Spring Seeding

Ah yes, the time of year has come, and finally finished. It is the time of year that the progress made is inversely proportional to the rate at which my dad’s hairline recedes, and this year was no exception. My guess, my father lost approximately 2 inches of hair, due to an unending series of breakdowns. Well the first week and a half went incredibly smoothly, which meant we were building up to crash hard at the end. The decent into cauos began on the 13^th day of Seeding, which was when I put an antler through one of the tires on the tractor. Since it was an outside duel, we yanked it, and ran without it until the tire guys would come to fix it. 25 minutes later the back tire on the air seeder went, and I was forced to unhitch and return to the yard. After I pulled the air seeder tire off, ran to town, got it replaced, ran back home and installed it back on the tank, I was just in time to help the tire guys replace the big sucker on the tractor. In the end, I got one tank out, when usually I can get out 3. On the 14^th day of running we hit our next bust, dad snapped a knuckle on the heavy harrows, which is like snapping a wing off an airplane. After several hours of heating, hammering and re-assembling, the harrows were finally back in one piece, just in time for the sun to set. On the 15^th day of seeding all hell finally broke it’s chains of bondage that it had streached the previous 2 days raining down destruction upon our plot of land. So let me begin, around noon the auger that fills the tank fell off the before mentioned tank. I held the auger in place to fill tank, but the auger jammed and busted the flighting within it, though we didn’t know that at the time. So while my brother ran the air seeder without the auger dad and I began fixing the mounting plate. Once it was fixed I returned to the field and continued working by spreading the seed. That is when I spotted the flat tire on the air seeder tank being run by my brother. I drove him home, it was 3:30, and the tire shops close at 4:00. He ran into town to pick up a new one, so that we could install it ourselves and still run, as the next 2 days were holidays. At that point my father returned home with an overheating tractor of his own. My brother returned home with a new tire, which turned out the tire shop gave us the wrong one. So, my brother went harrowing while dad and I tried to repair the broken tire. I got a phone call an hour later from my brother to come pick him up, not a good sign. Upon arrival I found out why, the harrows had lost a wheel after a bearing went. It sounds like a Christmas song from hell doesn’t it.

“On the 15^th day of seeding the devil gave to me,

One broken auger

Two flat tires

Anouther busted bearing

An overheating tractor

And a really frustrated dad”

We decided to call it a day.

On the 16^th day of seeding we fixed the one flat tire and got my brother running again, though not for long, as the newly mounted auger fell off again, which was fine as we needed to replace the flighting anyway. However when he blew the bearing on the main drive shaft on the tractor, tearing off the main fuel line while it spun madly out of control, that finished us off until we could get parts, 2 days later. It was the next day that scared me the most though, which I will get to later.