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Things lost while working ground!!!!

J

JDseller

Well-known Member
Did not want to high jack K. Peters post about plowing his keys under. I have lost several things over the years plowing/disking.

The biggest was the draw bar out of a Ford 6000. The weeds pulled the retainer clip out and the draw bar slide out and was plowed under. That draw bar was about five feet long. I knew within a few acres but not exactly where. I listened while disking and even when I plowed the same ground the next year. Found it with the corn planter two years after losing it. It got side ways in front of the shoes and drug a big pile of dirt.

The most expensive "almost" plowed under happened to my Maternal Grand Father. He had gotten a new TO-30 tractor. He was share cropping on a farm. He was moldboard plowing this big bottom. The land owner stopped by to see the new tractor. The Land owner had just sold another farm and was on his way to the bank. He had the cash money for the farm in his wallet. He drove the tractor for a few rounds and left. My Grand father took back over. Half way through his first pass his eyes caught something going under the rear tractor tire. He stopped and got off to look. The wallet was just behind the rear tire in the bottom of the plow furry just about to be turned under. Grand Dad took it over to him that night. He gave my Grand Dad a $100 bucks for finding it. This was in 1952. That was a lot of money then. Don"t remember how much money was in the wallet but I know the farm that sold. It was 300 acres of rolling hill ground. It would have brought $200-250 per acre then on the low side. So that would have made it $6000-7500 dollars then. That would be like a $100,000 today.

So what have you guys lost????
 
Plowed under a punch last fall that was my late fathers.Many years ago I plowde under a 15/16wrench,the next year I plowed it back up!Not something I lost,but one time I Plowed up a 16 pound sledgehammer.I still have it.There have been more,but those are the highlights.
 
my cousin lost a pager to the fire co on the back of the disk. took it off to get it out of the way nad he left it and it got disked under but he relized and went back a few 100 ft to dig for it but he found it. lost another 1 before in old wet crapy hay but never found that 1. sure it is in a feild by now somewhere.
 
Two years ago, I did some chisle plowing for a neighbor, and brought my digital camera along. Some how it managed to fall out of my pocket and on to the cab floor and then out on to the driveway of the farm that he was renting. A few weeks later, I was home, and he stoped over with my camera. It had been ran over, but superisingly the photo card was still viewable. Speaking of which, I wonder where that is??

Jared
 
Dad told me of the time he was discing and saw a wallet. He stopped and picked it up and it was his, it had fallen out of his pocket the same day. Not in the field but last week I came up a chain binder short. I went back today and it was still laying where I was parked. That will teach me for not chaining my mower. I can hear me now, if I had been stopped, but officer I was only going a couple miles, to another job. Stan
 
Most expensive thing ive plowed under was a cell phone. Was not mine but a friend who had left it in the rear tool box on the tractor with the lid open. However the weirdest thing ive plowed up, at least at first was a sink faucet. It tripped the plow so i noticed it right away. When I got off the tractor it was a WHOLE sink, like a big ceramic sink. The knobs on it where actually crystal which I then sold. That was the most profit Ive ever made plowing :)
 
My cousin lost a cellphone while baleing hay,9mounths later a hay customer called-she had found a cellphone in a bale of hay.charged the battery,it still worked!
 
My first time plowing was this year. In a field that has had about anything and everything lost in it. I found 6 foot roof bolts, old garden stakes. 13 gold balls. The best was finding a 20 foot heavy duty chain that surprisingly wasn't rusted to heck and back. Used it to pull some logs day after I found it.
 
Baling hay. My oldest son was in high school, and when he got off the bus, he hooked to the rake and went to the field. I got home a couple hours later from work, and hooked to the baler and started baling. Meanwhile, he'd rounded up some good hay help and had the little tractor hooked to the wagon. As soon as the bales hit the ground, he and his buddies were putting them on the wagon. After about an hour of baling, I happened to notice something flipping along in front of the baler pickup. I stopped to check, and it was my son's wallet. I hailed them from across the field and asked if he had enough money to pick up some sodas on the next round to the barn. He slapped his back pocket and his face fell a foot. I held up his wallet, and we all had a good laugh.

I squirmed my wallet out of my pocket, mowing hay on my father-in-law's 8N. Found it with a flashlight that evening, just walking the rounds.

A co-worker lost both front wheels and shaft off of a WD45 while plowing. He knew it immediately. That was the rearingest tractor I've ever seen.

I plowed up a 2 lb. hammer that no one had ever seen before. We never did figure out how it got in the field.

Paul
 
Now that you mention hay. I have hit some pretty nasty things cutting hay, My high School teacher once actually hit a dead deer while cutting. Ive hit smaller animals that have run into the mower such as fox and racoons. But thats for a diffrent thread.

Some of todays cellphones are pretty amazing. My uncle left one on a firetruck he was repairing, He had it pass him going down the road, picked it up and it worked fine!
 
