Elevated Expectations

 

Not everything old was good on the farm. And not everything was tried and true; some technologies needed to be developed to a finer, more finalized extent. That kind of thing seldom really stops, but once the concept or principle of a good design is settled upon, the core operational aspect of it remains in perpetuity.

Sometimes, you'll see a gadget or gizmo that attempts to do two or three or four jobs all in one; 'As Seen On TV'. They are gimmicks actually designed NOT to do several jobs, but only a single, very key one: Part you from your hard earned money, and as many people like you, as soon as possible. Seldom did any of them live up to their hype and survive. Most of these cheesy things were quickly relegated to the junk drawer.

Two exceptions to this rule came out of the agricultural industry: the lesser known fencing pliers, and the almost universally known Vise Grip pliers. Both of these tried to do more than one job at a time. The fencing pliers were the standouts in that regard, being particularly adept at accomplishing practically everything you needed for the drudgery job of farm fencing. They could drive steeples, pull steeples, cut wire, twist wire, and tighten wire, all with equal ease. Any Jack of All Trades tool that came after was really trying to mimic fencing pliers.

The other was Vise Grips, invented by Bill Petersen, a farm blacksmith. They locked onto anything small enough to fit in their jaws, could take off any size or shape of nut, clamp two or more things together for welding or drilling or bolting, and could cut wire as well.

Not too often outside of fencing pliers and Vise Grips did you have a tool or implement that really did more than one different job well. Rake/tedders worked, but nearly always raked better than they tedded. Some machines, trying to adapt to doing two jobs, ended up not doing either of them very well.

We had a combination grain and bale conveyor on our farm when I was young. It had a Vee-shaped trough with a small apron chain running in a square channel at the bottom of it. There was a hopper/chute section at the bottom end, and the top was open for the drop. It was run with a maddeningly loud, ancient little one cylinder Briggs and Stratton engine with an erratic governor that always was on the verge of failure and letting the engine run away to an almost certain catastrophic end.

The real problem with it was the fact that it just didn't move bales OR grain well.

To use it for hay or straw bales, you dropped the bale in on an angle laying against one side or the other of the Vee. Hopefully the bottom corner edge of the bale settled into the bottom of the Vee enough for a passing paddle to catch it and start it up the conveyor towards the barn loft. If that bale failed to engage, hopefully the next one would. The real problem was the only maybe 8 inch wide apron chain paddles would as often as not just tear away the corner of the bale, and leave the bale suspended there over the chain, undulating as the chain paddles rubbed away underneath it. Sometimes there would be as many as four or five bales struggling in the conveyor before one with a perfect enough, sound enough corner would be dropped in to send them all at once in an overwhelming wave to the poor fella in the mow. A proper bale elevator had a wide, flat trough and low sides. The trough was wide enough for a bale to sit in on its widest part, which was the string side. You could throw a bale in either way and it would take it.

To use the Vee conveyor for grain, you just opened the grain wagon door and let the grain flow into the chute. The grain would continuously roll back over the small paddles, with only a lit bit at a time actually being delivered to the top and into the granary bin. A grain auger, by comparison, moves virtually 100 percent of everything within its enclosed tube.

So, no matter what we used that conveyor for, it did it slowly and frustratingly. I am embarrassed to say so because even as a little kid I knew money was tight on the farm, but I wanted that thing to blow up somehow beyond all repair, so we could get a nice Little Giant or New Holland or New Idea bale elevator. We could always rent or borrow an auger for the little bit we needed one.

Low and behold, my selfish prayers were answered when we had a big thunderstorm with high winds that blew the conveyor over, and twisted it beyond salvaging. Dad was, of course, suitably upset and worried at the loss of a piece of equipment, but I was secretly glad about it because it was an opportunity to upgrade that part of our operation. It was in the late summer just after haying season, so we weren't caught--yet--for the need of it.

I was SO happy to come home from school one sunny September day, and there in the yard was a dandy second hand New Holland bale elevator that Dad had bought at an afternoon farm auction. It was going to be a huge improvement over that darn Vee trough conveyor that did nothing really well.

