Barnyard Tales Chapter 8: That time Satan tested me with a disc mower

Sweat poured down my back and I wiped my brow with one grease stained hand. This mower, oh, this mower. I was pretty certain that Satan himself had come to life and went to work for Case IH as a disc mower design engineer. The Case MDX91 is his gift to the world.

A single 3/8" roll pin had snapped on Tuesday causing the whole lift assembly to crash to the ground, popping apart like a can of Pringles and shearing the all thread that held the spring on. The mower was neatly immobilized, a beautiful piece of red and white pasture art popping up against the muted browns and greens of the hayfield.

Captain America texted me when it happened. His succinct text messages said more about his frustration than a dictionary of curse words.

I arrived the next day with some spare parts from the local hardware store and watched him attempt to loose the all thread from the cast iron jaws of the now seized spring assembly. It didn't work, and for the next morning neither did I as I hauled the spring to the repair shop. The little old farmers opened the door for me and did their best to reassure:

"Farming is only 5% farming, and 95% fixing the stuff that breaks."

"I'm gonna try to hire her."

"Me? Oh no, clearly I'm just good at breaking things!"

"That's fine." He motioned to the broken PTO shaft in his calloused grip. "I'm pretty good at that too. I just need someone to blame it on!"

"We have those springs too. They lock up all the time. These guys will get it extracted for you."

Guess what, they didn't. One new spring assembly and three days later CA and I were headed out, convoy style, when he pulled the big blue bulk of the tractor off the road and walked up to the door of the truck full of tools. I turned down the radio. I should have known then that this was the Devil's clever design.

"We don't have the replacement bolt for the roll pin. It's in my car."

"Oh, you want me to run to your house?"

"No. My car. At your house. An hour and a half away."

"F."

But that's fine I thought. Silly me. I believed I could just leave him in the field and run to the closest hardware store, only an hour round trip, and wouldn't even have to get dirty. Oh, I was so sure of my plan as I jammed out in the air conditioned truck. He'd surely have it mostly put together when I got back.

And that was how I found myself sweaty and blackened with grease and hydraulic fluid, repeatedly rocking a cast iron piece of metal over its seat over and over, and over again. We tried to beat it on by hand. We beat it with hammers. We beat it with the front end loader of the tractor. I kicked it. Nothing worked. We took it off, and put it on. I stood up and walked my pretty little head right into the bale spear, slipped on a grease gun and fell flat on my back. I couldn't tell if the water seeping from my eyes was from pain, frustration, shock, or laughter. We took it off, and put it on. Off and on. Our muttered cursing melded with the dull thunk of the hammer into a beautiful song about the human condition. The sonnoffawitchingmothertruckinggoshdanged whatchamadoodle kept jamming for absolutely no reason other than to be contrary.

Which is how I know that Case's signature red color shows their allegiance to the Underworld. Crafty, crafty.

I called for back-up. They couldn't figure it out either. There were no burrs, no reason whatsoever that the one pipe shaped piece would not fit over the other pipe shaped piece. None at all other than this being a test of fortitude. A divinely administered trial designed to plumb the depths of our resolve, break our spirit, drive a wedge in our hearts, and tarnish our souls.

Or not. As Heinlein said, the purpose of laughter is to keep from crying. It also helps keep you from killing your mate as you work towards a seemingly unattainable goal on a 90 plus degree day with about 500% humidity.

"Hammer."

"Hammer."

"Block."

"Block.

"You can call me doctor if you want. Punch."

"Yes, doctor. Punch."

After four hours of repeating the process, the incessant beating with the front end loader worked. The part slipped on like a glove. I cheered. I laughed. I cried. I thanked the Heavens. Hallelujah. There is a God and he answers prayers. The disc mower was my Moby Dick and CA and I had just harpooned the crap out of it. Suck that, Devil-mower.

We didn't stop to question why our relationship had needed to be so rigorously tested through heat and frustration, our love tempered by the fire of both. It wasn't until later that the thought crossed my mind that the Devil-mower was a test. It wasn't my Moby Dick, it was a brief blink of our book of Job.

We merely did a happy dance and went to work inserting other pins and adjusting parts and pieces.

