 100 or more messages a day
>> and
>> you felt the need to read every one.  I'd go out of town for a weekend and
>> come back to 400 or more messages to sort through.  Sometimes it would
>> take
>> half the night to accomplish accomplish the task.  Ah the good old days.
>>
>> Charlie
> Yep I remember those times. Miss many of the folks who told the stories
> as well. Some simply moved on to other things when the tractor hobby
> started going the same way as classic cars with people suddenly thinking
> they had solid gold. Others left when the Lord called them to his side.
> Learned many things from those days, some of which you can even talk
> about in mixed company !!!!
>
>