As it turned out, I was wrong about that. We turned that old conveyor into a large, nearly indestructible feed trough. We removed the Briggs & Stratton engine, and the apron chain, and the undercarriage, and just lay the steel body on the ground to put grain or corn in. It was GREAT for that. The Vee shaped sides were easy to pour pails into, and the small bottom square trough made it easy for the cattle to lick the grain or corn out of. It finally was put to use at something it was really good for.

Nothing is ever perfect, though, and that New Holland elevator had two shortcomings. First, it was still powered by a Briggs & Stratton engine, which made it nearly impossible to communicate verbally from the wagon to the loft. They were just too darn loud no matter what new muffler we put on them. Whatever it was about handling bales, those B&S engines hated the job, and would out and out quit at the worst possible time. They were so bad we had two of them, and then three to be able to switch them out. One was always in the small engines shop. Those engines would run forever on a lawn mower or tiller, but only a few weeks at best on that hay elevator.

Being that it had a pulley and platform on the one side for small engines, and a shaft on the other side for tractor PTO drive, I changed it out to run that way. We had a little Cockshutt 20 Deluxe with a Wagner loader with a trip bucket for a few years. We started running the elevator with that, and it brought peace to the Valley at last. That little 20 could run the elevator just right at idle, and purred so quietly you couldn't even hear it over the mild squeaks and squeals of the elevator's apron chain and sprockets. We couldn't believe after all those years of yelling at the top of our lungs over those deafening little monsters that we could now talk in a completely normal voice while we worked. What an incredible difference that was.

The second shortcoming wasn't nearly as glaring. The elevator was missing one paddle on its apron chain. We never seemed to be able to get those darn B&S engines to stop with all the paddles up and the missing paddle on the down side. Like everybody else, we used the elevator for an escalator, to get up to, or down out of, the loft. Whatever it was about the galvanizing on the top of the sides, it didn't allow for just straddling and sliding down. You had to crab walk down it that way. I found it easier and a lot faster to just run down the unit stepping in between the paddles with my toe against the upper side of each. The wild card in this, though, was that missing paddle. You had to be darn careful of it, being ready for that double length space.

Up at the Back Place, when I was 18, Dad and my cousin Bill and I were unloading wagons, filling the loft there for the coming winter. Unusually, Dad was on the wagon, and it was Bill and I in the loft. It was starting to rain lightly, so we were really givin' 'er to get done before the loads got too wet. When we finished that load, to help get the next one under cover faster, while Dad got on our International 434 to move that wagon, I thought I'd run down the elevator to hop on our Massey-Harris 30 with the next load. I never thought about the bale-polished surface with rain on it.

When my foot hit that with no paddle to stop it, I did a VERY unexpected banana peel slip, resulting in a full revolution back flip. Being that I slipped from one foot and not both, I went slightly sideways as well. That took me outside the elevator on the way down, except for my right arm, which landed inside the sidewall, hooking me with a massive jolt by the armpit. That, in turn, sent me into a sideways cartwheel to the ground about 10 or 12 feet further down, where I landed half sideways and half face first in the rain-soaked manure pile. For reasons I'd rather not discuss right now, I got to my feet rather quickly, but was a little dazed and staggery, and definitely had a sore shoulder, a pretty scraped up inside upper arm and a torn t-shirt. And I no longer appeared quite as clean as I had been a few moments before. Not exactly ready to stand for inspection.

So, to recap: a full back flip; a sudden stop; a full cartwheel (during a drop); and a softer stop in a pile of plop. In the space of about 1.5 seconds. In high diving lingo I believe it would be referred to as a full gainer with a full twist. No points for entry.

Dad, having seen the entire thing, and knowing I wasn't seriously injured, but just a little racked up, did his best to suppress whatever emotion it may have been that was trying to take over his face. He merely said, "Bill and I can finish up here. You better take the International and go home and get cleaned up and seen to". His mouth was twitching for some reason.

I didn't argue, and drove home holding my arm across my chest hanging onto my other sleeve like a sling. In a few days I was pretty well back to normal; whatever my normal happens to be. I was as tough as could be in those days from lots of rough and tumble work. I'm sure before I even hit the Back Place road they were rating my performance, minus the score cards, and clapping each other on the back while they were trying to catch their breath from laughing themselves silly.