Winning friends and influencing people

Yesterday I told how a guy came to buy tractor fenders from Cliff, after seeing them listed on Craigslist.  I thought it was great that Cliff met a like-minded fellow who lives so nearby.  
I'll bet some of you think this is where I tell you the guy was a crook; we've all heard those awful Craigslist stories, haven't we?  But no, he was the real deal.
  
Last night, Cliff got a phone call from a stranger, a friend of the fellow who is buying the fenders.  Seems they have a tractor club, and this guy wants Cliff to join.  
Cliff has intended to join a tractor club ever since he retired, he just hadn't gotten around to it.  
Even though this club is mostly based on tractor-pulling, and that isn't Cliff's main interest, he's going to join anyhow, because if these guys like tractors they are his kind of guys.  This man suggested Cliff take the 1855 somewhere to a tractor pull they are planning, but of course we don't have the kind of equipment it takes to haul a 10,000 pound tractor around.  
The club is getting together this Saturday.  Cliff had to decline that particular meeting because we have company coming, but he'll plan to be free the next time.   
Meanwhile, the caller wants to come and look at the beautiful 1855 his friend told him about.    

*Cliff never joined that club.  We joined the Mid-Mo Tractor Club.

Warmer weather

It was almost shirtsleeve weather today; what a welcome break from the bone-chilling cold.  
Yesterday I went for my first walk in days; there was a crust on the snow, which was still about four inches deep, even after a couple days melting.  My calves are letting me know about it today; that business of breaking through the crust atop the snow is very tiring.  I walked again today, but not nearly as far as usual.  I'm trying to build up to it again.  
My daughter and her family came to visit, bringing along my great-granddaughter Kami.  I can't believe how grown-up she acts.  

Rachel saw I was preparing to take some pictures, so she fixed Kami's hair a little bit.  

Here you have a dog-whisperer in the making.  Actually, there's peanut butter in the ball Iris is working on.  Kami found this very interesting. 

When it comes to farm equipment, you have to start kids young these days.  Last summer you couldn't get Kami on a tractor, so she's coming along nicely.  

As usual, Cliff's working on a project.  Kevin, the son-in-law, is supervising.  Or maybe he's just visiting with Cliff.  

On the other side of the shop, grandson Arick is working on his truck.  

Laying on the cold concrete just seems to be the thing to do today, but not for me.  
I've enjoyed my Nook; it's been a good day for it.  

What is Cliff doing with all these tractors?

Milly, a city gal, read the previous entry and asked, "Are these antiques?  Special tractors?  And once they are fixed or restored what does he do with them?  
Milly, Cliff just happens to love tractors. 

At one time we had about a dozen of them of various kinds and colors; of the ones in this picture, only two remain.  Some people collect stamps or coins; Cliff collects tractors.  Every one is special to him.  
We do need a tractor for our forty acres, but the newest one in our possession, a John Deere (the green one in the picture), can do the job just fine.  The other tractors hanging around here make up Cliff's very expensive hobby.  
They're more like what you'd call "classic" tractors rather than antiques, manufactured in the sixties and seventies.  

The oldest tractor he has is one he restored with the oldest grandson years ago; it was built in the fifties.  That's it above, before restoration; it hadn't run in several years.  I couldn't find a good picture of it as it looks now, but it's the bright red, shiny one in that first picture.  That grandson is now in his mid-twenties.  Cliff keeps this one for sentimental reasons, and says it will go to Arick eventually.    
The reason he sold off most of his collection a few years ago was that he realized it was silly having all these unused tractors sitting here looking pretty; it isn't good for them to just sit idly by, unused.  
I'm sure you've heard of people restoring antique and classic cars; this is the same, only it's tractors.  
There is no money to be made in fixing up these tractors, and plenty to be spent.  Cliff lost money on most of the tractors he sold; but he had fun working on them, and how does one put a price on fun?  He doesn't golf; he doesn't spend money in bars.  
The huge tractor he's working on in the shop is an 1855 Oliver, far to big to use on forty acres.  But he always wanted to own one, so there it is.  
The little Oliver is actually about the right size for our place, but as I said, we have a John Deere that does everything we need done.  
What does he do with them?  
When he's finished with the small Oliver, he will probably plow the occasional garden with it, and use it to pull trailers around the place; he might take it to a few tractor shows within driving distance, perhaps the ones at Adrian and Booneville.     
The big one?  Once it's completely "broke in" from its engine tuneup, he'll drive it up and down the road and around the pasture once in awhile, I guess.  And walk around it often, admiring its beauty.  
In trying to explain his passion, I've come to the realization that he has a disease!  Tractoritis!  
Do you know of any twelve-step programs for tractor aficionados?  

