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Year you started driving a tractor for real

B

Bobl1958

Well-known Member
I was looking at the post of jon's grandson driving the B. Looks like the little duffer is having a blast.
It made me think about how young some of us were when we were driving farm eqt for real. Not advocating anything, but when you were the oldest son on a not so small farm, it's amazing what we were asked to do. I can remember driving a ford tractor at 8 years old. I can also remember disking wheat stubble with a 5020 JD and a 20' disc when I was 10 years old. I'm talking about disking with no one around. Not driving down the road with it, but in the field while my Dad and Uncles were off in another field somewhere cutting wheat. Someone would come to check once in awhile, but otherwise I was alone. But the difference is, most of us at that age were seasoned veterans, and had been taught how to run eqt. Doesn't mean something couldn't happen, but I would guess the most of us got through it. I was 12 before I was "old enough" to drive down the roads. Keep in mind this is the middle of Kansas. When I was 14, my Dad got a Case 1470. Man could I make that thing crab walk down a field (when no one was around).
I also drove a wheat truck to town when I was 13 (although just 3 months away from 14). It was a 2 ton 1966 Chevy. Drove to the elevator and dumped many loads.
I don't mean this as bragging, because several of the kids my age were doing the same things, as I am sure several of you have as well. I'm 54, and some of you older than me did even more, no doubt.
I also don't mean that we were any smarter than kids of today. Just grew up in a different time is all. Today, a kid can't even work hardly if he/she is under 18. Our parents would have been charged with child abuse in todays times. That is for certain. Bob
 
I was probably around 11 when I started running stuff on my own. Doesn't matter much still get yelled at for everything.... Pushed snow for him the other day at his house while he was out... And don't ya know it I did it all wrong lol. Gotta love it
 
Drove my grandfathers Super C at age 9, started really driving our Farmall 200 & BN with a loader at 10 doing field work, picking stone, raking hay, loading & spreading manure, plowing snow, anything I could think of and talk my father into letting me do.
 
Isn't that the truth. I never could quite do things right. Close, but not quite. Sad thing is I wish my Dad was still here to chew me out.
 
I was 7 the first time I spent a whole day driving a tractor. My dad was a weekend farmer and he needed to cultivate and seed his big field (20 acres) in one day before the rain hit. He had a Cockshutt 30 on an 8 foot cultivator and a Massey 30 on an ancient steel wheel seed drill. I was riding with dad on the Cockshutt and he mentioned that he was never going to get it all done. I suggested that I could cultivate while he seeded. He thought that was a good idea, and had me drive a couple of rounds with him and he went over all the safety aspects he could think of, and then I finished the field. I was very proud and tired when I got finished, and went right to bed after supper. The next morning dad told me he got the seeding done just before the rain hit, and he wouldn't have got done without me. I've been hooked ever since.
 
I was plowing layout ground and turnrows with a IH 560 pulling a Graham-Hoeme when I was 10. Also drove a pickup late every afternoon making the "rounds" checking on irrigation motors.
 
don't remember a time I wasn't driveing a tractor. started driveing for hire when i was 12.I DROVE FOR mR gARRET TILL I WAS A SENOR IN SCHOOL. hE WAS A GREAT PERSON. i AM 72 NOW
 
Probably 8 or 9 for real. Ran the conditioner behind dad with the sickle mower, lot of hay raking, wagons and tillage work.
AaronSEIA
 
learned to drive mccormick w-6 at 7or 8 yrs. old for picking rocks. i started driving the tractor in field discing with mccormick w-6 and jd 10' drag disc when i was 10 years old. also pull 10'jd binder with w-6 while dad rode binder. and cut hay with 5'ihc horse mower pulled with w-6. learned to drive truck, a 1955 gmc 1/2 ton at 11 yrs. old.
just thought of something funny, couple yrs. ago wife asked daughters boyfriend to check the air in her car tires. he looked at her and said "you want me to check the air?" had no clue.
just like at work i have experienced young kids that can not load a grease gun. when i was discing at 10 yrs. old i had to grease the disc every 2 1/2 hrs. that goes to show "no do... no learn".
but then i am not too good at computer games!
 
