wild AC stories

My Great Uncle Palmer worked for a farmer back in the 30' or 40's that had a DC Case or some kind of Case that would get run 24/7 unless it rained. The guy's wife would bring him lunch and while he ate she would drive and she or my Great Uncle would bring fuel to him and or drive while he slept. Palmer would plant for the farmer too using a team of horses and a 2 row check row planter with seed kept at each end and in the middle of the field. They were big fields for the day over by Claremont MN. I don't think hardly anyone today works like that.

Edited by Lonn - 21 Apr 2011 at 2:41pm

People used to run a machine day and night and now the neighbors with new combines run them maybe 5 hours and the rest of the day they set because the dryer is full, they don't have enough help or just are fat and happy.

Always love the mountains of sugar beets at Brekenridge and north of Frankenmuth, they are huge!

By the time I was old enough to work the farm this wasn't a common practice anymore but I know a lot of you remember when neighbors used to/had to work together at harvest time. I remember Dad talking about one really wet fall when the only tractor capable of pulling the corn chopper was his cousins Case 770 with rice/cane tires on it. Being a young wiseguy, he was still loading the forage wagons as full as he could and then laughing watching everyone else try to get the loaded wagons out of the field. I believe the neighbors had a Farmall Super M, Grandpa's 2 brothers had a JD A and Oliver Super 77 there, and Grandpa had his Oliver 770 he had bought to replace the old WD45 which had needed rebuilding so he gave it to my Dad. They had all given up and were just waiting for Dad's cousin to finish chopping so he could then bring all the wagons out to the road for them. Now, Dad never did explain why he was "late to the party" so to speak but he pulls up with his now rebuilt WD45 and starts in with the old timers. He was feeling his oats too much like his cousin with the Case both trying to show the older generation they knew what they were doing. He says after much talking the neighbor basically told him to put up or shut up so they made a friendly wager of $1.00 over whether or not Dad could get a load to the road. Dad said out of all the work he ever did with the WD45 either before then or even up to now, he never saw her get as hot as she did that day by the time she pulled that wagon out onto the road. Her 16.9X28s dug 2 trenches all the way across the field but the old girl never once stopped inching forward. He never stopped to collect his $1.00 being more concerned with getting the WD45 down the road in road gear so the airflow would help cool her down. The rest of the loads waited for the Case but still the record that day showed AC-1;all others-0.