Remembering

It's been two-and-a-half months since my dog, Sadie, died; this morning, for the first time since her death, I was able to watch a few of the many You-Tube videos I made of her while she was alive.
It's surprising how quickly a deceased friend's appearance blurs... did Sadie really look like that?  I had forgotten how much energy she had, too.  Iris loves to play fetch; she'll chase a ball all day long if you want to throw it.  But there's nowhere near the energy that Sadie had.
Of course I moved Iris in as soon as Sadie was gone, and that probably had blurred the edges of my memories a bit.
I couldn't watch too many of the videos because Iris saw and heard Sadie on the monitor and got all excited, barking and growling; I was afraid she'd wake Cliff up, and he doesn't get enough sleep as it is.  I'll have to watch my Sadie videos when Cliff's not sleeping.  
Speaking of Cliff, he recently bought a box blade from a cousin.  Since gullies are washed in our driveway every time there's a hard rain, he didn't have to wait long for a chance to use it.


Cliff probably spends as much time on one tractor or another than most genuine farmers.  He is obsessed with tractors; I'm just glad there is something he enjoys so much.  I'm thankful both of us are still able to enjoy life and ride our motorcycle and just watch the seasons change.  
I'm in this sort of reflective mood because of a phone conversation I tried to have Sunday evening.  We have a friend who is looking for a bucket milker for a few cows he's milking.  I thought about some other old friends, Bud and Dona, who used a bucket milker to milk their one cow many years ago; maybe they'd like to sell it.  
Dona had a stroke and is now in a nursing home; I had heard that their daughter was staying with Bud in his home.  I called (the same number they had thirty years ago) and the daughter answered.  I told her who I was and asked to speak to Bud.  
She put him on the phone, but it was hopeless.  He was off somewhere in his own little world, and unable to make any sense at all.  
"Who's there with you?" I asked.  
"Oh, Dona is here."  
I knew she wasn't; I managed to get him to put the daughter back on the phone and told her what I wanted.  
What a shocker, that a couple about ten years older than Cliff and me, have come to this.  Dona, in fact, was younger than I am now when she had the stroke.  
I have no more words at this moment.

Shopping for a certain tractor

This time, it was my idea to look for a tractor similar to one we once owned:  An Oliver 550 or Super 55.  The reason either model would work for us is that the one we owned was actually a Super 55, but the guy who restored it dressed it in Oliver 550 clothing... a small detail which got us in trouble years later when we decided to sell it.  But I digress.  
Cliff's on an Oliver kick right now, so he's all for buying this tractor I want; he's learned to strike while the iron is hot, and it isn't every day I get in the mood to buy a tractor.  
Finding such a tractor is another story, though.  An old farmer right down the road has one in his shed that needs some work, but Cliff went to talk to him and he doesn't want to sell it.  Says he intends to get it running "one of these days".  Oh, sure.  It's been sitting there for at least twenty years, and he's about seventy years old.  But it is HIS to keep or sell, as he chooses.  
So I put an ad on Craigslist stating that we want to buy an Oliver Super 55 or 550.  We've had one call, and here's the tractor, a Super 55.  

(As always, click on the pictures to make them larger.)

This tractor had a couple of things going for it:  a recent overhaul, and brand new tires on the back.  Those tires are worth $500, and the overhaul would cost around $1,000.  It also had some problems, about which this fellow was very up-front and honest.  He was a really nice man.  
He was asking $1,800 for the tractor.  Do the math on the tires and overhaul and you can see it was a good buy.  This is why Cliff didn't try to dicker with him for a better price.  But in order to get it up to show quality, a person could easily sink another $1,000 into it, and Cliff would rather find one that doesn't require so much work.  He's also prefer a 550, but would take a Super 55 if it was in decent shape and priced right.  
When you're looking for a certain tractor, the thrill of the chase is half the fun.  