At 8 I was driving the baler while Dad stacked on the wagon(Deere 2040).By 10 I was mowing hay(with Dad in same field raking) By 12 or 13 I was pretty much on my own running everything but the combine and the cornplanter(never could drive strait enough for Dad).LOL My oldest son was pulling silage wagons at age 8.We had two Deere 3020's and he would take the empty wagon out unhook and take the full one in for his mom to unload while he took the other 3020 and repeated the process.
 
I can remember drilling wheat at 7. I couldn't lift the bags to fill the drill.
Dad was at work, so Mom helped me with the bags.
When I finished one field and went to start another, I couldn't remember the
"right" way to start it. Mom didn't know either, so we had to call Dad at work.
Just knew he was going to be PO'd. He wasn't. LOL
 
Starting mowing hay by myself the Summer after I was 7 years old with a AC CA and sickle bar mower.
Dad had to put the blade up and down when I went from one field to another because I couldn't lift it.
 
first year driving rice cart was 7 years old, had to go down narrow road with trees on both side and dad said DONT HANG THE SPOUT IN THE TREES, i didnt, but put the Case 830 in the opposite ditch just before going in the field...
 
Started on a U Moline, pulling a one row corn picker when I was 8. Probably had been mowing with sycle mower on a cub before that. I remember this side slope in the front yard you could go one way but not the other, anybody that ever drove one of those off sided tractors knows what I am talking about. Almost turned over several times.
 
I started driving our Allis B pulling a feed wagon at age 6, with Dad close by. By 8 I was in the field by myself plowing, discing, whatever. That was about the age when I started cultivating, and of course I plowed out a bit before I got the hang of it. Dad couldn't understand why I always seemed to do it right by the road instead of at the back of the field?
 
1957, 11 years old, 6FT. disc behind an 8N Ford. Learned to mow hay that summer with a Z Moline with a JD #5 mower. 950 Ford on the rake. Dad was real patient. Ken
 
at five i drove grampas m between rows of ac round hay bales while he and who ever he baled for loaded the bales.if he hollered whoa i had to kick the switch.started plowing with f20 and two bottom trip plow when i was nine.got a NEW four tine pitchfork for my 10th birthday. wonder why body is shot?
 
Started driving a 9n to help Dad feed turkeys at 6 driving a team with sulky rake at 8 and using a pu to pull up the overshot stacker at 9 also moving equip D4 and JD R buckraking hay with a JD A Ih m.& h at 10 11&12 plowing disking rod weeding. 14 mowing and combining with JD 45. At 69 I don't till much but still spend alot of time haying.
 
I was on the 8N at 7. I wasn't tall enough to push in the clutch so I had to jump down off the seat and stand on the clutch to push it in or let it out. It had a loader on it. It was the tractor I learned to drive on so I never knew that folks think the steering is hard on those with a loader. It was just barnyard chores at that point anyway - watering trees and such.

At about 9 I was discing the wheat stubble all morning during harvest (with the 856) and then running the H with the Grain-o-Vator cart on it when we started cutting each day. Notched pulley and wind up rope start 8 horse Briggs on the auger. The best part was how fast that H went on the return trip to the field. It felt like that old thing might just take off.

When I turned 10 I started running the grain truck back and forth to fields and the bins. 1964 Ford - loved that truck. By the time I was 14 I had already been running wheat to town for a year. I had to get special permission to leave driver's education early each day so I could run the truck to the elevator with the first loads of the day. My friends thought I was cool. I just thought I was hot and sweaty. I sure hated that the old truck only had an am radio. All of the "cool" stations were fm.

I look at 9 year olds today and cringe. I wouldn't set any of them off down the road with a cart of wheat to wind the rope on the auger engine by themselves. Maybe we were just good at it because of the expectations. Grandpa expected me to remember how to work everything the right way and do it safely. I had city cousins he never did let drive his pickup even as adults. I guess the farm educates kids. City kids just get taught.
 
Was pulling wagons and raking hay with the ford jubilee at 7, missed my first day of school to plow with the 830 case and 4 bottom in 5th grade.
 
