Thursday August 21, 2025 A Momentary Setback: A Longer Story

    I'm among the smallest acreage landowners in Palmville. Our quarter of land is given over to trees, meadows, and wetlands as are about 17, 538 other acres scattered throughout the township, a majority of it being State Land or Red Lake Tribal land. The balance of 5500 or so other acres are open farm fields. The big land tracts are maintained using big equipment. The little land tracts are maintained using tractors, smaller than my little 53.8 hp Massey-Ferguson 180 Diesel, that would even include rider mowers and equipment pulled by ATVs. A neighbor called our tractor 'a pony' compared to the hundreds of horses under the hood of any one of his big tractors he and his family use for their farm work.

 

   Gone are the DIY tractor-fixing days for the big landowners. If their tractor or equipment breaks down they have to call in a factory representative to fix even the smallest of problems excluding the driver's need for lunch at mid-day when likely their immense tractor cabs include a portable refrigerator and other amenities needed throughout their 24-hour planting & harvest days including room enough for a play area and toys for under-school age children when one parent works off the farm. I've seen this firsthand.

 

    I come from farm stock; I always thought I was a country boy in a city boy's body. My folks were both farm people. Dad from Iowa, and Mom, from Palmville Township. After they were married in Des Moines, Iowa in 1929; they worked for an elderly farm couple, named Jasper, in Franklin Grove, Illinois. Dad did the farm work. Mom cooked, cleaned and took care of the old couple; Mom & Dad lived upstairs in their house. 

 

   Both of my folks were born into the age of flesh and blood horse power, a seemingly ancient time period to think about now when farm equipment included horses, and tractors and threshing machines powered by steam. Think about that. Working horses were hard enough to imagine, now ponder 'steam power.' In this link you can see them both in action, on-line or in-person come August 29th-September 1st, 2025 in Rollag, Minnesota. I tell you, you may well enjoy it. It's a phenomenal experience for young and old. Make a day of it. Put it on your bucket list.

   You might even see a Massey 180 there. I'm sure someone has repainted one in Massey-Ferguson Red and Massey-Ferguson Grey, and put new decals on it and new tires all the way around. But my Massey, is like me: nothing fancy and bald in spots. Still running, "still alive" as per the text messages I send my wife periodically when I'm outdoors and out of her sight (and hair) every few hours just so she knows nothing dire has happened to me. It's important to stay in touch.

 

   So it was, the other day when I texted her: "Momentary setback at swale, but 'still alive.'" She quickly queried back, "What happened?" And I answered, "Tell you later. It might be a blog post." I left out further explanation.

 

   The swale is a low place in a field that in normal years drains run-off water into the creek. I was driving the tractor with the PTO-powered BUSH HOG brush cutter on behind through there to finish mowing a section of firebreak, when something went awry ...

 

 

   I didn't see that the large nut holding the 3-point connection pin, (on the right side) on the mower yoke had loosened over time, and allowed the pin to separate from the 3-point arm on the tractor. (See its counterpart with its nut in place on the left side) This allowed the mower deck to 'run aground,' and pivot away from the tractor enough that the two halves of the PTO shaft (one fits inside the other ) also separated, causing me to quickly shut the tractor engine off.

 

Not catastrophic. Note to self: I should have inspected the hook-up before I set off; I could've prevented this from happening.

 

    I stopped the tractor immediately, but the mower shaft kept turning for, I think, five more minutes just powered by the relentless perpetual-force of the two-revolving 30-inch 3/4"-thick mower blades beneath it. Before the invention of PTO shaft safety covers, PTO shafts, like this bare one, have crippled a lot of farmers: I'm constantly aware of the danger inherent in it.

 

   Mower PTO shaft, on the left. Tractor PTO shaft on the right, separated when the nut on the end of the 3-point pin arm fell off, allowing the mower to drop to the ground. Although disconnected from the tractor half of the shaft, the mower shaft kept spinning for upwards of five minutes. Its looks are deceiving even as it jumped and banged on the front edge of the mower for all that time.

 

   I didn't have the necessary tools with me to do the job of putting it all back together, so I walked the quarter mile back to where I'd find them; then loaded up my ATV with a Handyman jack and a couple hand tools, and drove back to where the tractor sat --momentarily. I set the jack under the rear wheel mount of the mower, hoping to be able to wrench the mower back in line with the tractor by hand, but quickly realized I didn't have the strength. But I did have my four-wheeler! (Yes, the same ATV I didn't want to ever buy --even while working at the toy factory.)

   Wrapping the chain around the rear wheel mount then to the hitch of the ATV I was able to pivot the back end of the mower and align it with the tractor, sort of. It took a little more adjustment than I liked, but then again, I was only there momentarily.

 

I pulled the mower with the ATV until it was square.

 

Didn't get it square enough.

Hooked it up another way and pulled it straight back a little bit more.

 

    Luckily I found an old nut in the toolbox that fit. Some of the threads on the bolt had gotten smeared when the original nut loosened, fell off, and came out of the yoke. The substitute nut screwed on only as far as the better threads allowed. Tightening the adjustment nut between the yoke and the 3-point arm made up for it. Works perfect.