[AT] Old tractors and old men

[charlie hill]

Cecil,  I guess I'm going to try that Synvisc myself soon.

Charlie

-----Original Message----- 
From: Cecil Bearden 
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2017 12:11 AM 
To: Antique tractor email discussion group 
Subject: Re: [AT] Old tractors and old men 

I retired in 07 to do some consulting engineering and farm.  A year 
after I retired, my Dad decided to have his knee operated on and I spent 
the next 2 years in a downhill spiral taking him to doctors and then 
lifting him in and out of the pickup and later the bed.  When invalids 
get near 90 years old they think that whatever they want is the most 
important thing in your life.  It does not matter if it injures the 
caregiver or not, it is what they want.  Lifting him aggravated an old 
back injury from when I was 17.  I was 63 in October.  After working 
with pain specialists, neurosurgeons, and nearly every snake oil remedy 
and invention on the internet and TV,  I now manage to get around the 
farm on my 4 wheeler and when I go to the farm shows, I have a electric 
scooter.  I hope to build an electric 4 wheeler to inspect Dams in my 
consulting work.  I use my Arctic Cat 700 now. I cut hay on about 400 
acres each year, run about 25 mama cows, 65 head of Barbado sheep, and 2 
worthless horses..  I have a 1973 Allis Chalmers 7030 I use to pull a 
Hesston 1340 rotary swather. I bought a JD 2270 self propelled swather, 
but the hydrostat died and I have a used one to install, but it did not 
get done last year.  I have a 2003 New Holland TS110 money pit, that is 
my baling tractor.  I also have 2 Belarus tractors, both 85hp, one built 
in 96 and one in 2010.  The old one has a post hole digger mounted on it 
and it rarely comes off.   The loader on it has a hitch attachment for 
moving anything with a pin, ball, or pintle hitch.  My later model 
Belarus has the bale fork on the front loader.   All my loaders have 
skid steer brackets so I can interchange any attachment.  I have a 2-105 
White that needs the rear tires changed again as the India made ones 
slipped on the rims and pulled the valves out of the tubes.  Keeping an 
implement hooked up to a tractor is the most time saving thing you can 
do. It takes over an hour to hook up the Hesston Swather and the PTO 
shaft weighs a ton due to the CV joint up front.  I like the way the 
Allic Chalmers handles the swather.  It has plenty of power for tough 
grass, and the open center hydraulics are 3 times faster than the closed 
center system on the White.  The Allis developed a bad leak under the 
dash last month, so it hs to be torn down. The Hesston Swather has to 
have 2 new belts and a gearbox bearing.  the Bearing requires that a gib 
key be pulled from the pulley to change the bearing.  The gib is broken.

It takes me 3 hours to do what used to take 30 minutes.  However, I 
tried using hired mechanics for my vehicles and they left me stranded on 
the side of the road.  I hired a local lad to help and he was good, but 
could not stay off his cell phone lining up work after he left my 
place.  I paid him $20/hr in 2009 - 2011.  It helped to nearly bankrupt 
me and I gave up on help.  I have a pretty good shop, but need to clean 
it out of projects that will never be done.  It is really hard to haul 
off to scrap a project that has taken up over 100 hours, but I need the 
space.   I keep those magnet pickup tools on a stick handy, magnetic 
retreival tools, and "reachers"close by when working as I drop tools a 
lot due to the carpal tunnel and arthritis in my hands.  My knee also 
keeps me from getting up and down more than twice between breakfast and 
dinner.  I got my second SynVisc shot this week and it appears that it 
is doing some good, so the knee may be on the way to some relief.

I just try to keep things moving, if I get too tired, I take a nap.  My 
wife is my best help.  We try to take advantage of the weather, and when 
I get a little extra cash, I try to buy something that will make our 
work easier.   I just bought a new squeeze chute ($6500) and sold the 2 
yr old Tractor supply one ($2000).  The TSC chute was going to cause a 
heart attack if I kept using it.   It was a pain in the butt, and not 
big enough for my big cows.  The new one is an Arrow Quick Catch 6500.  
There is a video of it on their web site.

