Sean Not John: Driving Tractors

This is a story about tractors I drove on the ranch as I grew up.

My earliest memory is about a tractor that my family called the C. This may have been a Farmall C; however, I do not know for sure. For this story, it does not make much difference because I only remember (vaguely) that we talked about the C when I was very young. Dad sold the C before I was old enough to help outside. As far as I remember, I never drove the C.

Farmall H and Farmall 300

We owned both a Farmall H and Farmall 300 tractor. These are the first tractors I drove as a young boy. We used both tractors around the yard and to farm. I do not know for sure which tractor I drove first. However, because the H did not always start, it was retired from working by the time I was about 10 years old. Thus, I have more memories of driving the 300 than the H.

In the spring of the year that I was in Kindergarten, I went out to feed with Dad in the afternoon (I attended half-day kindergarten.) The snow had started melting but we still had snow. In the yard by the house, the snow would melt on warm days except underneath the cow pies. Then the ground would freeze at night and stay frozen on the colder days. Thus the yard would have these elevated, frozen cow pies in the yard. These frozen clumps made driving and riding in the yard a bumpy ordeal.

We had the tractor hooked to a wagon for feeding. (The snow had melted enough that we were not using the team and sleigh to feed the stock.) It may have been either the H or the 300. I do not remember for sure. I drove the tractor while dad fed the hay bales off the wagon. This worked fine in the field where we fed the cows. While I was driving in the yard, the tricycle wheels at the front of the tractor hit one of the large frozen piles at a bit of an angle because I was turning. This caused the wheels to turn sharply and forced the steering wheel to spin in my hands. Unfortunately, I was driving with my thumbs and fingers wrapped around the steering wheel. As a result, the crossbars in the steering wheel whacked my thumb quite hard.

I also remember parking the H on the hill behind the barn so that we could let it roll down the hill for a "push start."

I remember one of the first times Dad asked me to drive the 300 while we were baling hay. I was still really young. It was the first time I drove while baling. I had been riding the baler to tie knots in the strings. The knotter missed too many in a row and Dad told me to drive the tractor while he rode the baler. I was young enough that I could not get the tractor and baler started on my own. So, Dad started the PTO, throttled the tractor engine correctly, jumped off the tractor, and got on the baler. Then, I started baling.

We were baling in the field below the big hayshed and making the first outer round. As I came around the northeast corner of the field, I drove the tractor through the fence into the north pasture toward Spring Creek. Of course, Dad hollered at me and I got the tractor stopped.

Ashton, Jason, Truman, and Tate
H Tractor parked at Kelly's
Summer 2019

a picture I found that looks like our 300 tractor

The Massey

The first tractor I remember us buying was a tractor we called "the Massey." It was a nearly new tractor, a Massey Ferguson 165 (I am not completely sure about the model number). It had four cool features that none of our other tractors had ... a partial cab (windshield and cover), a diesel engine, an accelerator pedal, and two gear selectors (one high/low selector and one with 1-3 and R). Dad bought this tractor about the time that we retired the H. So, I was around 9, 10, or 11 years old. It was the last year or so before Kelly graduated from high school.

I learned to drive a stick shift transmission on this tractor. Prior to this time, I had driven other tractors (see above) but I usually just selected the gear I needed and never changed gears except to back up. I had also driven the truck but I had never needed to change gears. But Kelly made sure I learned how to properly drive a stick transmission.

I was helping Kelly haul hay from the field below the big hayshed. I was driving the Massey to pull the hay wagon. Kelly was driving the loader tractor (see below). Kelly unhooked the Massey from the wagon. Then he showed me how to use the accelerator and clutch to work through all six gears (1, 2, 3 low then 1, 2, 3 high) on the tractor. Then he sat on the seat behind me and helped me practice through all the gears.

