Thursday, September 5th, 2019 Part 2 by WannaskaWriter

“Sven, dere’s yur tractor, said Bjorn, Sven’s neighbor and new boss. 

Sven looked around the faded red Steiger/Case 4x4 expecting to see a smaller-sized tractor, like a Minneapolis-Moline GVI or even a John Deere 4020. Maybe it was behind one of the two big grain trucks parked nearby and was just being elusive as he completed his walk around all the gigantic dusty equipment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmTYKWgyPiY

“Dis vun ‘ere, Sven,” repeated Bjorn, patiently, pointing to the Steiger/Case. “Dis iss da vun ve vaunt yew ta drive.”
 
Sven stood stock still. With only his eye balls turning upwards in their sockets from their standard height of 66-inches from the ground, he looked up over the four huge Ag-tread tractor tires on the east side of the tractor, then above the humongous, glassed-in cab, and down its opposite side, and down to the other four Ag-tread tractor tires on the west side. 
 “Dere are eight veels...”Sven concluded. 

The verb “gasp,” wouldn’t aptly describe what Sven expressed when he realized this very machine was what Bjorn said he would drive.
 
No, the word Sven would more likely express would be ‘fook!’ even with pre-teen kids and old people around. And so ‘fook’ it was.
 
But there was no time to waste.


"Come up ‘ere vit me, said Bjorn, motioning to Sven as he held onto two hand railings and climbed up the three extruded-steel steps to the cab and the tractor seat. Pointing out a narrow bench to the left of the drivers seat for Sven to perch on, Bjorn sat down behind the steering wheel with a ‘whoosh’ upon the drivers seat and bounced a whee bit for effect, saying to Sven, ‘air-ride, eh’.
 
With a turn of his wrist below the steering wheel, Bjorn started the 240 hp engine, and pointed out a knob on the console, that was for the fan and ‘air-conditioning’ settings; “Turn dese to adyust.”
 
Sven was almost beset with tears. Never had he even sat in such a machine except at AG Alley, the Reed River County Fair Big Iron Implement Display where the newest biggest and baddest farm tractors and field equipment were at for the people to come and see, and here, twenty years later, Sven is going to be driving the exact same machine! Life does have its rewards!
 
Pointing out the vertical column of i.e., oil, fuel, temperature gauges to its right, Bjorn kept making Sven aware of things.
 
Sven wished he could take notes or record his ‘orientation’ as Bjorn called it, but he had no time to do more than just listen. As the engine idled, Bjorn pointed out all the various levers and their functions.
 

“Dis ‘ere iss yur t’rottle, an’ dis ‘ere iss yur forvard an’ reverse, an’ dis ‘ere iss yur gear shift. Down dere are yur clutch an’ brake pedals, eh, but ve donut use da clutch, except fer brakin’...” said Bjorn.
 
“Vat? Ve donut use da clutch fer shiftin’ but use it fer brakin’? Sven said, in a question like.
 
“ Yah, if’n you need to stop, you push bote pedals to da floor like dis ‘ere, eh, answered Bjorn, as he demonstrated. “But yew donut use da clutch ven you shift, yew yust move dis lever ‘ere eh, up or down like dis."

Sven figured this must be one of those hydrostatic transmissions that he wished he had on his tractor at home.
 

Also finished prepping his big John Deere green combine, closing the big side panels, and washing his windows. 

Settling down onto his drivers seat, he positioned the combine’s header, that cut and gathered the grain where he wanted it on the previous swath and started down the field away from Sven and Bjorn in the tractor.
 
Bjorn explained to Sven that his job was following the combine across the fields. Also would indicate to him where he should be in relationship to the combine grain spout overhead the wagon, or cart, he pulled, and while they were in motion, Also would off-load grain from the combine to the wagon. (A synchronized feat that Sven likened to two jets refueling somewhere in the stratosphere.)
 

When the combine was emptied, Sven would turn away from the combine and either wait a few minutes for another load from the combine, or go directly to an empty grain truck parked on the field, maybe a mile away, and load it, and then return to the combine wherever it was on the field.



 

In essence, the wagon that the tractor pulled was a portable scale and printer. Indicating zero at the start, the scale would indicate the weight of the grain loaded into and out of the wagon; creating a total, date and time, that was ‘printed’ on a machine roll of paper that curled out of the printer until the end of the harvest.
 
All Sven had to do, other than drive the tractor and be on time to unload Also’s combine load, was to remember to Zero (before unloading). Print (after unloading). And Zero (again after printing).
Should be easy--unless you’re a new employee trying to remember everything else, like opening the wagon gate door as you start the PTO (power take-off) and begin unloading the wagon, then after shutting off the PTO, closing it again when it’s done.
 
At one point Sven begged Bjorn to yell and get angry at him or fire him because he just couldn’t get it right, he thought. But Bjorn tried to assure him, that he had done the same thing more than a time or two himself, and not to get excited. “We’re only human.”
 
