Things you never knew existed

All of the talk about plowing and terracing made me think of all of the things I didn't know existed growing up. What things were foreign to you growing up on the farm?

I had never heard of a combine with a spike cylinder on it. We only had rasp bars. I had never seen anyone pull a disk without a packer behind it. I didn't know that you could put calves in the chute to band them (that always led to bruises that made you look like you lived in a torture chamber). I never heard of a year where you didn't pull at least a dozen calves. High birth weight bulls were the way to go. Of course there wasn't any option for feeding sileage other than forking it by hand into the pickup everyday. I thought everyone's grain auger required you to wrap the rope around the pulley and pull and hope. I didn't know that Farmall tractors could be had with a muffler or fenders. I thought everyone had to drive to the elevator at 30 miles an hour so they didn't lose any wheat off the truck. I thought everyone cut metal by turning up the juice on their Lincoln welder. I thought everyone else parked their machinery far from the shade trees to fix it. I thought everyone only used anhydrous to fertilize (but lots did then). I thought everyone plowed deep and hard every year. I didn't know anyone who had air conditioning in their pickup or who left it turned on when they drove the car through town. I thought everyone turned off the a/c every night and let the pig pen breeze blow through the house. I thought everyone had an unheated upstairs bedroom. I thought everyone ran around their house unplugging everything when they saw storm clouds. I thought everyone else's mother wouldn't let them run near the walnut trees because she knew some kid who fell and hit his head on one and died. I thought elevators would always have good "give aways". Not just hats - big spoons and the like.

I'm sure there are other things that I will recall when I see posts.

I can relate to a lot of what you mentioned.

We had a neighbor that had a combine with a spike tooth cylinder; I think it was a McCormack Deering #11?

It had a canvas header. The combine picked up a rock and took out several teeth, which took a heavy spud wrench to change the teeth.

They replaced the broken teeth, cranked up the engine and put engaged the combine drive. Unfortunately the owner or hired man left the heavy spud wrench laying on the canvas. The wrench took out more teeth than the rock did!

I thought there were just a few occupations as a kid. Farmer, welder, feed guy, banker, school teacher. Never gave anything else a thought. Like you had a mother who knew someone who was killed falling off a haystack so round hay bales are suspect. Darn safety police

(reply to post at 17:10:15 12/22/14)

Click to expand...

he oIder i get the Iess i seem to know.
I just found out that a Iot of gas engines use pressed in wrist pins( in the rod)
I been rebuiIding engines of and on for 50 years,..mostIy dieseIs though

We owned a welder but no grinder. I was totally dumbfounded the first time I seen one. First time I learned you could sharpen a drill bit I am sure my face had the same look.

You mean like cousin Ernie ?

Your mother might have made you stay away from the black walnut trees so your clothes wouldn't get stained. There is something in walnuts soft outer hulls that is a very strong dye. In the fall we would peel the hulls off the nuts before storage. Any cloth that contacted the juice would be permanently stained.

I still have an unheated upstairs bedroom (in a uninsulated house built in 1840)

Finished off the two story house last summer(grass fire started about 9:00pm and lasted about an hour.) That is the story for the DNR. Cabs were only on the BTO combines and nothing had A/C.

Every body swam in the river. If you didn't feel like buying a new battery for your tractor you parked it on a hill and when you needed it you just rolled down the hill and popped the clutch!