Snap...I should've listened.

Last Friday, I took the afternoon off work to help my brother and dad with the farming.  I enjoy helping out every now and then.  It's fun for me because it's not how I earn my living.  I take it seriously because it is important, but there isn't a whole lot of pressure on me...most of the time.

I started my afternoon out by taking a load of beans to town in the blue grain truck.  I had never driven to the grain elevator in town though.  The Quackdaddy gave me one piece of advice, and he said it two separate times, "When you get to the hill by the railroad tracks, shift down into second, you cannot get up the hill in third."  Okay, simple enough.

And so Lane, Hank the Tank and I head to town in the blue grain truck.  We make the first go-round without incident.  I did a little bit of grinding at the four-way stop (and wouldn't you know the mayor was watching me:) and nearly got off the scales at the elevator (which isn't major, I would've just had to back up and re-aligned myself), but all in all, it went well.  I returned to the field feeling pretty good about things so far.

I like to get really good at one thing before moving onto something else.  I was pretty comfortable driving Old Blue, and that is what I'd prefer to stick with.  On Columbus Day when I helped out a little, my brother tried to get me to drive the combine and I refused.  No thank you...I'm not about to screw up something like that.  I got away with it until last Friday.

As soon as I returned from my first trip, my brother told me he needed to meet some guy about a piece of equipment, I would have to run the combine.  Uhh, no, I don't think so.  Oh, yes, you can do it; Sherri (his wife) can do it.  Peer pressure.  Snap.  All right, I told him, but if you show me and I'm not comfortable, I'm not doing it.  End of story.  We hop on the combine.

"It's just like mowing your yard," he says.  And basically that is a true statement, only I cannot mow my yard because I cannot operate that silly zero-turn mower, but I knew what he meant.  Back and forth, up and down the rows.  In a sense, you are 'mowing' it down.  I didn't even have to worry about lining up the head in the corn rows, beans are easier.  He shows me this and that and says, "I'll be back in about 30 minutes.  Oh, you shouldn't get full, but if you do, just dump it."  Okay, yeah...

Actual evidence of my work = my view behind the wheel.

So off he goes and there I go.  My brother's combine is not one of the fancier machines, but it still has a lot of gadgets, buttons and lights.  I began to wonder...how will I know if the hopper is full?  I text Jay.  "Will a light or buzzer come on when I'm full?"  "No."  And that was that.  So I'm kind of starting to panic a little.  I keep looking in my side mirrors.  Nothing is spewing out over the edge...so far so good.  I keep going.

Pretty soon Lane puts Hank in the grain truck and motions that he wants to ride with me.  He gets in and sits down and I throw out the question, "How do I know if I'm full?"  My nine-year-old is pretty cute and sometimes a stinker, but he looks at me like I'm an idiot, points to the back glass and says, "You look out the window."  Lo and behold, there was a window right behind me with a perfect view of the hopper.  The next look was his bright, wide eyes..."Mom, we're full."  Alrighty then.

I stop.  I have no idea how to turn on the auger and I'm pretty sure I don't want to even try it.  I decide it has been close to 30 minutes and I shut everything down.  We get out and wait a few minutes, Mark shows up and all is well.  He points me to his truck and the grain wagon and says, "Take that to the elevator."  (Oh, you are kidding me.  Why can't I just stick with the blue truck?!)

You would think one might be more comfortable driving a truck similar to their own and pulling a little wagon than driving an old, hard-to-shift grain truck...nope.  We made it there and back without major incident, but it was a slow process.  The max speed with the wagon was about 20 mph for me because I didn't like the shaking.  We return and I vow not to make that trip again.  Lane agrees.  I tell him to hurry up, get Hank and get in Old Blue before Mark changes his mind...and we head back to town.


Do you think the snapping is bothering Hank?

I'm finally back in my comfort zone.  My dog is resting comfortably on my lap and my little man is next to me practicing his new-found talent: the snap.  As soon as we got into the city limits, a PT cruiser from out of state got behind me.  I was hoping they would just pass me, but that didn't happen.

By the time we approach the railroad tracks, there are six cars piled up behind me and that PT cruiser is clinging to my backend.  To shift down into second, you have to just about stop.  No joke.  I think it needs to be coasting along at about 5mph.  I'm looking at that line of cars thinking, I can't stop, they'll rear-end me...and so I ignored the wise words of the Quackdaddy and told Lane to hang on, we were going to try the hill in third.  (Like I'm some stunt driver in a movie or something.)  And we go...until we go no more.

Ahhh, SNAP.  Halfway up that hill, we died.   Now, there's a pit-in-the-gut feeling.  I looked in my mirror and thought, if I try to do anything, I'm going to start a chain reaction of front-to-back damage on six cars starting with the PT Cruiser RIGHT ON MY REAR END.  Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at things, some friends of mine happened to be unloading groceries at that very moment (they live on that hill), they turned to look at me and I heard the mom say "It's Sarah!"  I yell out to one of the older boys to wave the cars around me and he does.  Thankfully, they passed without collision, I started Old Blue up and away we went.

But first I looked at Lane and said, "Guess I should've listened to Grandpa."  I suppose you're never too old to listen to your parents, huh?

As a sidenote to this story, the Quackdaddy bought Old Blue from a family member after "John" died.  I kid you not, I could hear his laugh when I stopped dead on that hill.  If you knew "John," you know the laugh I'm talking about...