We merely lifted the 30lb spring into place and connected it.

CA merely told me to stand there and depress the hydraulic hose button so that I got a face full of hydraulic fluid, not even a courtesy tap. Seriously. But through laughter we overcame even that, and came out the other side with minimally clogged pores and remarkably silky skin. We freaking persevered.

And that is the story of the time Satan sent a disc mower to test my relationship.

This is why I drink.

We all have those days. The ones where Murphy’s law rears its ugly head and everything that can go wrong, does. But there are some days where things don’t just go wrong. There are some days where incidents stack up like flapjacks and then someone actually hid dynamite in that stack and just as you think you have it under control because you rock at deep breathing exercises everything explodes into a sticky gooey mess. You know what seems to encourage that to happen? Livestock…

 

Don’t get me wrong, the critters are what gets me out of bed in the morning and I love them; but when the wind chills are heading towards -35 I really just want everyone to cooperate. Would that be too much to ask? Would it? Would it!

 

We haven’t had much FRIGID weather in southern Illinois. The last time it was this miserable I wasn’t even born. Winter is always a pain in the butt. It brings challenges like frozen water troughs and blown breakers. Frigid winters bring even more fun like frozen water lines, horses kicking each other away from the bale rings, horses and cows consuming twice as much hay as they would otherwise, being afraid that the chickens will freeze despite their two heat lamps, or my personal favorite: getting so cold that the trough heaters freeze over and you have to chop holes in the lake with an axe like a freaking lumberjack. But I handled all that. I was a hay throwing, trough hacking fiend. I got this. *insert cool chin tilt*

 

Sure. I’m half frozen and bundled in so many layers of pants that I can’t bend my knees. But I got this. I’m a farmer damnit. I will rise to each challenge with grace and dignity and love for all of my charges. I will throw hay to the cows like a queen on parade tossing flowers to her people. I will sit on the frozen lake patiently blowing on the extension cords trying to thaw them enough to be able to unplug one heater and replace it with another with the poise of an ancient priestess breathing life into a flame. I will handle the horses deciding to join the cow herds with calm and compassion…

 

Hahaha. Yeah. Right. I was good ‘til the horses part. When Dandy decided he wanted to go on walkabout away from the HUGE horse pasture (with its own hay mind you) into the small pasture where we winter the cows. I lost my calm and went into a rage. I turned just in time to see him. The lanky palomino gelding wandered through the fence. I leapt from the tractor like a super hero. My ankles ached with the impact of the frozen ground despite the thick cover of snow. I ran after him, screaming like a mad woman. I had to get him back on the horse side of the fence before he enticed his fellows to tag along. The horses chase the cows away from the hay sometimes, and that was dangerous in the cold. He could not be allowed to live with the cows.

 

I don’t know if you know this, but believe it or not; chasing, screaming, and cursing at the top of your lungs is not a good way to catch a horse that has decided to be a cow. He ran. His eyes rolled back in his head with fear and I grabbed a clod of what I am going to pretend was dirt and lobbed it at him. It missed, and didn’t redirect him back towards the horses like I had hoped. He ran further into the cow herd and the other horses flooded into the cow pasture as if I had loosed the gates of hell. I grabbed a tree branch, slipping and sliding on the snow and cow pies. I tried valiantly to dissuade the horses. It didn’t work. They saw the crazy lady with the big stick and scattered like ashes on the wind. I threw the branch at Dreamer. She gave me a go to hell look as it sailed past her and ran straight for the safety of a group of cows.

 

Not only did frustration weep out of my eyes in angry tears that quickly froze to my eye lashes, but it spewed forth from my mouth like a waterfall. Whoever came up with the expression “cursing like a drunken sailor” has clearly never been around a farmer with uncooperative livestock. The words coming out of my mouth were not only anatomically impossible and incredibly descriptive of the mental states of all the horses; they were also creatively drenched in matriarchal slander.

 

I cursed so much, that the horses wouldn’t even come close to me when I went back later with a grain bucket. Pause a second and let that sink in. I had a grain bucket. That normally elicits a response that the Pied Piper would be proud to have. Still, they would not come near me.

 

Maybe I should take up yoga, or vodka. Definitely vodka.