First major repair of the fall!!!

JD Seller

Well-known Member
Well corn chopping went without a hitch. We spread manure and wanted to work it in with the rye cover crop. Well My 83 year old Mother has kind of taken over running the finisher if she is around. She was doing great, really covering the ground. Then the right center disk gang bracket broke. Well by the time she heard it and got stopped the gang was out the back of the finisher. Four tires cut, sixteen cultivator shanks broke, one section of the finishing harrow broke clear off the machine. You can see where the one side was cracked and when it let go the other side sheared off.

Hooked her on to the other finisher and got her back at it. She was all upset. If I had let her leave I just about bet that she would not run it again. So in a role reversal I kind of nagged her to keep going. LOL She got done about the time we got the other finisher hauled/drug back to the shop.

I got the gang welded back in place and installed some gussets on all of the brackets. We will have to pickup the shanks Monday as I only had four. We will go ahead and replace all the shovels while we are there. The harrow just broke a chain link.

I was just thinking about what she has seen in her life time. When she was a teenager her father farmed with two teams of horses. She talks about harrowing plowed ground behind her Father plowing. She then got married and My Grand Father had tractors. He taught her to drive a tractor on a Wallis 10-20. I can remember her helping out in the spring and fall. My Grand Mother would watch the smaller kids while Mom helped out. Now she is driving a 300 HP tractor with auto steer. She was chattering on with the one Grand Daughter the other day about setting the AB line when she started a new field???? I do not know how to do that!!!! LOL
 
You tell your Mom for me that she's quite a woman!!

My Mom passed away last year from Alzheimer's, but she stopped "living" long before that. Back in the 80's, she quite working and let game shows, talk shows and soap operas become her world. Sure was sad to see that happen.

Yessir, I'd tip my hat to your Mom, but don't think I have enough hats to tip what she's worth. :wink:
 
More power to your mom. Sounds like an extraordinary woman. It appears that she raised one hell of a hard working family.
Glad you could get her into another rig, so she didn't start kicking herself in the butt for breaking the other finisher. I guess those 300HP tractors don't feel much pain when something breaks behind them.
Loren
 
Good for her! That is amazing the difference she's seen. My dad just turned 75 and was and is very sharp. But a few things have slipped a little. He apologizes to me or gets real serious with me because he feels bad he can't give 140% like he did. I told him Dad don't feel bad or let it get you down, you still are much more sharp than the 20 year old guys that work for me!
 
Great story, JD Seller! Your mom does sound like a remarkable woman.

You know the drill - jot down or video some memories from mama... before it's too late.

I wish I'd written down more of the history stories my folks told me. Also just some of their funny sayings or stories too. Both have been gone for several years now... time marches on, and I find I can't remember some of that stuff as well as I used to. :(
 
Like someone else said get some history recorded of your remarkable Mother. I am glad for you she can still do the work at her age. Stan
 
Wonderful story. Your mom is a real gem. She learned how to work at a young age and is still at it. And she can figure out the A-B line setup to boot. That's extroadinary.
 
Boy Oh Boy what a great story. You are so lucky to have a Mom like that. Some of us didn't have it so good. My mother didn't amount to much and we didn't have the greatest life on the farm. I had to get away from it as soon as I was old enough to make it on my own. But that as it is I sure like to hear success story's like you tell. What a life that must have been. Thanks for the story. "Jack" The Old Scovy.
 
Your mom sounds like an incredible woman. I think of any women I know that age still driving tractor. Good thing you didn't let her get discouraged.

I can remember Grandma planting corn when she was in her mid to late 70's.

My Grandpa passed away at the age of 89 and he still did some field work that same year. Driving tractor was his favorite part of farming. He saw a lot of change too, from horses, picking corn by hand and threshing with a steam engine to tractors that drive themselves.
 
Good for her! Neighbor's father ran tillage equipment till the day he died, at the wheel of a 4WD White with duals all around.Tractor ran off into the woods and hung up against a couple trees, Sat there at full throttle, digging and jumping around till it ran out of fuel as there was no way to get into the cab with it rampaging! I suspect he would have wanted to go just like he did!
 
Thanks for sharing that story. Your Mom must be quite a woman, and my hat is off to her. Maybe with this mishap, you have gotten all your bad luck out of the way for this fall, and the rest will be smooth sailing! It's a nice thought, anyway. Best wishes to you and your family for a safe and uneventful harvest.
Tom from IL
 
Great story, thanks JD. My dad's dad was 85 and kept busy usually with his garden of about half an acre. Being along the Texas coast, that was a year long process. Periodically the siblings would come out, all 7 of them, and play dominoes and all the other things families do when doing things of the sort.

On one occasion THEY decided that grandpa was too old to be working so hard and started nagging him to quit. Took about 6 months of that and he was no longer with us.

My take on it is let her go as long as she wants to. Same with me. I'm going to go till I drop. No nursing home for me.
 
(quoted from post at 18:39:10 09/16/17) Like someone else said get some history recorded of your remarkable Mother. I am glad for you she can still do the work at her age. Stan

A few years ago our youngest daughter got my mom and her two sisters in front of a video camera and coaxed them into telling some stories about the past. they all sort of clamed up at first and then one told a story and the fun was on as they all recanted funny things that happened to them in the past. It's a priceless video with about 30 seconds of our kids friend on a 4 wheeler at the beginning so she left in on the dvd and called in grandmas and 4 wheelers.
 
That is great that you have that recording of your Mother and her sisters.

I have some videos of the older generation talking about the past. I have daily journals and such from family members going back over 150 years. The oldest of these is in German. He writes about crossing the Atlantic on a sailing ship in the 1830s. He settled In PA and then later moved to Iowa before the civil war. The journals are in safety deposit boxes.

Heck I even have some 30mm film that one Great Uncle took in the 1950s. It has scenes of them being on the river. I can remember hearing about them going but it is neat to actually watch them there.

One of my Grand Daughters is actually taking historical record keeping at college. She is getting fanatically about recording these family records. She and I have had long discussions about how to store these records. So she is transcribing them to paper documents as well as digitally. My question is: Will any one 100 years form now be able to read/play DVDs and such??? Look at 30mm film and such now. Heck even cassette tapes are not easily played now.

Last winter she recorded over 100 hours of older family members and friends talking about times gone by. She is bugging me to do more of it this winter. I seem to have a knack for remembering the old family tails. I never watched much TV or listened to radio. I enjoyed talking/listening to my elders. So I guess I have heard more of the stories than most of my family members. I am also older than my siblings and cousins. So I talked/visited my Great Grand Parents on both sides. A couple of old Bachelor Great Uncles kind of adopted my wife as their daughter so they where in our house several times each week for supper and then visited afterwards. ( She spoiled them with lots of home cooking. LOL)
 
I will be 80 in December and still going strong raising miniature horses, fencing, handling square bales of hay and everything I did when I was in my 40,s. I was still climbing roofs as an insurance adjuster when I was 75. I admit I don't work all day but I do every day.
Age is as much attitude as it is physical. If you lose the attitude you quickly lose the ability.
 
Could your mom refresh me on how to set the AB lines on my 9670 combine? I usually get on to ALL of the buttons to push when we get done.
 
80 today is much younger than 80 a generation ago. We have a lot more things to keep us mentally alert and that enhances our physical strength. May you see many more years.
 
Ozlander; The finisher she was using first is a three year old Sunflower 6433 37 foot model. It sure is not worn out yet.
 

We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today.

Back
Top