7 or 8 on a 'B' John Deere. I was alowed to run the tractor while picking up hay and graduated to running it picking stone the next year and spreading manure. Foot clutch came at 10 or 11 and an MT John Deere. Planted my first crop of corn at 13- six acres, max till and worked with the MT and workers. Picked it with a neighbors Woods Bros. picker and sold it to my uncle for $6.50 a barrel.
 
My son was driving the pickup out in the fields when he was 6. He ran a D8 Cat by himself when he was 10. He was mowing and baleing hay when he was 12. Today at 40 years old he is running heavy eqpt. for a living. Start them young and they will prosper.

Bob
 
Gramp, and uncles turned me loose on a CASE L with a 16' springtooth harrow in 1955, I was 8 then. Didn't take me long to be aware that turning too short would bring the outside cable from the pull hitch up and over the rear tire. OOPS.
Loren, the Acg.
 
1977, I was 14, drivin a tricycle Allis Chalmers D-14, 1957 vintage. Learned about crestin a hill, with a heavy Allis bush hog on the back, front wheels were in the air! Learned that hornets sometimes nest in corn rows, and if you are lucky, you mash the nest with the front wheels, and shred it with the bush hog, before they can sting you! Also learned not to try to back out of a swampy area, brake on the uphill side, and swing out into a big U-turn, if possible. Also to stop diggin, when you are in a hole. There are some, who never learned that!
 
2010! Now we all know that this is only a heartbeat ago. But it's my heartbeat. I waited a loooong time to be able to have a little place where I needed my H. It was well worth the wait.
Garden: plowing, rototilling, manure spreading, watering, (with the front loader on the Kubota during low water conditions) grass (as in lawn care), postholes, driveway maintenance, and the occasional neighborhood cruise.
Dave
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Feb 1991 when I got my 52 8n. Still have it plus others but having grown up in a small rural town we weren"t farmers. I was 38 then but I"ve Been making up seat time since then
 
Mom was really hinky about possibility of rollover, etc.- so I don't think I seriously drove the 8N until I was about 10. But started driving hay truck in the field at about 8. I was the only one on the crew that was too small to buck bales- so I got to drive. Rough duty, but somebody's gotta do it. . .
 
The fall of 1952 at age six driven and O C 3 oliver pulling a 4 section spike tooth so my uncle could pant the wheat. From that day on i was hooked as i must have got to much dirt in my blood system .
 
I was 14, mowing, raking and baling. With a #37 MF sickle mower, a #25 MH 3pt rake and a #3 MF baler behind a 65 MF diesel. The next summer I started custom haying on my own once our haying was done.
 
I'm guessingmost of the previous posters here are quite a bit older than me (which is why I love this site--so much knowledge and experience!) but things hadn't changed much when I was growing up in the 80's. I was 9 years old, staying with Grandpa on spring break and spent the week hauling manure with an 1105 MF, while he loaded it with the MF 20 Industrial. My biggest mistake was pulling in the field, making about 3 rounds before I realized I hadn't engaged the PTO...He couldn't figure out why I took so long! That was 22 years ago and I'd give anything to spend another week with Grandpa! I do still have the old 20 though, and think of him every time I climb in the seat.
 
Probably 1999 for me. I would have been 12. JD 4430. My First job was fitting ground that spring, plowing that summer and fall. Didn't get to do any planting until many years later! :lol: I was 14 or 15 when I got to run the combine- gleaner R52. -Andy
 
I was eight dad and I were moving grandpa's 656 to field to plow he said run this l will get another tractor. He also said I will be right behind you in the furrow, shut the key off if anything goes wrong, don't fall off.
 
Same thing Doug. Stayed out of school to disc cornstalks when 6. Dad was plowing them down behind me. When I was done discing he put 2/16 IH plow behind the SC and I helped finish plowing. This was in 1954!
 
i was 11 years old,raking hay and pulling hay wagon by myself. i was younger and dad would have me drive the tractor for the hay baler while he loaded. i look back and wish i could go back and help dad again.
 
1987 ...I was 8....JD 50 and the manure spreader. Graduated to the 4020 at about 10 drilling wheat. Plowing and disking at 12. I do remember Dad let me run the JD 8440 when I was 8 but he rode with me....
 
