The following article originally appeared in Branch #30
EDGE&TA publication ‘ ‘On the Tractor Seat”,
and is reprinted with permission granted by Carl Bergman,
Editor.
Carl has asked me to write something for the newsletter but for
this first one I was stuck on what to write about. There was not
enough time to come up with a subject and do the research so I was
stuck. I thought up several short subjects but each time I was
stuck on how to continue. Finally it dawned on me to talk about
being stuck in mud on the farm. It seemed that every year we had at
least one tractor stuck and in wet years it happened several
times.
I grew up in the 50’s on a dirt farm in northeastern
Missouri which was split between rolling hills and bottom land. At
one time a small river ran through the bottom land between several
sloughs. In the 30’s a canal was dug to drain the land and make
it available for farming. The canal was one border of our farm and
most of the old river bed was on our side of the canal. This left
several low places that would be slow in drying. At such places we
would try to farm as close as we could get. At least once a year a
tractor wheel nearest the wet spot would sink to the axle but the
outside wheel would be on dry ground.
There was a small creek that dumped into the canal. We dug a
drainage ditch to straighten the creek and help drain a few low
places. Just a few days after the ditch was completed my father was
working a field across the ditch with our Minneapolis Moline UD
diesel. It was starting to rain so he headed for the house. As soon
as the front wheels hit the bottom of the ditch they headed out of
sight into the mud. No amount of trying to move out of the ditch
did anything more than sink the front wheels deeper. He walked to
the house to get me and the Ferguson 30. By the time we got to the
MM the water was rising and the mud was deeper. We hooked the chain
between the tractors and started to pull with the result that the
Ferguson slid into the ditch and dug itself to the axles. The next
thing to try was the Chevrolet 2? ton farm truck. By this time the
mud was all over everything and all the dual truck tires did was
fill with mud and spin sideways. With two tractors and the truck
stuck, nightfall approaching and rain pouring down, all there was
left to do was to head for the tavern. The next day my uncle was
finishing a job nearby and brought his Cat D7 over which made short
work of pulling everything out.
An important source of winter cattle feed was corn silage which
we kept in trench silos. One was on the edge of a bluff and could
only be approached in winter from the uphill side. As the silage
was used the bottom of the silo would become a mud bog. One year we
had a late winter with a wet fall. The mud bog was growing but we
could still get in and out with the ’50 Chevy pickup we had. It
was my job to feed the cattle but it was a job that I did not like
doing so I tended to put it off. I was 16 at the time and I felt I
had more important things to do. One clear cold night I was late as
usual. The temperature was dropping fast and after I got the pickup
in the silo it was a hard job breaking the frozen surface of the
silage to load the pickup. The interior of the silage was kept warm
by the fermenting of the silage but on this night it was getting so
cold that the new surface froze almost as fast as I loaded. I could
see the spreading ice crystals on the surface of the mud but my
major concern was how cold it was getting. The engine was running
so I would load a bit then climb in the cab to get warm before
another trip into the cold. When the pickup was loaded I put it in
gear and tried to move. Nothing happened. Being young and in a
hurry I thought the way to do this was to rev the motor and dump
the clutch. After a couple of easy dumps with no result I decided
to get into it. That little Chevy 6 was revved to an inch of its
life and the clutch dumped. There was a little jerk, a loud bang
and the motor kept turning but the pickup was not moving. This time
my uncle had left a Cat at the farm for the winter so the next day
we pulled the pickup out. The ice had frozen the rear brakes and
when I tried to get the pickup to move the whole side of the
transmission broke away. It was a cold day breaking the ice away
from the rear end then replacing the transmission.
We had another trench silo below the house near land that never
drained because of a small spring. During the time of the year when
the silo was filled the spring dried up and we could get the
tractors through. In the winter the ground was frozen so we could
load with few problems. One year we had an early spring and the
ground started to thaw. My father wanted to empty the silo before
the spring thaw. The silo was nearly empty and we were getting the
last loads out when a warm spell hit. The frost seemed to come out
of the ground overnight. He decided to try to get the last loads
out after a cold night when the surface was frozen. The morning
started to warm but he got one load out and tried to get one more.
The pickup was backed into the silo and loaded. The sun came out
and the day warmed rapidly. As it warmed, the ground thawed and he
decided to take what he had and get out of there. He was going as
fast as he could across the wet part when the bottom fell out and
the pickup sank to its axles. There was no way to get it moving
again. My father got the Ferguson and backed up to the pickup. As
he moved back the tires sank until he decided it was time to get
out of there. By that time it was too late and he was able to move
only a few feet before sinking to the axles. This time he got the
MM and the longest log chain he could find. It took a while to get
the MM started and to find the chains, so the day had a chance to
get warmer and for the spring to thaw completely. He thought the
log chain gave him enough distance to stay out of the mud. He
started the Ferguson and put it in low at a fast idle then started
to pull with the MM which proceeded to bury itself to the axles. By
this time he was mad and wanted something out so he got the truck
and connected it to the MM. The long log chain was still under
tension between the Ferguson and the MM, so he had to use a shorter
chain. With both tractors in gear and at a fast idle he started the
truck. He had left some slack in the chain so the truck would take
the load while moving. When the truck hit the end of the chain it
broke through the top surface and was stuck itself. We had to wait
for a freeze several nights later to get the Ferguson to move to
get the chain from the MM. The MM pulled the pickup out and the
truck was able to drive out on its own. I can still remember
getting home from school and seeing the pickup, Ferguson, MM and
truck all lined up stuck in the mud.
Each year would bring new ways of getting stuck in the mud or
snow with car, trucks and tractors. If it wasn’t us it would be
a neighbor and we would take a tractor to help. One year the fields
stayed wet into the fall and we could not harvest the corn until
the ground froze and the tractors would not get stuck. Getting
stuck became just one more thing to handle on the farm.