We went out back and looked at his other Oliver tractors, the ones he pulls at antique tractor shows.  And then we came on home.

Cliff and tractors

Cliff needed some new work boots, so we headed for Kleinschmidts, as always.  We've had some snow, but not as much as counties over the state line in Kansas.  Main roads are clear; it was our little stretch of gravel road, and our sloping driveway, that kept us from taking the car.  The old pickup has had more use this winter than it had in the previous five years.  

If you have a farm and we come to visit, do not pass go; do not collect $200; take Cliff to see the tractors, because until he's seen them, you won't have his full attention.   Then take me to see the cows.


So, Cliff and I are driving north on 13 highway, and I see him rubbernecking.  That can only mean one thing:  he sees a tractor.

You can count on Cliff slowing down for all tractors along the roadside.  The funny thing about this one, though, is it's a raggedy old Oliver that's been sitting there for the better part of a year.  Every time we pass it, Cliff says, "I wonder if that's a 50 series," or "I wonder if it's gas, or diesel."  Or, "Haven't they sold that thing yet?"


"Look at it," I'll say to him, "Who would buy that old hunk of junk?"
But today I said, "Why don't you stop and see?"  


As it happened, he was already in the process of turning around before the words were out of my mouth.  


He approached it thoughtfully and circled it a couple of times.  I've seen this little dance so many times, I have it memorized.   He looked the tractor up and down.








He got a phone call from his cousin, but he kept on checking the tractor out while they talked.


What you need to know about Cliff is that he doesn't intend to buy this tractor; he only wants to know everything possible about it.  He never tires of looking at tractors.  Even old rust-buckets like this one.  

Nice day for a motorcycle ride

Yesterday, that is. Although I wouldn't turn down another ride today, once the storm passes by.

Since Cliff got his 1855 Oliver, he's been like a man possessed, to the point that he really isn't worried about going for a cruise on the bike. Add to that the fact that there is the chance of thunderstorms in the forecast almost every single day, and let's just say it's hard to get a ride in.

Listening to the weather forecast Friday night, I said, "Cliff, we're just going to have to take our rain suits and try to sneak in a ride between rains."

I expected him to turn down the proposition, but he said, "Yeah, we could ride up to Gerald's and I could pick his brain about Oliver tractors."

My cousin Gerald is retired from farming, but he's been through a few Olivers; and although he won't admit it, he's really knowledgeable about all the tractors he's owned. He's also a genius at restoring classic cars (he won't admit that, either): his old Mercury took first place at a recent car show.

In fact, my cousin is responsible for Cliff buying the main tractors he's owned: We had a D-17 Series IV Allis Chalmers for many years, and now there's the Oliver; both of these are tractors that Cliff got to operate years ago,when he helped Gerald with his farming.

It only takes about an hour to get to Cameron, where Gerald lives. Given the fact that the skies looked like it could rain any minute, that was a long-enough ride for me. Cameron has been in the news for a few years because of a high incidence of brain tumors, and I appreciate the advice of a nurse on my Facebook list who told me, "Don't drink the water," even though I didn't heed her advice.

This is the tractor Gerald kept when he retired; it's more powerful than Cliff's 1855, and a year or two older; but it's the same basic tractor, and Gerald answered many of Cliff's questions, pointing out various things Cliff wasn't sure about.

It was hot and humid, so I didn't stay outside with the guys long; I went inside and had a nice visit with Dee, my cousin's wife. I tried to help her out with a few things on her computer, although her Vista OS wouldn't let me delete her cookies. What's with that? I certainly hope Microsoft comes up with something simpler before I need another computer!

This is Gerald's current project, a Ford Crown Victoria; he's done a lot of these. Cliff and I have agreed that if we were to win the lottery, we'd see if we could buy one of Gerald's restored vehicles. By the time he gets through with a car, it's like new, inside and out.

