How It Got This Way

Since Independence Day usually tends to fall smack dab in the middle of hay season here on the farm, we are not big on celebrating the birth of this country with get-togethers or cookouts. And fireworks do not mix well with forestland, especially during dry summer months. It’s not like we would not enjoy a good holiday, this one just doesn’t fit into our lifestyle.
So instead of a patriotic national post on this holiday, I decided on a farm story of struggle and survival on a more intimate level. Our farm truck dubbed The Big Red Beast tests my limits of ingenuity constantly. It is a very old farm truck that had been purchased after many years of service from a crop land farm in the Willamette Valley. It had many hours and many miles on it when we purchased it but a complete overhaul and a new bed installed made the old vehicle serviceable again. That was 20 years ago.
Now, The Big Red Beast is slowly falling apart and it seems that there is little to do except run it while it still continues to run. It is no longer road worthy so we don’t even try, it is becoming a challenge just to get the rig to hang on for hay season.
Several years ago, the interior of the cab seemed to deteriorate and all the insulation including the fiberboard that sealed the insulation fell apart. The result is a tin can effect with any wires still intact dangling from the ceiling and since the cab sits right over the engine it is a very hot tin can.
The clutch has never worked smoothly, but as The Big Red Beast ages the clutch gets harder and harder to engage. I would have to pull myself up by the steering wheel in order to get enough force to pressure the clutch down, so turning while shifting would be out of the question so I can no longer drive it. Oh, and did I mention that first gear is missing? I’m not mechanically minded so I cannot fathom how a gear leaves a vehicle much less explain it to you, so I will leave it at this, there is no first gear.
The doors no longer work. I take that back, they work ok if you are on the outside and want to get in, but the door handles do not work on the inside. If you want to get out of the cab you have to stick your arm out the window (the windows no longer roll up and down and are permanently stuck wide open) and push the handle button to open the door.
The exhaust system either disintegrated or simply fell apart so The Big Red Beast is really, really, REALLY loud. (And the cab smells faintly of gasoline so it’s probably a good thing the windows are stuck open). But back to the exhaust, the truck is loud and I’m sure people on the highway a couple of miles away can hear when we are driving around the farm.
And the hydraulic lift doesn’t always work. When this happens, one person is needed to sit in the cab with the motor running while one person sits under the bed of the truck and taps a small lever with a ball-peen hammer until the lever slides to engage the lift. Did I mention, the smell of gasoline? And the loudness of the exhaust? And the driver yelling something that I can’t hear? Crawling out from under the bed is the only way to hear what the driver is shouting, it is usually “hit it harder.”
The last time the lift got stuck, I had to crawl under and back out three times before the driver yelled “take your earplugs out!” That’s when I realized that I wasn’t wearing earplugs, but should have been. Finally, the tapping worked and the currently bed raises and lowers again as it should have been doing all along.