[AT] here I go again

charlie hill charliehill at embarqmail.com
Wed Jul 30 13:37:24 PDT 2014


I understand Ron.  Pretty much the same story here
except I didn’t do anything as exciting as crop dusting.
Although I had an interest in that but never pursued  it.
A friend of mine ended his crop dusting career the same
way you did.  In his case, upside down on the runway drowning
in Atrex (I think that's what he told me it was)
before they pulled him out and revived him.  After a long stay
in the hospital he went to work for a fertilizer company.

All I heard from farmers I knew was gloom and doom about the future
of farming.  The kids that stayed behind and farmed are living large now
and still own the land they have purchased over the years.
Oh well, I don't suppose the good Lord will give me a do over so
I'll just have to be happy with where I am.

Charlie

-----Original Message----- 
From: Ron Cook
Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2014 2:42 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] here I go again

Charlie,
     You have the planter described pretty well.  I have wished several
times I had gone into farming.  My dad advised against it and by the
time I became aware that  all the whining and crying that farmers made
about how poor they were was just not that true, I was established in
the crop dusting business.  All the fellows I grew up with that went
into farming are now well off and retired.  Most have at least one
vacation home somewhere, mostly in Florida or Arizona for the winter
months.  I was doing okay until I had the bad accident with the spray
plane that wiped me out.  I suppose a farming accident could do the same
thing, but I don't really know of anything there that would put you out
of business and cost 300 grand in an instant.  But I am still kicking.
Just not in fancy new boots.

Ron Cook
Salix, IA
On 7/30/2014 10:05 AM, charlie hill wrote:
> I'm sure that rig is a tough ride but it wouldn't be my first rough ride!
> I'd just love to have a disc hooked to something with that much power
> one time in my life after growing up pulling a 16 blade disc harrow and
> having to go over a field 3 or 4 times to get it flat enough to put a
> breaking plow in.
>
> All of our planters, even the old horse drawn ones had curved plates
> (shoes) on the back of them to pack the furrows some sort of device
> to pack the row.   If I remember the old ones right there was a sort of a
> chisel called an
> opener that cut the furrow for the seed, then the planter dropped the seed
> in
> the furrow and there were two curved metal shoes that closed the furrow 
> and
> then 2 metal wheels mounted more or less like the front wheels on a steel
> wheeled
> tricycle tractor behind that.  Those wheels powered the planter plates.  I
> might  not have
> that in the right order.  The shoes might have been in the rear.
>
> It amazes me how far farming has come both in terms of equipment and
> science.
> I occasionally tune in to AG PhD program on RFDTV.  I wish I had every
> episode of it
> on file somewhere.  I wish I had stayed on the farm but when my dad died 
> it
> became
> difficult and no one encouraged me.  I've always regretted not giving it a
> try.  The
> friends I grew up with that did stick it out are very well off today.
>
> Charlie
>

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