It was a good ride, and we managed to dodge the rain, although the pavement was wet with recent rainfall as we got near home. Close call!

It's a decent birthday

This morning I decided to take a horseback ride down to the river bottom. I didn't go all the way to the Missouri River, though. I simply rode down Old Coal Mine Road....

and over to McGrew Mine Road, which took me back to...

the highway home.


The trouble with those roads to and from the river bottom is that they're shaded, and biting flies of various kinds lurk there. Even though I applied rub-on fly repellent to Blue's head, neck and ears, he still had a terrible time of it, as you can see in this very brief video:




I ate some cereal (with good fresh Jersey milk) before I left on the horse; this was an unfortunate choice, since Cliff, when he got up at 10 o'clock, announced his intention of taking me out for breakfast. Oh well, there's always pizza for lunch.

Cliff is glad to go the extra mile for my birthday. He even bought me two sets of rusty wheel weights for my Oliver tractor; of course, he'll be painting them for me eventually. I know this because I was with him when he bought the paint. That's his brother Phil on the left; he picked the weights up for Cliff, since he was at Cook's Tractor in Clinton yesterday anyhow. Phil's friend, on the right, asked Cliff, "What do you need the weights for?"

I had to laugh out loud at the question, since he could have just as easily asked, "What do you need the tractor for?"

Cliff's answer was, "Because the tractor looks better with wheel weights on it."

Haaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! That's some good, sound reasoning.

Then we were off to Higginsville to the tractor dealer who sells Oliver parts. Yes friends, Cliff spares no expense on my birthday: He wants my Oliver to look good.

That's a piece of plastic he's holding in his hand.

It's the first item listed on this bill: "strip.... $150." Seriously!

I'm pretty sure I over heard the proprietor and his wife making plans to visit Hawaii after Cliff made his purchases.

By the way, this is all written tongue-in-cheek; I am the first one to tell Cliff, "If you want it, get it; you only live on this earth once."

Thanks to all the wonderful birthday greetings from my readers and my Facebook friends.

I'm here. Really!

There just hasn't been much interesting activity around here worth blogging about. The weather outside is uncomfortably hot. I've spent a lot of time pulling weeds in my flowerbeds and in the garden. I don't take heat well these days; yesterday I came in from weeding, sat down at the computer, got on Facebook, and typed in these words after my name: "is hot".

Good grief, I might have known I was setting myself up. Even one of the grandson's best buds made a comment on that one. Oh well, at least he agreed I was hot.

Friday, I honestly did have a heat spell while working in the garden, and Cliff decided I need a straw hat for outdoor summertime work. We'll be shopping for that today, I imagine, since we're heading to Higginsville to get paint for the "new" tractor. Not for the whole tractor, but for the front wheels, which are at present sporting "John Deere yellow". What a sacrilege! Eventually Cliff will paint the entire body of the Oliver, but he has other things to attend to first.

Five goldfinches enjoy their feeding time while a robin watches from the fence.

The bird activity continues outside my window. You might recall that the chief reason I wanted a birdbath was to attract bluebirds. Yesterday evening, I finally saw a pair of bluebirds availing themselves of the facilities. I wanted a picture, but I've moved everything so close to the computer-room window that the birds often notice me moving toward them from inside and fly away.

Bonnie, the heifer, is showing her pregnancy more every day. I expect before this month is over, we'll have a new baby to show off. God willing, of course. Every three weeks Bonnie has to put up with Secret's being in heat and jumping on her all the time, poor thing. When she seems to be close to giving birth, depending on the timing of Secret's cycle, I may have to separate them for the good of all concerned.

Cliff, as you might imagine, has been spending time playing with working on his newly acquired toy tractor.

He isn't one to leave tractors, mowers, or other vehicles sitting unprotected from the elements, so he spent much of Sunday trying to find a space into which the Ollie would fit. Bigger toys require big toy-boxes, and for a few tense moments I thought we might have to build a new shop especially for the 1855.

Cliff thought the shop door was tall enough for anything he might ever need to put inside.