Demonstrating what he described, Bjorn turned the great tractor and wagon 180 degrees and upshifting the little lever, on a console to the right of the steering wheel, increased its speed up the field toward Also’s combine where, atop the combine cab area, grain from the reel was being augered into a bin or hopper, and could be seen as a pile increasing in height.
 
When Also got to the end of the field, he turned the combine 180 degrees and started back down the field. Bjorn turned the tractor to face the same direction, now to the left side of the combine, where the combine’s auger spout was located and could be turned outward over the wagon behind the tractor, as the two units drove down the field at approximately three or fractionally-more miles per hour, the tractor well ahead of the combine header and a position obtained where the the grain spout was over the center of the wagon.
"I put the center of the hood, ‘there’, on the edge of the swath,” Bjorn pointed out, using his right index finger as a indicator. Sven watched, nodding he understood.
 
“Also will let you know if you need to slow down or speed up. I’ve been holding 3 mph in 6th gear.”
 
Bjorn made a couple trips on the field to make sure Sven understood, then calling Also on the radio, told him he was taking Sven to the storage bins ‘down south’ to show him the operation there and for him to join them later with the other truck.
 
Bjorn said he had saw a lot of wildlife on his trips back and forth. No sooner had he said that, when a black bear stood up from a soybean field, as they sped by roiling up a great cloud of dust behind them.
 
“'eard you saw a couple timber volves, earlier in da year, pull a fawn apart on da run,” Sven inquired from his narrow little seat next to Bjorn. “Vasn’t it around 'ere someplace, den?”
 
Bjorn went on to describe what he saw the day he was on the field in his tractor when two wolves chased a deer into a small woods at the corner of the field. When they came out, Bjorn saw that a fawn had fallen prey to them.
 
Sven remembered a story he was told by the participant from the early 1970s, that wolves were so numerous then that, right at their barn, she had a cow’s calf by its head and a wolf had its tail. That farm, now merely another field of soybeans, was just north of the field where Bjorn saw wolves some 45 years later.
 
Deer peered at the interlopers from between the grain bins, then slowly meandered out of their sight, as Bjorn slowed the truck and backed toward a large hopper positioned on the ground, whose auger was hooked to a tractor. Bjorn got out of the truck and started the tractor’s power takeoff to drive the auger. A long tubular auger, sometimes over sixty feet in length, sat on wheels, and raised the grain to the top of the bin, via ‘flights’ as revolving screw-like mechanisms turning inside the tube, to eventually fill the bin. 
https://www.agriculture.com/machinery/grain-handling-and-equipment/augers/how-to-choose-a-grain-auger_213-ar6744
 
Opening the rear gate of the truck box, then walking to the cab door, Bjorn engaged the truck’s hydraulic power to raise the end of its box and slowly empty the grain into the hopper. It takes awhile.
 
Meantime, the millions of mosquitoes find you; the winds change direction and sweep the billowing grain dust your way; the radio can’t find a station--neither can the cellphone. The auger tractor runs out of fuel and the truck is only partially unloaded. Now it’s dark outside and you don’t have a flashlight -- in this truck.
 
But not this morning, Also arrives in the other truck and Sven has gotten the idea of the operation. The truck Bjorn drove is emptied and Also and Sven get into that, leaving Bjorn to unload the other, while they head back to the field to continue harvest and activate Sven’s role in it.
 

Climbing into the big tractor that had been idling while they were gone was both exciting and apprehensive for Sven. Sitting high above the stubble field awaiting radio instructions from Also, 

Sven gave the varying controls a long look, knowing at some point they would become natural to him. Looking out at the agricultural landscape through three tall panes of glass in front and behind him, and the two on either side, and feeling the cool clean air from the air conditioner amid the dust swirls in the air outside, seemed unreal, until Also broke the silence.
 
Sven! Vere are yew? Kick it in da ass vit a spearview image get up ‘ere, you ain’t goin’ to break it! She’ll do 17 mph in 11th gear!”
Sven leaped into action, shifting one lever into ‘forward’ and another lever into ‘upshift’ causing the tractor to shift up through its gears, bump after bump, nudge after nudge, all without using the available clutch pedal. It just seemed wrong when you had used one all your life.
 
Yet Sven was hesitant. He had all this stuff to worry about, the tractor, the wagon, the field, the low ditches through it--the distance to go to get there, so he upped the speed of the tractor to 8.8 mph.
 
The radio cracked to life: “Uh Sven, didn’t mean to sound bossy,’ Also said through the radio. “Yust git ‘ere as soon as you can. My overflow warning buzzer is sounding.”
 
“I’m not dat thin-skinned after vorking at da toy factory for over tirty-tree years, eh. You are my boss; I respect dat as long as you respect me, and you haven’t approached reproach yet, eh. Sose I’m gittin’ dere yust as quick as I can.”
 

Approximating what Bjorn did, during his orientation, Sven put da center of da tractor hood center marker along the edge of the swath and put the tractor up to about 3.2 mph awaiting Also’s confirmation. Watching the reflection of grain erupting from the combine spout through his cab glass pane, Sven slowed the speed between the combine and tractor.
 
“Dat’s perfect, Sven, said Also. “Yust perfect, yah sure.”