I started driving the 4630 and grain cart with dad in the field when I was 8 years old. I started working by myself with a 4640 and a 19 ft do-all or 25ft disk when I was about 10. I started drilling beans by myself that same year too. I ran our 9610 shelling corn by myself when I was 12 or 13. I planted about 300 acres of corn this year with our 4430 and 7200 eight row planter and got to run the round baler as well. I am 16 by the way. I have had the job of raking hay or spreading manure or any other job dad didn't want to do since about the age of 9. If I'm lucky I get to skip school for two or three day in the spring of fall to help. I love every bit of it and can't wait to get started farming once I get out of high school and college.
 
(quoted from post at 23:26:08 01/08/13) I started driving the 4630 and grain cart with dad in the field when I was 8 years old. I started working by myself with a 4640 and a 19 ft do-all or 25ft disk when I was about 10. I started drilling beans by myself that same year too. I ran our 9610 shelling corn by myself when I was 12 or 13. I planted about 300 acres of corn this year with our 4430 and 7200 eight row planter and got to run the round baler as well. I am 16 by the way. I have had the job of raking hay or spreading manure or any other job dad didn't want to do since about the age of 9. If I'm lucky I get to skip school for two or three day in the spring of fall to help. I love every bit of it and can't wait to get started farming once I get out of high school and college.
Click to expand...
Aarin, welcome to the forum. I hope you never lose that enthusiasm!
 
About 8 for the first time in 1950 on an F-20.
By 12 we also had an Unstyled JD A. That JD was a lot easier for me to start than the F-20!
 
1971, Super C and MM U. I was 16 and that was the years we moved from NJ to farm country in MN.

Rick
 
Using a JD620 I was 8 pulling a disk or drag. 10 I would plow. Not much older I would plant corn and pull the AC66 combine. Always was driving between farms. I drove the pickup for the first time when I was 4, but it was being pulled to get it home. I had to steer and brake for 3 miles. I soon became the expert of the towed vehicle.
 
Raking hay at 8 years old with a D14 Allis Chalmers and a 5 wheel rake while grandpa ran an 830 Case pulling he round baler. By the time I was 14 my grandpa had passed away and I moved to the round baler and my 10 year old brother became my raking man. We baled 600+ bales then, and now 20 years later it is closer to 1,000. Only now either one of us do any of the tractor driving jobs.
 
Well with me I started much later than most on here 34. Grew up in the city of St. Louis so there was not any opportunity to drive a tractor. However at the age of thirteen my parents owned a bakery and mom would let me drive the car up the highway 15 miles when we went to work on the weekend at 2am. Nobody's wason the road then and she worked hard and sort of slept in the front seat while I drove. I thought it was fun and she got 20 min rest. I look back now and there is no way I would allow that today!!
 
I drove Dads 8N Ford at age 4 helping him feed cattle...At age 8 I was driving it alone plowing,disking,etc....My brother plowed all day on the 8N Ford at age 5..He was running right behind Dad"s M Farmall..
 
some of these respose are way for out of line mose 4-8yr olds today dont even wash there hands before eating or know how to flush after using bathroom much less drive a tractor alone maybe at age 12 and up.And yes Im on the farm and not a city slicker picked cotton and have worked for .50 and hr.Something most have not done or woulfd know how to do today ang gas was 17 cent a gallon.
 
I started out in 1953 at the age 7 of on a Farmall B with wooden blocks on pedals so I could reach the pedals ( I still have the tractor).
 
honestly, i cant remember not driving a tractor. driving a farm truck to town at ten, bought my first car when i was twelve, broken down 41 chevy master deluxe.ten whole dollars, took me all year to get the money saved up.
 
Dad put me on the JD B when I was 8 to haul firewood out of the woods. I got my first farmhand job at 13 driving a JD 60 pulling a disc. When I was 11 my Grandpa taught me how to drive his 1/2 Chevy and we fetched a load of coal. Funny, once I learned how to drive (after a few minutes) we headed down a state road to get a load of coal and returned while he played his harmonica. I'll never forget that.

Ken
 
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