Oh, it was a tight fit, all right.

Especially getting the tall pipe (stack? muffler? Cliff's still in bed, so I can't ask him) to clear the light fixture. It just happens Cliff had cut one of the lights down a little, so Ollie made it inside the shop.

Home sweet home.

We're looking forward to our son's annual visit soon, and I'm sure there will be plenty of activity then.

Wordless Wednesday: Two tractors are better than one

When our son was visiting last week, he helped Cliff mow the pasture; they got done in record time.

You'll find more Wordless Wednesday entries HERE.

Cliff's toys and keepsakes

In an entry on my AOL journal, I posted a picture of hog-butchering that took place in my husband's shop. A couple of readers noticed Cliff's collection of keepsakes and toys in the background and asked to see these goodies closer up. I'm posting the pictures here because Blogger lets you click on a picture and make it HUGE, so you can see any tiny detail you're after. Enjoy.

By the way, we found these bookcases, cheap, at a garage sale we happened to see fifty miles north of here. As you can tell, Cliff desperately needs another showcase of some sort: This one is running over.


The wine-bottle is from a friend's vineyard and winery. He keeps saying he's going to go to paper labels, so we saved one of his fancy bottles. On the upper right, see the plaque that says Cliff "hearts" John Deere? That was given to me for Cliff by an Internet friend (Bado) who I met in person at a "chat room reunion" in Tennessee.

The carved pig up there on the left was made by my cousin's husband who passed away last year. Many of the toy tractors are models of real ones we've owned. There are pins collected from tractor shows, and mementos given to us by friends.

I happen to admire Harry Truman, so I'm the one who bought a copy of the plaque he always had on his desk as president: "The buck stops here!" I was going to buy one when I was visiting Truman Library, but the price stopped me. Instead, I found it on Ebay much cheaper.

Most of Cliff's tractors are Ertle brand, and not really too expensive. He does have a couple of "precision" ones that cost over $100. They are very detailed, and the steering wheels actually work on them.

So there you have it.

Cliff's latest toy

We were at the point, this summer, of needing a new riding lawn mower. Most of the ones you buy at places like Sears or Walmart are only good for a few years and the cost is far too high. Because Cliff loves older tractors so much, he opted to buy a twenty-year-old John Deere Lawn tractor; something he can paint and tinker with, and that, hopefully, will outlast any of the new junk lawn mowers out there.

By the way, both Lowes and Home Depot sell a lawn mower carrying the John Deere name; John Deere caved to the demand for a cheap model to compete with other brands, and the quality is poor in that particular model. They should have refused, like the guy with Snapper who said no to Walmart.

So anyway, here's Cliff's new prize. Our son has been a storehouse of information; he's made a hobby of learning all about John Deere lawn tractors, and Cliff is on the phone with him almost daily.

The previous owner had mowed five acres with it, and he'd had trouble with flat tires due to thorns. So he had the tires filled with foam. This made for a very bumpy, uncomfortable ride, and Cliff is wasting no time getting pneumatic tires on this baby.

This front tire was so heavy, he decided to weigh it before he started destroying it.

Wow, that's one heavy tire! After he put the new tire on and inflated it, the weight was 13.5 pounds.

The only way to get this tire off the wheel is to cut it off.

Ewwww, they call that foam? That's down-right nasty.

Nasty, nasty, nasty.

Cliff got a couple of extras with his "Little Johnny": A blade...


And wheel weights.


That ought to give him plenty to play with for awhile.

The rest of the (tractor) story

If you've been following my tractor stories thus far, I left off HERE, with a WC Allis sitting idle that I just couldn't sell because it had ties to my Uncle Leo. There's another thing Cliff mentioned today: my sister's late husband was the one who restored the fenders on the tractor. With so much family poured into the WC, and with my name on it, how could we let it go?



When Cliff mentioned a couple of weeks ago that we should sell the tractor, I reluctantly agreed. But only because my cousin Carolyn, Uncle Leo's oldest daughter, had e-mailed me some time ago saying that if we ever decided to sell that tractor, her son Brian would like first shot at it.

I let her know we were ready to sell, and very shortly she answered back saying Brian would take it.

