Going to get the tractor: May 21 - 22, 2007
Chris and I left Cheyenne on Monday night at 8 pm. We headed east on I-80, and hit heavy rain within an hour. It poured from Syndey to Kearney, Nebraska, and cost us nearly two hours of extra driving. We checked into the Kearney Comfort Inn at 2:30 am, with a wakeup call for 6:30 am.
Outside Chapman, Neb., the truck started pulling to the left and shaking violently. We pulled off the road to look, and due to the heat of the hub, thought we had better take a closer look. The disc was seized shut by the brake calipers. Chris bought some grease and borrowed a stump. I loosed the calipers and lubed the sliding cylinders. Within minutes of lubing the application, I wiggled it to work in the grease, and it began working again. On the road again. In Norfolk, Neb., I snapped a photo of Johnny Carson's boyhood home. It was weird wild stuff. Yessss !!
Just as we were standing by for news from Paul Harvey, we arrived at the farm south of Osmond, Neb. We were both excited to see the tractor, as well as look at the rest of his collection. He gave me an overview of the operation of the tractor and the work he had done. One exciting addition I didn't know prior was that the loader was an IH McCormick loader, and not an accessory brand. With the tractor loaded and boomed down, we decided to avoid the rough interstate, and detour back through the middle of Nebraska. We were only going 65 mph anyway.
After seeing the plantation mansion in Elgin, and stopping at the Vinedge Museum in Taylor (museum is named for my great-great great aunt), we stopped for a pork chili smothered burrito at the Hyannis Hotel in Hyannis. We also had strawberry rhubarb pie ala mode. I don't think I had been to Hyannis since my cowboying days. After 1,036 miles, we pulled into my driveway shortly before midnight. I won't even begin to mention the beating my wallet took for gasoline.
I bet we saw a thousand tractors on the trip, not to mention the other rows of dead farm machinery. With steel prices as high as they are now, I am amazed that more farmers are not hauling off some of the unusable and uncollectable steel.
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Farmall H tractor loader - $1500 Osmond, Nebraska
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International Harvester built the Farmall H from 1939 until 1953. The Farmall H was "an ideal, all-purpose tractor for diversified farms up to 160 acres, or for specialized farms raising such row crops as potatoes or sugar beets. It pulls two 14-inch bottoms, cultivates up to 35 acres of row crops a day, and speeds up other farm jobs in proportion." according to the sales literature of the time.
Nels Ugland in Lyon County, Iowa. Circa 1948.
