Remembering My Grandfather's Farm Machinery

             I grew up during the 1950’s in rural Southern Indiana.  My grandparent’s farm was just a house away, so I spent a lot of my youth on their farm, which became one of my favorite playgrounds.   Here are some memories from my early days on the farm.

    The farm machinery always held a of lot of fascination for us boys.  My cousin Dan and I were especially mesmerized by the big antiquated Farmall tractor that was only taken out to do the heavy work in the fields.  We watched with big eyes as my grandfather or uncle struggle to turn the iron crank in front of the tractor, in an attempt to start the iron monster’s finicky engine.

            When the old tractor was not being used and just sat in the garage, it still filled our imagination with wonder.  We would climb up onto it and took turns sitting high up on its big metal seat, pretending to turn the steering wheel as we vocalized engine noises.

    Perhaps our favorite piece of farm equipment was the mysterious tomato planter that was pulled by the tractor.  It had two places for the workers to sit, low to the ground, on each side of the thing, with their legs stretched out in front of them, and their backs against a big metal tank of water. 

    As the planter was pulled across the field, small blades located between the sitting men, lowered into the soil and opened a shallow trench in the ground, and the two men, with “flats” of young tomato plants on their laps, would take turns sticking the roots of the young plants into the trench.   As the planter moved, a bit of water was dribbled onto the roots of the plant and then another set blades behind them, closed in the soil around the plant’s roots.  It seemed a wonder of modern technology to us country kids.

    The other piece of equipment that was fun to watch was the manure spreader.  It was basically a long box on wheels with a big metal cylindrical “distributor” on the back.  Manure was piled in the box, and as the spreader was pulled through the field, chains at the bottom of the box, moved the manure toward the back to the distributor, and as the distributer spun, pieces of manure would be flung out into the air before falling onto the field.  Of course the smell of the operation was also intriguing to our young noses.

            The photo shows my cousin Dan in 2011, fulfilling his life-long dream;  becoming the proud owner of the old Farmall tractor that was such a fascination to us as kids.

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