One thing that pretty much kills a cell phone is falling into the irrigation ditch.they never work again-even after they dry.:(
 
Last spring I was plowing under a peice that my brother got for pumpkins, and it had been idle for many years and used more or less for some random dumping. I plowed up a vacume cleaner.

That fall when I was plowing it again I plowed up a crow bar. Pretty rusty, but it's in my truck and it's come in handy. Also managed to plow up a 2LB maul and a grease gun.

Pat mentions running things though the haybine. Dad put a fawn through (well, 1/2 way through- he had to pull out what was left) our Ford 535 haybine. I've run skunks, ducks, cats, and a few other critters through the haybine myself. The duck got me a little upset because I saw her, then her nest on the next round.

Donovan from Wisconsin
 
It's not what i lost in the field i'm worried about.
It's what i find!
it usually shows up in a flat rear tire(old cultivator shanks or plowshares,deer horns too)or in the hay bine(taking out a few sections and/or guards).
Cultivators are great for finding chains,barb wire and old horse shoes.
 
My fire department pager...dragging ang rolling...found it (luckily) on the next round! Too much bouncing on the seat of the "H"
 
I lost a very nice pocket knife about 30 years ago that my dad gave me for a Christmas present. Was wearing a pair of pants in which you lost everything out of the pockets when you sat down. I spent the day disking about 9, or 10 hours. Its still out there! My dad lost a 12 inch crescent wrench while doing the same in the same field about a year or 2 later. Said he left on the floor of the tractor, & either he knocked it off, or it bounced off. He said he listened for a disk, or planter hit, & looked for sunlight shining off it for years before he gave up on it.

Scotty
 
Lost a wallet raking hay. Flipped all the windrows-no luck. Watched real close while baling that afternoon-still no luck. Walked the field the next day and looked without success, but my little beagle dog found it and brought it to me while I was looking. Never carried a wallet in the field again.
 
I haven't really lost anything important other than a watch I used to hang from the TA lever on an 806, but I've found some strange things.

Moldboard plowed up a IH 2pt. hitch coupling beam 3 or 4 years back. Patch has been in the family since the late 40's, nobody remembers having a piece of machinery that used this piece, and nobody remembers losing the piece. Must have fell from the sky, or worked it's way through from China.

I v-ripped up what was left of a shotgun. Old sucker, and had been underground a long time, too. When chiseling, I found a 10 ft. piece of railroad rail once, too, but I was about 100 ft. away from a then Conrail line. Even found a manhole cover, in the middle of 80 acres. Maybe it was someone's weight for an old disc harrow or something. Got about a 150 ft. long piece of heavy steel cable that was buried for some reason along a fencrow once, too. There were no utilities or buildings for over a mile.

My first spring on the tractor, and a bunch of bones rolled over in the furrow behind me in the corner of a field. I was about 12 years old, and a little creeped out. I dug around a bit, found 2 collars. Turns out the neighbor buried his 2 dogs in the corner of the field the fall before after they died about a week apart.

AG
 
Lost my check book last yr. raking hay in the morning then my wife found it that afternoon flipping the windrows over . That was after I called the bank and put a stop on any checks the last one I wrote .
 
I have a 3 acre chunk that I work up for deer and the first time I plowed it about the third round the plow started acting funny. I raised the plow and there was a army back pack stuck on the plow. I was almost afraid to go back for fear of finding whoever owned the pack. We live south of Grayling and the national guard is there in the summer and the helos fly over here a lot.
 
I have lost several parts off of implements as well as Leatherman Pliers, grease gun( found it this year after 4 years in the field),false tooth plate,cell phone more than once( found it each time)and wallet in the hog lot ( found pieces of it the next day).

Just lost the foam drop hose off the sprayer last week. I know within 10 acres where it is at so I should find that one on top of the ground when I get a chance to go look for it. Have a GPS light bar now so I don"t use the foamer much anymore.

Guess I get in to big of hurry some times.

Gary
 
Grandpa plowed his false teeth under one year, found them a year or two later and after having them cleaned went back to wearing them! Last year I lost a $100 scraper for my 490 disk, haven't found it yet, also lost a shovel for the chisel plow last fall, probably find both in a new tire! Friend plowed his billfold under at a threshing show, found it a year or two later but said the money in it was missing!
 