One other thing....   I have 2 neighbors who are great and a lot of help 
when I have to have another hand.  One also has a bad back, and has a 
lot of steel in his spine.  He will do anything I need if I have to 
leave the farm.  These folks are also the only ones I will take my 
equipment and do work for.  I just do not have the time to "help" all 
these other neighbors.   Their offer of payment is just not worth what 
my time is worth to me.  you will find as you get older, time to 
"play"with your toys is worth more each day.    I enjoy working on 
equipment, and working with the equipment.  I try to just fix it once 
and fix it right.  If something breaks in the heat of summer, I take it 
to the house, find parts, and work on it in the nighttime.  I bought a 
couple of engine driven fans from the fire department.  They work great 
to keep the mosquitoes blown away..  Also provide some much needed 
breeze.   I also made friends with a young farmer trying to get started 
carrying on his family farm.  I may hire him to cut my hay this year.  
Some of the best hay I baled was cut with his swather last year.   I 
could get the hay baled about 4 hours after he started cutting.   It 
really made some great hay.  We are discussing a shared agreement on 160 
acres I rent.

I have really rambled, If it is too bad, just hit delete.  I have 
enjoyed putting this down though.

Cecil in OKla


On 2/2/2017 7:19 PM, Greg Hass wrote:
> This will be somewhat of a ramble and may wander so bare with me. Lately
> it seems some have hinted at problems so I suspect I am not alone. At 69
> much of what I thought would be the fun in life has left. Many of the
> things I looked forward to enjoying are going by the wayside. My brain
> is at about 35 years old but my body says go to he- double hockey
> sticks. A few months ago I found out my back is shot and can not be
> fixed.  It started 5 years ago while planting spring crops, every night
> I ran a small fever and in the morning I was fine only to run a fever
> again that night. After about 3 weeks I went to the doctor who ran some
> tests and found nothing. A week later the fever spiked and I went to the
> emergency room about midnight. More tests were run which showed nothing.
> The doctor said it had to be hiding somewhere and ordered a cat scan. A
> couple of hours later the results were in. For at least a month I had a
> ruptured appendix. That was bad enough, but come morning, they told me
> one of my kidneys had cancer. Six weeks later, I had surgery and they
> removed my appendix and my kidney. Fast forward to late fall; at the
> last checkup for the surgery, they told me I had prostate cancer. 50
> radiation treatments later I was moving forward but had lost the
> interest to do a lot of things. I have the best shop of my life to work
> in. It is only 24 x 24 but is heated and I have some nice tools such as
> a bridgeport  mill, torches and 3 welders plus other tools but have lost
> the go to it to go out and work plus my back is always sore. As someone
> has mentioned, if I get down on my knees I must get a hold of something
> to get up. Also for the last 4 years I have not enjoyed the 3 tractor
> shows I like to attend each year because of the pain in my hips only
> lets me walk about 200 feet at a time so I don't see much. I thought it
> was bad muscles but now know it was my back. For this year I hope to
> enjoy shows more as I bought a small electric handicapped scooter. None
> of our shows allow golf carts or 4 wheelers of any kind. 3 years ago I
> took my Polaris Ranger to one and it was great, but someone  else with
> one "bumped" someone and they sued the tractor show and that ended that.
> Handicapped scooters are allowed as they only hold one person and are
> slow moving. I guess the purpose of all this is how do some of this list
> handle problems and work on old tractors and such. I farm 110 acres and
> only have 2 pieces of equipment under 40 years old.  I used to look
> forward to getting  up in the morning and working on equipment.   All my
> life I have enjoyed working on mechanical things but now I still want to
> do it but I can't get the will power to do it. It's not the lack of time
> as I have lots of that but no getting it done. How do others on the list
> with health problems get it done. I don't want to sound like I'm
> complaining as I have much to be thankful for, however , not being able
> to work without pain and even then taking all day for a 1 hour job does
> get me down. I hope my thoughts are sort of clear and are not to off
> topic as these problems affect old iron in a big way.
>                  Greg Hass
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