He came today to pick it up. Cliff told him all about the peculiarities and eccentricities of the tractor.

So my dear departed Uncle Leo's grandson has the tractor now. It's still in the family. It looks like everybody is happy with the deal!

Brain handed us a check and left; when Cliff looked at the check later, he saw we'd been paid $300 more than we asked. Isn't that something?

Back to the tractor stories

Cliff had quite an adjustment to make, once I became a confirmed old-tractor addict. He'd spent his entire married life hearing me say, "We can't afford it." Now, suddenly, I was willing to beg, borrow or steal in order to get any old tractor that sounded like a good buy.

One time when we were visiting at my Uncle Leo's farm, we went moseying around the place peeking into all the outbuildings. In a dark section of his barn I spotted a tractor; I suppose it would be more accurate to say "part of a tractor".

"What kind of tractor is that?" I asked. "Does it run?"

Uncle Leo said it was a WC Allis that he'd bought for parts; his WD had needed a radiator, and buying the old WC was the cheapest way to get one.

"Is it for sale?"

Now at this point, Cliff was starting to squirm. He loves all tractors, but he had no desire for a WC Allis. It was one of those old relics that came in and took the place of horses, and it had absolutely no bells and whistles. The hand brake was impractical. This wasn't something Cliff would ever need or use. Honestly, it was junk. But much to his dismay, Uncle Leo gave us the tractor. Here he is with the old beast on the day we loaded it up and brought it home.
We checked the serial number on the frame and found out it was one of the first "styled" WC's made. A friend of Cliff's brother gave us another WC parts tractor; and honestly, there may have been more of that one in the finished project than Uncle Leo's. But the end product was a sight to behold, and became quite a conversation piece at tractor shows.
We won't even talk about how much time and money went into the tractor, although Cliff says he thinks it was less than he put into the Farmall H he and Arick restored. But remember, this wasn't a tractor Cliff even wanted. He did this one all for me.
The twins next door drove the WC in the Parade of Power at a nearby tractor show.

And then gas started going up, up, up. Our pickup gets about ten miles per gallon, and we really couldn't justify hauling tractors around the countryside for shows. The WC sat in a corner except for perhaps twice a year when Cliff would use it just to make sure it still worked.

Our interests changed. I started spending a lot of time on horseback, and the two of us rode the motorcycle for recreation.

But that WC reminded me of my favorite uncle, now deceased, and I wasn't about to let it go anywhere!

To be continued.

How I got hooked on old tractors

Although Cliff was raised in the city, he had the heart of a farm boy. We'd been married less than a year when we moved beyond the sidewalks, and we never looked back. Once we bought our first place, twenty acres with a little old house on it, we had to have a tractor.

Cliff went from an old Minneapolis Moline (in the above picture) to a Ford 8-N, and then moved on up to an Oliver 550. He loved each one better than the last. I wasn't interested in any of them, except it was nice that we had a tractor Cliff could use to mow hay for my Jerseys. After many years and a couple of moves to different places, he settled on his "dream tractor": A D-17, Series IV Allis Chalmers.


Once in a while over the years, Cliff would buy an old tractor, paint it, and sell it for a little profit. He also took to painting the D-17 whenever it faded a little.

After my son's family came back from Germany and bought a house nearby, my grandson Arick spent a lot of time here; Cliff decided they should restore a tractor together, and he found an old Farmall H they worked on for a whole winter. The "before" picture is above; below is the "after".


I was overjoyed when it was done. Not because I cared about the tractor, but because at last, money would stop pouring into the project. Do you have any idea how many seals have to be replaced in an old tractor? Do you know how much one of those big tires costs? As I looked at the finished product, I said, "Well, Money-hole, at last you're finished."

And then one fateful year, we went to the Old Thresher's Reunion in Iowa. Seeing all those tractors that were older than me (some twice my age even), looking and running like new, struck a chord: hundreds of born-again tractors! And suddenly, I wanted them all. One of each. I'll take that one and that one and oh yeah, a green one....

So, I was talking Cliff into buying every old "bargain" tractor we found.

(to be continued)