In the colder months of the year, Dad rigged some canvas curtains for this tractor that we would use to direct the heat from the engine into the partial cab to make it warmer on the tractor.

this tractor is very similar to the one we had
our tractor did not have side glass in the side windows
and the frame for the side window was more vertical
we sat on the fenders when riding with someone else

Loader Tractor

We had a Farmhand F11 loader that we use for hauling hay, pushing snow, or moving dirt. We had three different tractors we used as the "loader tractor." I am including a promotional video for the Farmhand hay moving system to show how we used the loader (and associated accumulator to haul hay).

While I think it was the second tractor Dad used as the loader tractor, the first one I remember was an Allis Chalmers D17. This tractor was Kelly's tractor. Dad used insurance money from when Kelly got a dart in his eye to purchase the tractor.

Allis Chalmers D17

As I was looking for pictures of this tractor to include on the blog, I realized that I do not have any memories of what this tractor looked like without the loader. I had to ask Kelly about the model number.

another view of the Allis Chalmers D17

I have one distinct memory involving this tractor. In the Summer of 1979, Dad purchased a set of old telephone poles. These poles were still in the ground along the road going East out of Thayne, Wyoming leading to Bedford on the Southside of the road just East of Muddy String Road. I think Dad bought about 10 or 15 poles. He wanted to use the poles to build a shop across the road from the house.

Dad, Cade, and I removed the hayrack from the small wagon and added upright supports. We hooked the wagon to the loader and drove to town. Dad used the loader to lift the poles out of the ground. Cade and I would remove the cross pieces. Then Dad would use the loader to stack the pole on the wagon.

When we were finished and ready to leave, Dad backed the tractor up to the wagon so we could hook it on. I lifted up the wagon tongue to direct it to the hitch. It turns out the wagon was a bit of an incline. When I lifted the wagon tongue, the wagon started to roll forward because the tongue was no longer sticking into the ground. The ends of the telephone pole pushed me forward against the tractor. The lift arm on the tractor (circled in yellow in the picture above) hit me at the top of my leg where it connects to my torso. I was pinned with a telephone pole pushing against my right butt cheek and my right hip pinned by the tractor.

Fortunately, I only ended up with a few bruises.

Later that year or the next year, Dad replaced the Allis Chalmers as the loader tractor with a Farmall 460. In the Farmhand video above, it looks like a Farmall 460 under the loader in the first part of the video I included above.

our Farmall 460 looked similar to this one
I do not remember it looking like this much
because it was always the loader tractor

We replaced the loader tractor again the year before I graduated from high school. This time, we put the Massey under the loader.

Massey Ferguson Swathers

We had a Massey Ferguson 36 Swather for cutting hay. This was one piece of equipment that my mother liked to operate. She used to cut a lot of our hay running this swather.

Massey Ferguson 36 Swather

The swather had an interesting transmission feature to assist when turning the swather around at the end of a row. As you turned the steering wheel, the transmission was designed to slow the wheels on the inside of the turn. Thus, you could turn around with an almost zero turning radius. In addition, the swather did not have a forward and reverse gear. The gear selector allowed you to set the speed you wanted to move and then you pushed the steering column forward to go forward and pulled the steering column back toward yourself to move backward.

I found this video online of an MF 36 offered for sale by an auction house. You can see what the swather looks like in action. Our swather did not have the umbrella stand to provide shade for the rider.

I liked to ride this swather with either Dad or Mom. I would sit on the large shield cover shown by the blue circle in the picture below. When riding in this position, it was my job to raise and lower the hay table as needed to cut the hay using the controls shown in the yellow circle. On the infamous day that Cory tried to bite off the saddle horn of the little saddle while riding a calf, I was with Dad cutting hay riding in this position. If two of us went with Dad, one would ride on the engine cover directly behind the seat.

the blue circle highlights the location where I would sit
the yellow circle highlights the two controls used
1) to raise and lower the table and 2) to raise and lower the reel

I was a lot older before Dad let me drive/run the swather on my own.

A couple of years before I graduated from high school, Dad purchased a Massey Ferguson 775 swather to replace the MF 36. This swather had a full cab (but no AC or radio). Because Cade developed hay fever, he got to run this piece of equipment more than me because the cab protected him from the hay dust.

Dad modified this swather in the winter to mount a snow blower on the front instead of the hay table.