[AT] O T calf in car

Fri Mar 27 10:48:49 PDT 2015

Farmer,

I too remember the days in the 40's and early 50's when farmers traded machinery and labor since very
few if any one farmer was able to do all his own work or had all the implements needed. Threshing was
the most communal work where one threshing machine was used on many different farms and then the most
remembered event on the farm from those days was the Annual Threshing Picnic that occurred after all
the threshing was done.  That was an event to remember, more food and fun that anybody deserved.
Baling hay was also usually done by a custom baler who did work for all the neighboring farmers.
Believe it or not, a hand tie wire baler that required two men, one on each side to tie the wires.
Before that, all hay was brought to the yard loose and pulled up into the loft of the barn.  Probably
my first tractor driving occurred when the tractor replaced the horses for pulling the hay up into the
barn.  Horses slowly became obsolete except for the last team, King and Queen, who were used to mow
the road ditches and occasionally used to pull the road grader on various dirt and gravel roads in the
area.  My father always seemed to have 4 arms and hands when he had that team of horses on the grader.
There were two large wheels on the grader to raise and lower the blade that had to be turned by hand
all while driving the team of horses. He had worked for the Iowa State highway department during the
depression and he was very skilled with that grader.  I was always in awe of how he could do that so
well. Eventually, I got old enough to drive the tractor to pull the grader and had to learn what his
verbal horse instructions meant to properly drive the tractor. There were times when I thought the
horses received less verbal abuse!  :-)  Later on one famer would have a baler and all the neighboring
farmers shared that baler and shared the labor at all farms when it came to baling time.  When I was
quite young and not old enough to stack bales on the wagon it was my job to drive the tractor pulling
the baler and wagon behind.  It was a bit tricky to miss badger and fox holes, speed up when the
windrow was too light and slow down when the windrow got too heavy or even stop when a  big pile had
developed.  All this took quite a skill to avoid shearing the pin on the baler, avoid throwing men off
the trailing wagon and missing all the holes so the wagon wheel didn't drop into the hole and throw
all the bales off the wagon when the bales were stacked 5 high.   A lot of verbal instruction occurred
that often included blue smoke.   Those were days that I didn't really enjoy at the time but now I
look back with fond memories wishing I could hear my Dad's voice again.   Farming in the 40's and 50's
was really hard work for most months of the year. Even in the winter, when snow was so high we could
walk out of the second story of the house on to snow banks., the cows still needed to be milked and
fed, the Feeder cattle need silage, pigs needed their food, the chickens needed their food and the
eggs needed to be gathered   And the roads and driveways needed to be cleared of snow so we could get
in and out.    We didn't have time to watch TV and didn't have TV until 1951 and then it was more snow
than picture.  Would I want to do all that over??  No, I don't think so but I miss the good times of
the old style of farming.  Farmers all working together for the common good without any bickering
about who did the most or least or who required the most . Just get it done and move on.  I remember
one thing my father repeatedly told me whenever I complained about having to work so many hours day
and night with older tractors and equipment.   "We are not going to be machinery poor"  I suspect a
few of the larger farmers today could learn from that adage. 

Dean VP
Apache Junction, AZ

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent
virtue is the equal sharing of misery."  . Sir Winston Churchill

-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com [mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of
Indiana Robinson
Sent: Friday, March 27, 2015 9:56 AM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] O T calf in car

On Fri, Mar 27, 2015 at 11:40 AM, Ralph Goff <alfg at sasktel.net> wrote:

>
>
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3012885/Polish-traffic-cops-stunned-calf-farmer-s-Fiat-Punto.h
tml
>
> Nothing strange about it. I had a newborn calf I hauled back to the yard
> in the back of my Chevy Blazer earlier this week.
> Dad used to remove the rear seat from the 39 Ford sedan so he could put
> a calf in there if one needed to be carried home
> from the field to the barn.
>
> Ralph in Sask.
> ______________________________

My father had bought a new Willys sedan before WW-II and had put a lot of
miles on it delivering newspapers but during the war it gave him some
problems (He was no longer doing newspapers). You absolutely could not buy
Willys parts during the war. It used the same 4 cylinder engine as the
Jeep. He parked it and bought a Model A Ford sedan because you could find
parts everywhere or buy a junk one for parts. I remember him taking out the
back seat and hauling a goat home in it. I remembered it because it looked
like the goat was sitting back on the seat relaxing as he drove in. I must
have been about 5 or 6.
After the war was over he bought a new army surplus Jeep engine totally
complete right down to the air cleaner and all of the other giblets and put
it in the Willys sedan. He  then drove it until about 1952.
We had to keep a few goats around for some time because my sister couldn't
drink cows milk and of course in those days there were not the kind of
options we have now.

Rambling now...
Model A Fords became a very popular vehicle here during the years of the
war (1941-1945) especially about 1943 until about 1947. Stuff didn't
automatically become available right after the war ended. It took a couple
of years to retool. Those A's were pretty reliable and cheap.
We used a Model A Ford small truck from about 1947 until about 1953. In
1951 we moved from my grandmother's farm to this one and that little truck
either hauled or towed almost everything. My father drove the 9N and the
TO-20 Ferguson the 15-16 miles here, each with an implement behind them. He
didn't want to drive the McCormick 10-20 or pay to have it hauled. The guy
that bought my grandmother's farm owned an Indy Chevy dealership and kind
of wanted that 10-20 which had new paint and decals so my father traded it
to him for a fairly nice Chrysler 4 door. That Willys sedan had a good
trailer hitch on it as did the little A truck. We had a good sized utility
trailer and the 2 wagons were heavily loaded for their trip. I recall the
back seat of the car being piled to the ceiling on most trips.
I shudder to think how many trips it took. They had a "clean-up" auction
before the move but there was still a lot of stuff to move. We had more
farm equipment than most farms our size. Things were really starting to
change on farms about then.
Until about then an awful lot of farmers didn't own a full set of
implements, mostly just the bigger guys. Smaller farmers swapped work back
and forth. For many years in the 1940's my father and a good neighbor
shared an ear corn elevator they had built together. I recall him mowing
hay for another neighbor who didn't own a mower. We put up chopped dry hay
but the neighbor wanted bales so yet another neighbor did the baling for
him. I'm pretty sure he did own the rake they used.
Different times...

-- 

Francis Robinson
aka "farmer"
Central Indiana USA
robinson46176 at gmail.com
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