My wedding band is laying somewhere in a hayfield. Was riding the hayrack behind the baler and the band started bothering me so I took it off and put it in my pocket. Must not have gotten it in there far enough. Lost my billfold off a tractor. Got a new drivers license and draft card and billfold. Didn't have credit cards then. Found the billfold a year later while cultivating. Just happened to look down at the right time and there it was. Way back in my high school days my buddy and I were driving around one night in his families car enjoying a bottle of whiskey he had gotten hold of. Next morning I couldn't find my billfold so I went to his house and we looked all over their car to no avail. A couple of weeks later my dad got a call from a county snowplow operator who found the billfold laying on top of the snow in a ditch. Snowplow operator wanted a $5 finder's fee. This was in the 60's so $5 would have bought quite a lot of gas. I'm pretty sure my buddies sisters found the billfold in the car, took the cash and pitched it out the window. GRRR. Jim
 
Not lost but found. Legend has it a farmer was plowing near Washington GA in the 1920s and plowed up a gold bar which was probably some of the Confederate gold that went missing after Jeff Davis and his officers disbanded the Confederacy just across the Savannah River in Abbeville SC. I can only imagine how hard that farmer plowed his mule the rest of the day.
Richard
 
I was teddering hay on a 140, and when I reached down to change gears, my watch caught on the gearshift and fell off. I looked for it for a while, but couldn't find it. Afterward, I was stacking bales on the wagon, and I jumped off to get one. Since there were other people picking up the bales, it was rare that I had to jump off the wagon. Anyway, when I hopped off and looked down, my watch was right between my feet!

I was raking that same field with the same tractor, and my hat blew off while making a sharp turn. The hat had landed before the rake, so I knew it must be in the windrow. I jumped down to take a look, and the hat was nowhere to be found! I tore that windrow apart for 20 feet, but I still couldn't find my hat. Eventually, my hat was found by the man baling, and it was right where I thought it was! It was kind of like my hat had disappeared!

Also, I have heard a few stories about one of our hayfields. It used to be used for tobacco a long time ago, but it was converted to hay when folks kept plowing up human bones! It has been suggested that that field was an indian burial ground, but I don't know for sure.

SF

PS: This is a good discussion!
 
About fifteen years ago while turning over an old run out field I lost a tire and the calcium chloride in it along with the tube when I "found" what was left of an old tee post. I had apparently uncovered the tip on the previous pass and suddenly there was water shooting into the air. The tires were too worn to justify a patch so I had to spend $1100 for the whole job.
 
I was plowing a field to sprig bermuda grass when I noticed a wallet in my path. It had two dollars and social security card. It belonged to a hired hand of the former owner. I was burning brush and lost my cell phone. I went home and got my wifes cell phone and dialed my number.
sure enough it was under some brush that hadn't caught fire.
 
Baled up a round baler belt once. I marked he bale, but my Dad hauled in the hay while I was gone. Sold the hay, the guy who bought it brought the belt back after he fed the hay.
 
Lost:

Cheap Timex "Ironman" sports watch when I unknowingly snapped the band while plowing. It turned up a year later still keeping time.

Stanley thermos. Found it the next round when it was ejected out of the bushog. (Had to buy a new thermos...)

----

Found - all sorts of interesting stuff:

Big honkin' 3/4" x 20' chain - apparently lost/buried by a pipelaying contractor running a petroleum line thru the field 30 years earlier.

18" crescent wrench.

Cute little bra and pantie set (unfortunately no sign of the owner...)

Cell phone dropped by my son working half a round ahead of me.

NOA radiosonde (high altitude weather sounder) and its deflated lift balloon.

Banged-up case of beer believed stolen from a nearby C-store.

Several flint arrow points and spear heads lost by native Americans 200 - 300 years before us.

Various coulter disks, cultimulcher teeth, small hand tools, Farmall front wheel weight, "gimmee" seed/fertilizer ballcaps, etc.
 
When Mt. St. Helens blew in 1980, a field I hayed in Salkum, WA was right across from the fire station, so became the "heliport" for the military helicopters. They knocked down about half the hay, but I decided to cut what was left.

On the first round, I "found" a discarded parachute with my Taarup disc mower. Things wind up real fast on disc mowers, and that parachute material is TOUGH!

I was struggling with it with my dull pocket knife- old guy next door came to see what was happening- he handed me his sharp pocket knife, and took mine home to sharpen. I thanked him, and he said "At my age, there aren't many things a guy can still do. I can still sharpen a knife with the best of 'em, and am happy to do it." I think he was in his early 90s.
 
Not lost working ground but still interesting. Lost a hitch pin pulling corn wagons in the fall. Found it next spring in the first round chopping hay. We had just put in brand new knives in our 3940 harvester, no metal alert. Broke up eight knives damaged the drum and ruined a $200 shear bar.Worse was that we had to hire a neighbor to finish chopping with a red tractor and harvester.LOL
 
Well, shame on all of you who lost a wallet! Our dads all told us never to do tractor work with a wallet in back pocket.

That being said, I only remember to take mine out about half the time!
 
Neigbor was coming by to pickup some cash I owed him once for a peice of equipment I'd bought.seems like it was 3-400 dollars.Since i needed to get some mowing done at a place near him he was supposed to meet me there.I had the cash laying on the counter for a week because he was supposed to come by the house,but i just picked it up and stuck it in my shirt pocket.I mowed all day and he didnt show up so I just went on home and pulled the cash out and laid it back on the counter ,all there but one $100 bill! never did figure out how i lost one bill out of a stack,without losing it all..I've never dug up a body,but i have dug up headstones.dated way back before statehood,with no record of any grave yard being in the area.Neighbor used them for weights on his disc for years.I sat them up along the fence.Found out many years later that someone had heard of a colored grave yard in the area.but it had been lost over the years. evidently,cows had been grazed over the graveyard some time or the other and they knocked the stones over , where they were buried.kind of spooky for a 8-9 year old kid out plowing at night,I was sure glad when we quit farming that place!!I lost a pistol out of my pocket once while plowing,a little browning 25 auto I carried because i had traps out for coyotes that I checked early of a morning.found it a week later while discing.
 
Didn't do it while working the ground, but pulled it out of the ground...lost a Canon Elph camera back when they were expensive lil dudes at a horse show in extremely wet/ muddy trailer parking. A year later, same show, parked in about the same spot- little mare was tied to the side af the trailer kicking at the ground, and turned up the camera out of the soil. Thing still worked, and had photos of prior year on it!
 
Strangest "lost" was a watch- was working on a manger in front of the cow feed rack, was sweating and watch band was irritating my wrist, so took watch off and put it on the flat 2 X 6 that formed the top of the feed rack. Forgot about it until next morning, and it was gone. Not an area where it could have fallen off and been lost- concrete alley on one side, feed bunker on the other. Can't imagine a cow would have eaten it, best guess it was hauled off by a packrat or squirrel.
 
lost a 4020 deere side panel,, planting or balin ' did not notice when it came off , apparantly baled it up ,, next spring went out to feed another bale in the ring and there it lay..
 
I wasn't going to respond to this thread but it seems that a number of people have lost watches.

I was coming back from Alaska in 1962 when I was 18 and was low on cash. I jumped a freight in Sudbury, Canada. All the boxcars were locked and sealed so I climbed into a gondola loaded with new steel beams, big stuff with 24" webs. I had taken off my birthday present watch with my name inscribed on the back and laid it on a beam. About 10 miles later, we hit some rough track and the beams shifted. I am lucky all I lost was the watch and not my life or limbs. Nope, nobody mailed it back to me. That was the last watch I ever owned.

It took three weeks to get from Anchorage to Boston. Started the trip with the purchase of BSA motorcycle. After about three hundred miles, the bike wasn't running very well. Pulled over and found a five dollar bill in the middle of nowhere. Had to sell the bike to a car hauler
who let me ride in a Buick on the upper deck. We were held up for several days because of washouts on the Alcan Highway. Eventually got to Edmonton and hitched a ride in a 2-ton Chevy flatbed hauling aluminum sheet to Toronto. He let me drive and I destroyed a front wheel and tire on a section of road under construction near Sudbury. Rode that freight to Montreal and had enough money to buy a ticket to Lowell, MA and got a cab home. Met alot of nice people. One couple put me up for the night.
 
"Well, shame on all of you who lost a wallet! Our dads all told us never to do tractor work with a wallet in back pocket."

Carry mine in my front pocket at all times so I won"t loose it.
 
Had an uncle, years ago, working ground ahead of the planter found a 10" cresent, very rusted but workable. Thought he'd shine it up a little. Wired it to the back of the disk to shine it up. Next time he checked on it, it was gone. Never found it again!
 
i dont know where to start on lost things but the weirdest find was a old coal mine shaft while plowing. i just happened to look back at the right time and the first bottom must have opened it up and the last 3 bottoms just dumped into the shaft. not suprised that i found one as the old underground mines that my ancestors survived off of are about as commom as mosqutios just didnt think i would find one plowing. o/t but a friend was running a d5 cat dover in the hills and all of the sudden the whole thing and about a 5 foot circle arond him sank 6 feet when the shaft under him collapased. ya just never know what you wil find.
 
Was plowing w/ a 2 - 12" oliver rooster comb and the tractor suddenly started pulling a little harder, but was close to the end of the field so I finished the round. Tripped the plow and found I hooked a 1 1/2" x 2" chunk of steel pipe on the point. Wire tied the pc to the plow, and is still there today.
 
Not me but dad plowed up a 3' pipe wrench, cleaned it up and still use it. Another not me but grandpa plowed up an old "dummy" bomb that they used for target practice about WW2. He only found half of it actually. He also plowed up an old octagon barreled rifle when dad was a kid.
 
Just Another Old Geezer caught my math mistake. The cost per acre should have been $20-25 per acre. I write my replies and posts on a Word program. Sometimes it changes the decimal place on numbers. The total would have been $6000-7500.
 
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